Success, Genius and the Lack Thereof

Donald Trump doesn’t understand how tariffs work.

In his big dust up with China over trade deal negotiations, Trump knows only one trick: push back hard until the other side breaks.

To that end, Trump is upping tariffs on goods imported from China. 

Typically, tariffs are not good for the importer. It adds to the cost of the goods being imported.

Typically, the more things costs, the fewer things get sold. 

Typically, consumers will turn to goods that cost less.

Now go through your house and try to find something NOT made in China.

You get the picture.

If China has to charge more for stuff it sells to the United States and if the stuff we buy in the United States is almost all made in China, the American consumer has to pay more for stuff.

But Trump isn’t worried.

Li’l Donnie makes claims that because of the increased tariffs, there is more money flowing into the United States treasury.

Trump doesn’t understand how tariffs work.

Trump doesn’t understand economics.

Trump is a very, very stupid man.  

Coming into the Presidency, Li’l Donnie’s main selling point was his business acumen. Yet time and time again, Trump has displayed a lack of the most basic understanding of economics.

Remember how Trump upped steel and aluminum tariffs in a bullheaded “America First” push to bolster our steel industry over imports? And how upping those tariffs jeopardized hundreds of manufacturing jobs right here in the United States? The very kind of manufacturing jobs that Trump would decry were leaving America and going overseas? In his myopic push to bolster one industry, he put other industries at risk because he wouldn’t or couldn’t grasp how a global economy works and America’s rather strategic and important place in that economy?

Trump not understanding economics is not surprising. Trump’s myth of being a successful businessman is built on a wobbly foundation of deception and debt. 

The New York Times reported Trump had more than $1 billion in losses from 1985 to 1994, according to Internal Revenue Service documents.  Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer during that time frame. 

Now keep in mind this was during Trump’s peak “Art of the Deal” years when he was allegedly at his most successful.

God knows what we’ll find in his more recent tax returns.

In short, the one attribute you would hear Trump supporters attest to more than any other was that Donald Trump was a successful businessman.  It was an attribute that Trump himself would brag about time and time again.

The reputation of Donald Trump as a successful business man is one built on a lie. 

And yet….

AND YET….

According to a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll,  54% think Trump has been successful in business. 

Of course this breaks down along partisan lines.   85% of Republican voters say Trump has been successful while only 30% of Democratic voters see Trump’s business career that way.

There are facts, there are numbers that show Trump is not successful, is NOT a business genius.

Well, I'm depressed now.