> What was the point of these tariffs? It has never really been clear.
The Biden administration let in 5 trillion migrants who brought all the world's fentanyl and ate all the dogs and cats in the country and put Bolsonaro in prison and refused to accede Greenland and Canada to the US.
Probably yet another order from his KGB handlers in Moscow. Anything to weaken America, and America's alliances and global standing.
Tariffs also generate revenue--something like $200bn so far--that Trump wants as his own private slush fund. By rights, he should turn it all over to the US Treasury; and then ask Congress to pass him a spending bill. But he's an authoritarian to the core, and dismissive of that archaic Constitution thingee, that gives Congress power of the purse. When Almighty God intended all along that bold pussy-grabbers like himself should have it.
Trump doesn't need "KGB handlers." The picture is uglier than that.
Trump and Putin are partners in crime -- and Putin isn't necessarily the senior partner. In this role, Trump's interests aren't necessarily those of the population over which he rules.
I subscribe to the not (yet) very popular notion that Trump was recruited by the KGB--now known as FSB--back in the 1980's or '90's, and has been a traitor to the USA ever since.
He cut 99% of US aid to Ukraine in 2025. After using his clout with the GOP Congress in 2024 to cut aid for six months. Many tens of thousands of brave Ukrainians have died because of him.
The Occam's Razor explanation is still more persuasive-- Trump is an easily manipulated moron who likes strongmen. Putin is a strongman who, for all his faults, is excellent at manipulating easily manipulated morons like Trump.
I think you have it right. The tariffs SCOTUS struck down granted the President enormous power to be wielded internationally and domestically. And personally.
Trump's response and Vance's words have to be seen in that light.
Trump's enactment of a new tariff that evades this ruling is a public assertion of power, not a considered economic policy. Not even a very meaningful power move, in a literal sense.
However, consider that he was told that he could have his tariffs, all he had to do was ASK Congress. Setting aside the political problem (lots of Republicans do not want to run on their tariff vote in November), a big part of his point is that he doesn't ask. He has unbridled power, both for personal satisfaction but also for wheeling and dealing.
Vance's statement that "This is lawlessness from the Court" however ought not be written off as merely ridiculous. It sheds light on Vance himself: The hell with Originalism or Living Constitutionalism or Political Process Theory, the law is whatever best serves the purposes of the president, the central authority. The president is the law; thus a ruling limiting his power is lawless.
Sure, it was Vance's job as VP to denounce the decision, but I think a lot of educated folk have their head in the sand when it comes to this guy, seeing him as less culturally alien than Trump. If we as a country fall for his more educated demeanor, I predict we will remember 2026 as the good old days.
I find it scary how we now just "gloss over" the President of the USA declaring the suprem court "under foreign influence" and the VP declaring their decision "illegal".
Is there any modern precedent for this kind of executive power attack on the other powers?
Probably if we look the 1930s US we can find something in discourse, given reactions against New Deal etc. but it's certainly nothing like anything since WWII... (except amongst Bircher Fringies)
The predictive ability of "how would a toddler behave" holds up pretty well. "Someone told Trump no? He's going to rage and bluster and try again. 10% no 15%!" Even a teenager could find a way to sulkily pretend he didn't lose: "SCOTUS said that Congress didn't use the right magic language to give me the powers our country needs me to have and that Congress clearly intended, but we can do things the hard way, sure."
But the "personal power" thing is certainly predictive, too! He could probably get the GOP Congress to simply grant him these powers. Little Mike Johnson is perfectly happy to kowtow even to the extent of redefining the meaning of the word "day" if it makes Daddy Donald temporarily happy. But a) Trump can't acknowledge that he's being given powers (notice when he talks, that he always simply HAS powers, he's never GIVEN them by other branches) and b) that "probably" is a potential humiliation at the hands of the likes of Reps Massie or Bacon, which he can't bear.
I agree that accumulating power is the primary purpose of the tariffs, but Trump does use that power for personal enrichment, so I view your third possibility, personal enrichment, as a corollary of his quest for more power.
And that's why Trump won't back down on tariffs -- once he does, it means his power has peaked, and that other people don't have to kowtow to him, pay him tribute (like that stupid plane), or generally follow him as if he were the second coming of God.
The only part I would argue is that he’s wielding the power more like a Sledge-O-Matic than a scalpel. Yes, he’s aiming at particular targets, but there’s no precision! He’s splattering crap in every direction. How many more days of this do we have to endure?
This is probably some corruption/self-enrichment scheme. A scenario such as this:
Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm now run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's sons, could buy up the rights to tariff refunds from U.S. importers at pennies on the dollar.
Here's how the scheme works:
→ U.S. companies paid billions in tariffs that are now ruled illegal
→ Cantor approaches those companies and says: "I'll give you 25 cents now for every dollar you're owed in refunds"
→ Companies take the quick cash rather than wait years for the legal process
→ When the refunds come through, Cantor collects the full dollar
Lutnick "divested" from Cantor by handing it to his twenty-something sons and placing his equity in a trust for those same sons.
As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick has direct visibility into the government's legal strategy, how their lawyers rate their odds, and what arguments they'll make. His family's firm could bet against the very tariffs his boss created.
Then, they could (in advance) buy at 25 cents on the dollar, and after the SCOTUS ruling, those rights could be worth 80–90 cents.
The potential payout down the road could be in the billions.
Noah, if you haven’t done, worth reading “No Trade is Free” by Robert Lighthizer. He wanted to keep the system and work within it.
Speaking as someone who worked with China and EU for many years, these countries used our legal trade system against us. Nothing was fair and the other countries did what they could to defend their “turf”. If someone was reported, it could take years to get a ruling and then many times, that ruling was not enforced. By that time, your business was gone.
This was a vestige of a time when the U.S. allowed everyone access to our markets in the hope that free trade would allow more employment and bring people to the idea that capitalism can work. The idea was - once on your feet, we level things off again. Never happened.
What Trump did - despite the chaotic nature of it all - was to 1) acknowledge that the U.S. had spent too much in this effort and it was time for the U.S. to have fair trade, and 2) bypass the bureaucrats and slam the door on countries until they gave meaningful concessions - quickly.
It worked. SCOTUS was correct in their assessment, but there are multiple ways to engage and do the same thing (I don’t know why the Trump Legal team seems to stumble in so many of these cases, my take is they are trying to do too much).
THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE TARIFFS.
If the playing field were level, we wouldn’t be having these discussions.
Tariffs make sense to me when they’re tied to a specific externality ie: carbon intensity, forced labor, something the price system isn’t capturing. Once they become broad and discretionary, they start looking less like policy and more like power, which is where abuse creeps in.
I agree with you, but Orin Cass in that podcast debate with you was claiming the benefits to US manufacturing wouldn’t show up for years, and we would expect short term pain right? I mean, I don’t want to destroy the economy for years just to say “told you so” to Orin Cass but I do think you misrepresent his claim here.
Although if you need to maintain tariffs for years, past the end of the administration, in order to see their benefits, you need to develop a consensus around them. RIght now, I expect tariffs to move around randomly during Trump's term as he uses them to bully countries, and then disappear once he's gone. That's hardly going to motivate changes in investment plans that may take a decade to pay off.
I’ll take power for 300 dollars Noah! 😊 But seriously with the retaliatory tariffs on Brazil for jailing his buddy Balsonaro , I knew that was his real attachment to the country specific tariffs 🤔
"What was the point of these tariffs? It has never really been clear. Trump’s official justification was that they were about reducing America’s chronic trade deficit."
They could never have been about that (although it is possible that Trump imagined it was possible). Trade deficits are a macroeconomic phenomenon governed by the surplus of investment over saving. Only to the extent that tariff revenue slightly reduce the fiscal deficit, do tariffs affect the trade deficit.
Trump Admin is channeling Trump's obsessions - shouldn't even say we or USA...
Point of Tariffs of course is Trump genuinely himself believes, all the way back to the 1980s and the reaction against Japan at the time that a protectionist program would cause the USA to become the idealised 1950s-early 1960s image of America that he and a certain MAGA faction loves.
The only way to reign in Trump is to get the Democrats back in power, like it or not. There isn’t a single Republican who won’t be as bad as Trump or worse. Noah, you should be campaigning for a Democratic takeover.
Sure, getting rid of the trade deficit will cause pain in the US. The past 50 years domestic spending has been higher than domestic output in the US. Thanks to foreign capital flowing in, because of the attractiveness of the US financial sector for the rest of the world. Abandoning rule of law reduce the attractiveness and will reduce capital inflow, and thus the trade deficit and reduces domestic spending sizeably, which is painful.
> What was the point of these tariffs? It has never really been clear.
The Biden administration let in 5 trillion migrants who brought all the world's fentanyl and ate all the dogs and cats in the country and put Bolsonaro in prison and refused to accede Greenland and Canada to the US.
It shows how bad things have got that I had nearly reached the end of your comment before I realised you were joking.
Probably yet another order from his KGB handlers in Moscow. Anything to weaken America, and America's alliances and global standing.
Tariffs also generate revenue--something like $200bn so far--that Trump wants as his own private slush fund. By rights, he should turn it all over to the US Treasury; and then ask Congress to pass him a spending bill. But he's an authoritarian to the core, and dismissive of that archaic Constitution thingee, that gives Congress power of the purse. When Almighty God intended all along that bold pussy-grabbers like himself should have it.
Tariffs are collected by CBP from importer of record. CBP deposits tariff revenue into US General Fund. Trump does not have direct control of the collected revenue; unless he is corrupting CBP, but that would have leaked by now. https://govfacts.org/money/broader-economy/trade-policy/so-where-does-tariff-money-go/
Trump doesn't need "KGB handlers." The picture is uglier than that.
Trump and Putin are partners in crime -- and Putin isn't necessarily the senior partner. In this role, Trump's interests aren't necessarily those of the population over which he rules.
I subscribe to the not (yet) very popular notion that Trump was recruited by the KGB--now known as FSB--back in the 1980's or '90's, and has been a traitor to the USA ever since.
No conspiracy theory necessary. I subscribe to the (obvious) recognition that Trump is who he is -- all on his (vile) own.
He cut 99% of US aid to Ukraine in 2025. After using his clout with the GOP Congress in 2024 to cut aid for six months. Many tens of thousands of brave Ukrainians have died because of him.
What part of "partners in crime" don't you understand?
(Lots of Russians have also died under Putin. You think he cares?)
Birds of a feather flock together. It's that simple.
The Occam's Razor explanation is still more persuasive-- Trump is an easily manipulated moron who likes strongmen. Putin is a strongman who, for all his faults, is excellent at manipulating easily manipulated morons like Trump.
I think you have it right. The tariffs SCOTUS struck down granted the President enormous power to be wielded internationally and domestically. And personally.
Trump's response and Vance's words have to be seen in that light.
Trump's enactment of a new tariff that evades this ruling is a public assertion of power, not a considered economic policy. Not even a very meaningful power move, in a literal sense.
However, consider that he was told that he could have his tariffs, all he had to do was ASK Congress. Setting aside the political problem (lots of Republicans do not want to run on their tariff vote in November), a big part of his point is that he doesn't ask. He has unbridled power, both for personal satisfaction but also for wheeling and dealing.
Vance's statement that "This is lawlessness from the Court" however ought not be written off as merely ridiculous. It sheds light on Vance himself: The hell with Originalism or Living Constitutionalism or Political Process Theory, the law is whatever best serves the purposes of the president, the central authority. The president is the law; thus a ruling limiting his power is lawless.
Sure, it was Vance's job as VP to denounce the decision, but I think a lot of educated folk have their head in the sand when it comes to this guy, seeing him as less culturally alien than Trump. If we as a country fall for his more educated demeanor, I predict we will remember 2026 as the good old days.
"The president is the law; thus a ruling limiting his power is lawless."
La Loi ? c'est moi. with apologies to Lemontey
I find it scary how we now just "gloss over" the President of the USA declaring the suprem court "under foreign influence" and the VP declaring their decision "illegal".
Is there any modern precedent for this kind of executive power attack on the other powers?
Probably if we look the 1930s US we can find something in discourse, given reactions against New Deal etc. but it's certainly nothing like anything since WWII... (except amongst Bircher Fringies)
The predictive ability of "how would a toddler behave" holds up pretty well. "Someone told Trump no? He's going to rage and bluster and try again. 10% no 15%!" Even a teenager could find a way to sulkily pretend he didn't lose: "SCOTUS said that Congress didn't use the right magic language to give me the powers our country needs me to have and that Congress clearly intended, but we can do things the hard way, sure."
But the "personal power" thing is certainly predictive, too! He could probably get the GOP Congress to simply grant him these powers. Little Mike Johnson is perfectly happy to kowtow even to the extent of redefining the meaning of the word "day" if it makes Daddy Donald temporarily happy. But a) Trump can't acknowledge that he's being given powers (notice when he talks, that he always simply HAS powers, he's never GIVEN them by other branches) and b) that "probably" is a potential humiliation at the hands of the likes of Reps Massie or Bacon, which he can't bear.
I agree that accumulating power is the primary purpose of the tariffs, but Trump does use that power for personal enrichment, so I view your third possibility, personal enrichment, as a corollary of his quest for more power.
And that's why Trump won't back down on tariffs -- once he does, it means his power has peaked, and that other people don't have to kowtow to him, pay him tribute (like that stupid plane), or generally follow him as if he were the second coming of God.
The only part I would argue is that he’s wielding the power more like a Sledge-O-Matic than a scalpel. Yes, he’s aiming at particular targets, but there’s no precision! He’s splattering crap in every direction. How many more days of this do we have to endure?
This is probably some corruption/self-enrichment scheme. A scenario such as this:
Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm now run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's sons, could buy up the rights to tariff refunds from U.S. importers at pennies on the dollar.
Here's how the scheme works:
→ U.S. companies paid billions in tariffs that are now ruled illegal
→ Cantor approaches those companies and says: "I'll give you 25 cents now for every dollar you're owed in refunds"
→ Companies take the quick cash rather than wait years for the legal process
→ When the refunds come through, Cantor collects the full dollar
Lutnick "divested" from Cantor by handing it to his twenty-something sons and placing his equity in a trust for those same sons.
As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick has direct visibility into the government's legal strategy, how their lawyers rate their odds, and what arguments they'll make. His family's firm could bet against the very tariffs his boss created.
Then, they could (in advance) buy at 25 cents on the dollar, and after the SCOTUS ruling, those rights could be worth 80–90 cents.
The potential payout down the road could be in the billions.
Noah, if you haven’t done, worth reading “No Trade is Free” by Robert Lighthizer. He wanted to keep the system and work within it.
Speaking as someone who worked with China and EU for many years, these countries used our legal trade system against us. Nothing was fair and the other countries did what they could to defend their “turf”. If someone was reported, it could take years to get a ruling and then many times, that ruling was not enforced. By that time, your business was gone.
This was a vestige of a time when the U.S. allowed everyone access to our markets in the hope that free trade would allow more employment and bring people to the idea that capitalism can work. The idea was - once on your feet, we level things off again. Never happened.
What Trump did - despite the chaotic nature of it all - was to 1) acknowledge that the U.S. had spent too much in this effort and it was time for the U.S. to have fair trade, and 2) bypass the bureaucrats and slam the door on countries until they gave meaningful concessions - quickly.
It worked. SCOTUS was correct in their assessment, but there are multiple ways to engage and do the same thing (I don’t know why the Trump Legal team seems to stumble in so many of these cases, my take is they are trying to do too much).
THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE TARIFFS.
If the playing field were level, we wouldn’t be having these discussions.
If other countries were screwing over their own consumers, screwing over American consumers is still not a good thing.
Tariffs make sense to me when they’re tied to a specific externality ie: carbon intensity, forced labor, something the price system isn’t capturing. Once they become broad and discretionary, they start looking less like policy and more like power, which is where abuse creeps in.
At some point, broad tariffs are like sanctions you place on your own country.
I agree with you, but Orin Cass in that podcast debate with you was claiming the benefits to US manufacturing wouldn’t show up for years, and we would expect short term pain right? I mean, I don’t want to destroy the economy for years just to say “told you so” to Orin Cass but I do think you misrepresent his claim here.
Although if you need to maintain tariffs for years, past the end of the administration, in order to see their benefits, you need to develop a consensus around them. RIght now, I expect tariffs to move around randomly during Trump's term as he uses them to bully countries, and then disappear once he's gone. That's hardly going to motivate changes in investment plans that may take a decade to pay off.
I’ll take power for 300 dollars Noah! 😊 But seriously with the retaliatory tariffs on Brazil for jailing his buddy Balsonaro , I knew that was his real attachment to the country specific tariffs 🤔
"What was the point of these tariffs? It has never really been clear. Trump’s official justification was that they were about reducing America’s chronic trade deficit."
They could never have been about that (although it is possible that Trump imagined it was possible). Trade deficits are a macroeconomic phenomenon governed by the surplus of investment over saving. Only to the extent that tariff revenue slightly reduce the fiscal deficit, do tariffs affect the trade deficit.
Trump Admin is channeling Trump's obsessions - shouldn't even say we or USA...
Point of Tariffs of course is Trump genuinely himself believes, all the way back to the 1980s and the reaction against Japan at the time that a protectionist program would cause the USA to become the idealised 1950s-early 1960s image of America that he and a certain MAGA faction loves.
Really simple as that.
The only way to reign in Trump is to get the Democrats back in power, like it or not. There isn’t a single Republican who won’t be as bad as Trump or worse. Noah, you should be campaigning for a Democratic takeover.
Sure, getting rid of the trade deficit will cause pain in the US. The past 50 years domestic spending has been higher than domestic output in the US. Thanks to foreign capital flowing in, because of the attractiveness of the US financial sector for the rest of the world. Abandoning rule of law reduce the attractiveness and will reduce capital inflow, and thus the trade deficit and reduces domestic spending sizeably, which is painful.
What, if anything, should world leaders do about global imbalances?