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Better a Panican than a man with no plan

Better a Panican than a man with no plan

Trump firmly believes in protectionism. The question is, how much are the rest of us committed to free trade?

Damian Penny's avatar
Damian Penny
Apr 07, 2025
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Better a Panican than a man with no plan
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So, um, yeah, I got nuthin’.

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There was a time when I believed that President Trump did a lot of crazy shit as a negotiating tactic. Basically, he’d play the madman role and get his adversaries to believe he was capable of pretty much anything, win some concessions, declare victory, and move on to the next shiny object.

Maybe that is indeed how Donald Trump used to operate. In his first term as President he lurched from crisis to scandal to gaffe to emergency to covfefe, but it felt downright normal compared to the first two months of his second term.

If Trump were really imposing “reciprocal” tariffs on America’s trading partners, directly in response to their own trade barriers, I can’t say I’d support what he’s doing, but I’d at least kind of understand it.

Indeed, some poor suckers working for the Trump White House really thought that’s what he had in mind, and undertook a study of other countries’ protectionist policies to guide the President in a proportionate response. But it turns out what Trump has in mind is punishing the world for selling Americans stuff which Americans really want to buy:

Not long after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the administration’s economic staff went to work on a daunting task: determining tariff rates for dozens of countries to fulfil the president’s campaign pledge of imposing “reciprocal” trade barriers.

After weeks of work, aides produced a menu of options meant to account for a wide range of trading practices, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Instead, Trump personally selected a formula that was based on two simple variables — the trade deficit with each country and the total value of its U.S. exports, said two of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. While precisely who proposed that option remains unclear, it bears some striking similarities to a methodology published during Trump’s first administration by Peter Navarro, now the president’s economic adviser. After its debut in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, the crude math drew mockery from economists as Trump’s new global trade war prompted a sharp drop in markets.

The president’s decision to impose tariffs on trillions of dollars of goods reflects two key factors animating his second term: his resolve to follow his own instincts even if it means bucking long-standing checks on the U.S. presidency, and his choice of a senior team that enables his defiance of those checks.

The White House used emergency powers to implement the tariffs, allowing officials to speed through deliberations and limit input from corporations and foreign leaders.

Another thing I once believed about Trump was that he’s a con man whose core beliefs are extremely flexible, depending on what he wants in the moment and who’s the best at sucking up to him.

Again, maybe that used to be true, as recently as when he was bribed to change his mind about banning TikTok.

And I’d prefer it remained true, considering that the alternative with whom we’re now trapped in the clown car is a Donald Trump who believes his own bullshit, kind of like L. Ron Hubbard trying to cure himself with his own quack “spiritual technology” in his drug-addled final days.

Trump’s always believed he’s the smartest guy in the room. Now he believes he’s the smartest guy who has ever existed on the face of the earth.

To be fair, considering that one man has basically brought the world economy to its knees, why shouldn’t he believe that? Even Lex Luthor and Dr. Evil never pulled that off.


And the worst thing is, we’re stuck with it for at least another couple of years. And most likely longer than that, since the Senate map doesn’t look very good for Democrats in the 2026 midterms.

Assuming the midterms happen. Okay, they will almost certainly happen, but it’s only a 99.9% probability when it should be a hundred percent probability.

Even if there’s a blue tsunami and they win control of the House and the Senate, the chances of them winning a supermajority large enough to impeach Trump are negligible. Maybe they’ll be powerful enough to overturn his tariffs, but this assumes Democrats are actually against protectionism instead of being merely against this protectionism.

As for the rest of the world, we can try trading more amongst ourselves and reaping the benefits of freer trade while the United States effectively sanctions itself.

Which means we may all have to slaughter some of our own sacred cows, especially where agricultural policy is concerned.

Here in Canada, one of these sacred cows involves the dairy industry - no pun intended - pursuant to which farmers located primarily in Quebec are protected by a “supply management” regime which protects them from foreign competition while the rest of us overpay for milk.

Would Canada eliminate supply management or even meaningfully loosen its rules if it meant freer trade with other countries?

The answer is no. No, we most certainly will not.

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