Trump tariffs

*Trump tariffs*

What happens when people lose the ability to reason or render good judgments? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy.

I’ve covered a lot of policies over the decades, some of which I supported and some of which I opposed. But I have never seen a policy as stupid as this one. It is based on false assumptions. It rests on no coherent argument in its favour. It relies on no empirical evidence. It has almost no experts on its side – from left, right or centre. It is jumble-headedness exemplified.

Mr Trump himself personifies stupidity’s essential feature – self-satisfaction, an inability to recognise the flaws in your thinking. And of course, when the approach led to absolutely predictable mayhem, Mr Trump, lacking any coherent plan, backtracked, flip-flopped, responding impulsively to the pressures of the moment as his team struggled to keep up.

Producing something this stupid is not the work of a day; it is the achievement of a lifetime – relying on decades of incuriosity, decades of not cracking a book, decades of being impervious to evidence.

Information source:

https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/maybe-we-are-just-not-good-at-thinking-any-more