It's the same bullshit every time. Trump launches tariffs, says he's going to force people to make "a deal." Then he announces a deal. It's not a bilateral statement by trade negotiators. It's Trump announcing a "deal" that almost immediately turns out to not be the actual deal. When we have Trump saying that he's ended six wars, it becomes an open question as to whether he's just incapable of not spewing bullshit everywhere or completely divorced from reality. (Cheryl Rofer makes this point, too)
That same cognitive frame applies to tariffs. What does he know or not know? What does he understand or not understand? If we take his words at face value - and I concede that's very problematic, as he is a compulsive liar - then he really does seem to think that other people pay the tariffs. I don't think that's spin, I think he believes that.
Of course aside from his misguided understanding of trade and tariffs, which appears to be a sort of bone-deep ignorance, there is his basic personality trait of behaving like a mob boss. Krugman points to his illegal tariffs on Brazil as an example of this.
If we look at Trump's long career in business, we see a guy who often was able to bully small contractors and suppliers by constantly suing and such. He declared bankruptcy to escape from consequences for his mismanagement. If it wasn't for the fucking Apprentice, he would have disappeared from the public eye completely. (I swear, between Mark Burnett and Rupert Murdoch, maybe Trump has a point about immigrants.)
Trump would have to assume based on his entire career as a bully that being president allow him to be the biggest bully of them all. I mean, if he could coerce people as a marginal real estate developer, why wouldn't he be able to coerce the whole world as president?
The reality - and we have no idea to what degree he understands reality at this point - is that sovereign nations are, indeed, sovereign. He has presumed he could threaten and bully and coerce countries, but when he couldn't "settle out of court" he just blatantly invents victories.
Finally, if you were China or the EU or any other country, why should you believe that Trump will abide by the "deals" (more like concepts of a plan) that he says he's struck? He's breaking US law to wage these trade wars, and then he ping pongs crazily from one rate to another. There's zero reason to trust him because he is fundamentally untrustworthy.
UPDATE: It will be interesting if the Courts rescue the economy/capitalists from Trump's tariff insanity, but it will require them to read the clear letter of the law and apply it consistently to the way they have in the past so who knows?
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