U.S. President Donald Trump suddenly seems to be a big fan of dropping all “tariffs, barriers and subsidies” with at least one trading partner, mere hours after he tweeted “tariffs are the greatest.”

On Tuesday night, Trump issued a tweet proposing that both the U.S. and the European Union drop all three as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker prepares to visit Washington for trade talks on Wednesday. “You know the expression ‘we’re playing with the bank’s money.’” (Setting aside the fact that U.S. companies, consumers, and workers have so far borne the brunt of the tariffs, it’s not even clear that the president is aware that the market’s gains have slowed this year in part as a direct result of his “trade policies.”)

That the president doesn’t understand who is being punished for his asinine policies is worrisome not just from the perspective of Jesus Christ will someone get this guy in for a brain scan, but because as his offense ramps up, things will only get worse. During a recent European trip, Trump referred to the EU as a “foe, what they do to us in trade.” Juncker, after Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, said in March that “this is basically a stupid process, the fact that we have to do this. On Tuesday morning, he tweeted that tariffs are “the greatest” and a “simple” economic measure: “Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. Trump has also imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports — a figure he has threatened to raise to $500 billion — in a dispute over Beijing’s aggressive drive to supplant U.S. technological dominance. Juncker said the EU “can import more soybeans from the U.S., and it will be done.”

Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economist who studies trade, said, “The Chinese are not going to be buying our soybeans, so almost by musical chairs our soybeans are going to Europe.” The trouble is, China last year imported $12.3 billion in U.S. soybeans, the EU just $1.6 billion.
U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders agree to halt their trade war over vehicles and say they will open talks on removing trade barriers between the United States and the European Union.