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This is an adapted excerpt from the May 6 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, really does seem hell-bent on intentionally destroying the U.S. economy. But, even after everything we have seen, there are still some folks, in fact some very powerful and wealthy people, who have not come to terms with this.
In part, this is due to the fact that the president truly does not even seem to understand the most basic way the economy he wants to destroy currently functions. Take his ridiculous “shopkeeper” metaphor, for example. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters to think of the U.S. “as a super luxury store, a store that has the goods.”
Once again, a foreign leader had to sit there politely while Trump, who has incited a global trade war, demonstrated he has no idea what he is talking about.
“You’re going to come and you’re going to pay a price, and we’re going to give you a very good price, we’re going to make very good deals. And in some cases, we’ll adjust, but that’s where it is,” the president said from the Oval Office. “I could announce 50 to 100 deals right now because I’m the shopkeeper and I keep the store. I know what countries are looking for and I know what we’re looking for, and I can just set those terms and they can go shopping, or they don’t have to go shopping.”
Now, to me, that makes two things clear: First, he really does not know what he is talking about, at a fundamental level. In that analogy, we are the customer, not the store. The American consumers are the ones doing all the buying. We’re the shoppers of last resort for the whole world. But second, those statements also make it clear Trump is not bluffing. He believes all this cockamamie nonsense.
Trump made those remarks from the White House ahead of a meeting with the new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney. Before Carney even arrived, Trump was blustering on social media, sharing his warped theory of how the American economy works, in which anyone who sells us things is stealing from us, and we do not need to buy anything from anyone. In that post, he even specified that he was referring to Canadian lumber, which makes up nearly 30% of the softwood lumber used for home construction in this country.
Once again, a foreign leader had to sit there politely while the president of the United States, who has incited a global trade war, demonstrated he has no idea what he is talking about. And once again, a foreign leader had to fervently, but gently, rebuff Trump’s incoherent worldview in real time.
When Trump was asked how he would react if “Canada decided not to shop in the American store as much as before,” the president told reporters the U.S. doesn’t “do much business with Canada.” But, as Carney pointed out, Canada is “the largest client of the United States.”
Right now, we are in a little bit of a false lull when it comes to Trump’s trade war. If you look at the markets, they have actually made back a lot of the losses from the initial tariff shock, which is, I suppose, better than the alternative. But I am not sure it reflects the reality of the situation.
It appears as if there’s a view among those on Wall Street and some Republican politicians that it cannot possibly be that Trump is so destructive and reckless, that he misunderstands the economy so badly, that he will actually carry out this trade war. They still believe he is going to have to call it off.
I get where they are coming from, because we know when Trump tries to bully someone and they confront him, he often retreats and tries to declare victory anyway. So, it is still possible that’s what will happen here. But if you listen to him in basically every open forum, he keeps insisting that he is going to burn everything down, even if it means Americans are going to suffer.
Just consider Trump’s comments to NBC News’ Kristen Welker, in which he doubled down on his insistence that little girls in the U.S. might need to accept having fewer dolls. “I don’t think a beautiful baby girl needs — that’s 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls,” the president said. “I think they can have three dolls or four dolls.”
If you look at Trump’s actions, there are no signs of him backing down from his trade war.
While Wall Street and some Republicans have refused to take Trump at his word, the people at the center of this trade war understand he is serious. The CEO of Mattel, the company that makes Barbies, told CNBC these tariffs will not bring doll manufacturing back to America.
Even if you look at Trump’s actions, there are no signs of him backing down from his trade war. On Tuesday, he implied there might not be any deals on tariffs at all. On the same day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was forced to acknowledge that Trump has been repeatedly lying about negotiations with China. The U.S. hasn’t had any negotiations with China; those are now set to start Saturday.
Right now, all of Trump’s actions and all of his words suggest that, yes, he is foolish and destructive enough to single-handedly push the U.S. economy into a catastrophic recession. I understand why that is difficult for folks to wrap their heads around, but here we are.