Press coverage of Trump’s tariffs understates the insanity

One CNBC analyst has spoken the truth. Will other journalists follow?

Reading and watching the dutiful daily coverage of Trump’s trade war, you might well have no idea just how crazy it is.

The reality is this: There’s no good reason for it, it hurts everyone, and it’s arguably going to tank the American and international economies.

So it was a delightful surprise to see CNBC’s senior economics reporter Steve Liesman tell it like it is on his network on Tuesday:

I'm going to say this at risk of my job, Kelly. But what President Trump is doing is insane. It is absolutely insane. It is about the eighth reason we've had for the tariffs. And now he's saying he's putting 50% tariffs on Canada unless they agree to become the 51st state. That is insane. There is just no other way of describing it.

Liesman was simply acknowledging the elephant in the room. Indeed, almost anyone willing to share their reasoned opinion – whether they’re from the right, left, far-right, or far-left – recognizes that this is a trade war with no logic behind it, supported by an ever-growing list of contradictory justifications.

Even the Wall Street Journal editorial board calls Trump’s trade war “the dumbest in history” -- and that, it says, is "being kind."

It is only traditional-media reporters -- their common sense outweighed by their self-righteous refusal to engage in anything remotely like partisan political judgements – who make the trade war sound like something that came about for legitimate reasons.

In a Washington Post story on Wednesday, for instance, reporters Ellen Francis, Maham Javaid, and Terrence McCoy benignly referred to Trump’s batty move to raise tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports as “the latest salvo in Trump’s campaign to reshape America’s trading relationship with the world.” Give me a break.

On the news side of the Wall Street Journal – normally, the rational side – reporters Brian Schwartz, Gavin Bade, and Josh Dawsey meekly wrote that “The mixed messages from the president and his advisers have raised concerns among some Republicans that Trump lacks a cohesive economic plan.”

The New York Times has had a few decent pieces hinting at the lunacy, like this article by Alan Rappeport and Ana Swanson, which called Trump’s move a big gamble “with no clear rationale.” But that story notably ran on page A6, while the stories on A1 were context-light play-by-plays.

Listening to the NBC Nightly News on Tuesday night you’d have no reason to suspect the trade war was an imbecility. The only hint on ABC World News Tonight came in a soundbite from Ontario Premier Doug Ford who said “This is absolute chaos, created by one person and that’s Donald Trump.”

I did like this Associated Press explainer by Michelle L. Price on March 6, which pointed out that Trump “has offered an array of reasons” to justify tariffs.

On the one hand, Trump has for a long time talked about tariffs as an essential revenue-generator -- in his mind possibly replacing the income tax down the line. In his March 4 speech to Congress, Trump said: “Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again.” So he seems committed to them for the long run.

At the same time, he has variously and contradictorily asserted that if certain conditions are met, the tariffs will go away. Those conditions have included a reduction in illegal immigration (which has already happened), a stop to the flow of fentanyl (which is impossible), and Canada’s willingness to become the 51^st state (a delusion). He has also maintained that tariffs would force companies to relocate to America (a multi-year project at best).

On top of everything else, he has repeatedly announced specific tariffs, then abruptly rescinded them. That’s no way to create a stable business climate. In fact, it’s crazy.

The central problem, which the mainstream-media coverage elides, is that Trump doesn’t seem to understand how tariffs work. He talks about them as taxes on foreign countries, when in fact they are taxes on imported goods, generally paid for in the form of increased domestic prices.

During the final days of the presidential campaign, Trump’s mental fitness -– or lack thereof -- was briefly a subject of public speculation in the media. Notably, a blockbuster New York Times story reported that “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth.”

As soon as Trump won, the media lost any interest in questioning his mental stability. But the conclusion that he is, in fact, suffering from a cognitive decline would explain a lot of his decisionmaking – starting with his decision to launch an insane trade war. The press should revisit the issue of his mental fitness – as well as constantly put the trade war in its proper context.