The Emperor's New Tariff

Trump may not know it, but he's retreating from his across-the-board tariff on all foreign goods. It's best that no one tell him.

Vilhelm Pedersen, 1849 illustration.

If Trump’s mental decline continues, Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” may become everybody’s favorite metaphor for his presidency. You’ll recall that in this fairy tale the emperor gets conned into thinking that he’s wearing clothes when he really isn’t, and nobody dares say he’s naked except one innocent child. But it’s slightly more complex than that. The con men who sell the emperor his “clothes” assure him that it will appear to some that he’s wearing no clothes, but that anybody who thinks that will be very stupid. Nobody wants to appear stupid, so everybody, including the emperor, pretends to see the clothes. After the child says “He hasn’t got anything on,” the emperor continues with his procession. The message isn’t so much that people are terrified of emperors, but that fear of being stupid makes you even stupider.

Donald Trump’s across-the-board tariff of 10 to 20 percent on all foreign goods is, I think, in the process of being turned into just such a garment as the emperor wears. The role of the con men tailors is here played by Trump’s economic team, which is tasked with eviscerating this proposal while assuring Trump that they have not done so and that only a fool would believe otherwise. I predict that they will succeed. That’s the subject of my latest New Republic piece. You can read it here.