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    1. **From Steve Benen, editor of MaddowBlog and producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show”:** 

      When Donald Trump spoke to U.S. generals and admirals in September, the president appeared eager to brag about his trade tariffs. “We’ve taken in trillions of dollars,” he boasted. “We’re rich again.”

      He continued to echo that refrain in the weeks and months that followed. At one point last month, Trump claimed he’s expecting tariff revenue to be “in excess of $2 Trillion Dollars,” only to follow up a day later with the expectation that tariff revenue would be “in excess of 3 Trillion 

      Dollars.”

      Both figures were spectacularly wrong, and the White House offered no explanation for how the total jumped by $1 trillion in just one day.

      **Read more:** [**https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/declining-tariff-revenue-creates-a-significant-new-headache-for-the-white-house**](https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/declining-tariff-revenue-creates-a-significant-new-headache-for-the-white-house)

    2. Of course it was going to happen.

      Tariffs not only increased prices for groceries. It also put small companies out of business in USA because it made import costs to cut their profit. So there is less trade and therefore less taxes.

      As trade is reduced because of tariffs, that caused China to have less exports and that pushes devaluation of the yuan. So products become cheaper in dollars, causing tariffs to be reduced even more.

      Anyone who knows the basics of how macroeconomics and foreign trade work would have anticipated that.

      Who paid for this? Small companies in US going bankrupt, consumer who paid higher prices, and Chinese exporters having lower sales. A trade war is a lose-lose deal in both sides. In macroeconomics there is no free lunch. Someone always pays the bill.

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