Paul Krugman makes this analogy when discussing how Trump is posing as the savior when it comes to tariffs. He broke international trade and now he's posing as the savior when he breaks it a little less. These reductions in tariffs are only reductions from the perspective of where we were on Friday. Compared to where we were on March 31st, they are still ridiculously high. What's more, the empty shelves are not going to refill quickly, for two reasons. The first is that global supply chains take a while to heal. The second is that Trump's erratic behavior makes it impossible for businesses to plan long term. In fact, this "reduction" is nothing more than a pause, which is itself unreliable.
We are likely seeing the same dynamic with air travel. The air traffic control system was working pretty well, though it needed upgrades and maintenance. Then DOGE shows up and Newark goes down. Elon Musk will use this as an example of why we need Starlink, when in fact, the old system works fine as long as it's being maintained.
Things rarely break so dramatically that we can see the moment it happens. Things don't so much break as erode. They crumble not collapse. Trump's massive incompetence and corruption will test that hypothesis. Hopefully, the literal body count is small.
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