Trump: "Trade Wars are Good."

"How come everybody's always picking on me?"  

Trump is Charlie Brown in that song from the 1950's.

Americans knew Trump was a bad boy, and that was part of his appeal.  Trump voiced something a great many people felt: They personally were being picked on and America was being picked on.  

Trump was going to hit back, on behalf of America and Americans like them.  

Coasters

Baby boomer readers know the song by The Coasters.  It was a doc-wop rock song about a teen age bad boy who wrote on the wall, smoked in the gym, called the teacher "Daddy-oh" and then complained about his unfair persecution: "Why is everybody always picking on me?"  

Take 2:18  to remind yourself of the nature of late 1950's rock scene.  Rock beat. Alto sax.   Click Here: Charlie Brown

Trump had a unified message built around a theme of resentment.  As I noted yesterday, many voters felt the political left had bent over backwards to accommodate feminism, environmentalism, and affirmative action against the interests of "real" Americans like them, i.e. Christian, proud-patriotic whites, who were being unfairly burdened with the dead weight of slackers and newcomers.  A corollary of that was resentment of foreigners who Trump said didn't pull their weight at NATO, who enjoyed the pax-Americana of safe oceans, and who robbed us blind in trade policies.

We Americans considered ourselves 'good," but we elected a bad-boy bully who would do our fighting for us.  

Trump just announced a new tariff on steel and aluminum imports. We asked for this.
  
Trump says trade wars are good and we can win. He tweeted "When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.  Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore--we win big.  It's easy!"

The winners in a tariff situation know they are winners:  An aluminum manufacturer in Kentucky celebrated.  It will invest $100 million in enlarged capacity and hire 300 people.  But there are more losers than winners because there are more customers of steel companies than there are steel workers.

Most of the financial media and expert opinion is dismayed.  

Financial Times: "Mr Trump has taken the most drastic option available." Click.

Wall Street Journal:  "US Allies and Consumers will pay steel tariff bill. Click.
Bloomberg:  "Toyota says Trump's Tariff's to 'Adversely Affect' Automakers. Click.
CNBC:   "No win for Wall Street or Main Street."   Click.

However, virtually alone, Fox Business accentuates the positive, quoting Wilbur Ross and saying it would add $45 to each automobile, a price worth paying, and calling it pro-jobs. Click.

This tariff is a giant reversal of long-settled GOP policy.  The GOP is traditionally the party of business. It is the party that opposes business regulations and taxes.  It is the party of free trade. It wants government out of business decisions, not picking winers and losers for political purposes.  

What in the world is Trump doing?  We are seeing the triumph of politics and democracy.  He is doing what people voted for, expressing in policy the angry resentment many people felt personally and the desire to strike out, even if it hurts a lot of people.