"Some claim that Trump is actually misleading his supporters about the benefits of tariffs and is only using them to try and negotiate his way to a world without tariffs. The global reciprocal tariff strategy he is expected to unveil and implement today is often pointed to as evidence that that is Trump’s true aim.
A world without tariffs is, of course, a good goal. But there are other forms of American leverage that Trump can use that, in contrast, will not hurt Americans at all. Imagine if Trump notified the EU that he was cutting off all economic aid, canceling all weapons deals, and suspending any payments for Europe’s defense while also threatening to pull the US entirely out of NATO unless European governments abolished all their tariffs. That would almost certainly work. And if not, the American people would still be significantly less burdened than they were before. Not so with the tariff strategy that will, at best, stick Americans with higher prices for the entire negotiation period."
https://mises.org/mises-wire/trumps-liberation-day-tariffs-are-mistake
Interesting views. Maybe the best strategy to combat tariffs is to keep it in the tariff domain?
It's also a really simple return. If it fails you can just return them to previous percentages. If you threaten to pull out of nato and other things and others won't budge you will have to do the things you said and still have the tariffs.
I'm no good at politics though so maybe i'm overcomplicating things.
The view is that NATO and military aid is 100% waste and actually doing that will be good for the taxpayers here in US.
Heavy tariffs , if they don’t “work” will still be a tax on us and we’ll still be involved in foreign entanglements via NATO etc
None of this is affordable anymore
