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Comment by hooverd | Hacker News Reader

No? Our President doesn't know what tariffs are.

A lot of this is enabled in part by all these capitalists rolling over and submitting.

The orange figurehead, probably not, but the people actually pulling the strings and writing all those executive orders absolutely do. The folks in power might be misguided but they are acting purposely creating more protectionist policies. To what end I think is anyone's guess. I don't think it's clear how an isolationist US benefits us when right now we have every country in the world giving us real tangible wealth in exchange for paper.

> absolutely do

I'm not convinced. There is no coherence in their decisions, well any more than tossing out red meat. We can't even call them protectionist policies. It's just populism.

Still, I agree about isolationist. But we started down that road with W and are now running off that cliff with Trump. Not coherently but enthusiastically.

Look, I'm not agreeing with this admin's policy direction, and I certainly don't want the world they envision that this policy will drive us toward—there's plenty of reasonable skepticism that it won't even have the desired knock on effects they're hoping for, but I do think the folks at the helm know broadly what the levers they're pulling do. I worry the level of stupidity that their critics project on them is both inaccurate and is so severe as to essentially excuse their actions and absolve them of any responsibility for them.

We disagree. To reduce it to a few words, I think that you see policy (even if misguided policy) and I just see populism, entertainment if you will. I think the purpose of the article is to remind us what mercantilism is. But again, I don't see this as mercantilism which has a coherence, and instead just as populism which doesn't.

Putting a heroin addict in charge of Health and Human Services and shutting down vaccine development is not policy. It's populism.

For example: Peter Navarro (Counselor to the President of the United States)

Here he is on CBS News, 30 July 2025

https://youtu.be/Ez_KJp4fDy0?t=65

"The reason we put tariffs on products from other countries is because they cheat, full stop. When they cheat, products come in and they steal our jobs, shut down our factories, and wages go down. So, the logic of tariffs is to stop that."

This isn't an example of them not knowing what tariffs are. This is an example of the rhetoric they're using to convince the voter.

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