Today in Stupid: How To Lose Friends and Influence People

In all the wrong ways. Yes, of course this is about Trump, who has now decided to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum, and anything else he can think of imported from our closest trading partners: Canada, Mexico, and the EU.

The United States is likely to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the EU Thursday, according to a source familiar with the decision.

The source, who preferred to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the situation, said the tariff decision is coming this morning and is "99.9" percent done. The U.S. expects the EU will retaliate in due course.

Because, of course, it's all so unfair:

"People have no idea how badly our country has been treated by other countries. By people representing us who didn't have a clue," Trump said, arguing that trade trends "destroyed" American steel and aluminum industries.

Needless to say, he's totally clueless. Take Canada, for example:

“These tariffs are totally unacceptable. The numbers are clear: The United States has a $2 billion U.S. dollars surplus in steel trade with Canada – and Canada buys more American steel than any other country in the world, half of U.S. steel exports. Canada is a secure supplier of aluminum and steel to the U.S. defense industry, putting aluminum in American planes and steel in American tanks. That Canada could be considered a national security threat to the United States is inconceivable.

“I want to be very clear about one thing: Americans remain our partners, friends, and allies. This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration.” – Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, speaking at a press conference last night.

That "national security" jab is a response to Trump's cover story: somehow, importing steel and aluminum from our staunchest allies is a threat to "national security."

Canada will retaliate:

Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on C$16.6 billion ($12.8 billion) worth of U.S. exports and challenge U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Thursday.

Mexico and the EU will also retaliate:

Europe and Mexico pledged to retaliate quickly, exacerbating trans-Atlantic and North American trade tensions.

The European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said Trump’s decision amounted to trade protectionism and that Europe would respond with countermeasures. “This is protectionism, pure and simple,” Juncker said. Mexico said it would penalize U.S. imports including pork bellies, apples, grapes, cheeses and flat steel.

He's also talking about imposing tariffs on Japanese cars:

President Trump last week launched an investigation into whether auto imports posed a national security risk to the U.S., a justification that might be used to raise the duty on cars from 2.5 percent up to 25 percent.

“It’s hard for Japan to understand and we cannot accept it,” Abe said in a session of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, adding that Tokyo would let Washington know its concern over the direction of U.S. trade policy.

And he wants a total ban on imports of German luxury cars:

President Trump wants to impose a total ban on the imports of German luxury cars, according to a new report from CNBC and German magazine WirtschaftsWoche.

Several U.S. and European diplomats told the news outlets that Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron about his plans last month during a state visit.

Trump reportedly told Macron that he would maintain the ban until no Mercedes-Benz cars are seen on Fifth Avenue in New York.

There's one small problem with that:

A number of German automakers have plants in the U.S., including Mercedes-Benz in Alabama and BMW in South Carolina.

That popping sound you hear is champagne bottles being opened in the Kremlin.

Aside from the fact that Trump is a moron, we're long past the time when any single country can go it on its own. The world just doesn't work that way any more. Tom Sullivan has a good analysis of the whole debacle, and brings up an interesting point that supports my comment:

Catherine Rampell writes in the Washington Post that his view of trade echoes the mercantilists of the 17th and 18th centuries before there was an America to be great:

Like an 18th-century mercantilist, Trump perceives no mutual gains from trade. In any transaction, he sees only a winner and a loser. And the winner is determined by who has the trade surplus.

Since there’s no way everyone could come out ahead, there’s no point in trying to create a system of rules oriented toward that outcome. Plus, he seems to believe everyone’s going to cheat anyway — including, and perhaps especially, our supposed friends.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, countries could engage in this sort of behavior: there was no such thing as the multi-national corporation then, for starters. It was also the beginning of the age of colonialism, when the "great powers" were free to plunder "newly discovered" lands to enrich themselves. It doesn't work that way any more (except that it's those multi-nationals doing the plundering these days, but even that's winding down -- it's gotten to be really bad PR).

The only ones who are going to suffer from this latest round of Trump's idiocy are us. Again.