Credit goes to the retail CEO I was speaking with who came up with this comparison: The current disaster around tariffs is Covid again, he said, and that needs to be how America looks at this chaos.
And we all know how well the first Trump administration handled Covid, don’t we?
As you read this — and as I write it — the Trump Tariff Tsunami is in full force, with insane and often illogical levels of duties being promised and promoted with the possibility of even more threats to come. Nations — friends and foe — are reacting as anyone would, their adrenalin kicking in to fight back this idiotic game of “My tariffs are bigger than yours.” It’s a game Trump has played before throughout his career, never backing down, never admitting any mistakes and always taking the offensive.
Remember how he handled Covid? He refused to accept any scientific or factual advice and just kept offering more and more outrageous solutions for something he clearly had no comprehension or understanding of…nor any intent of trying to. Drinking chemicals? Shining lights on your internal organs? Voodoo medicines from circus charlatans? Just waiting a little bit and it will all “magically” go away? He even used the same language: beautiful, greatest thing ever, stable genius.
The results were predictable: for a pandemic that the world had not seen in more than 80 years, the death tolls were unimaginable. How many friends, family and people did you knew who died? But because of the incompetent, ignorant and idiotic way it was handled the death toll of over one million Americans was arguable twice as high as it should have been had this situation been handled better.
Now we find ourselves with a different driving force but the same chaotic result. Businesses will fail, people will suffer and some will die. How many different tariff mandates have you already seen since he took office on Jan. 20? How many reversals of policies? How many escalations of the crisis? How many backdowns? How much confusion because at any given time there was no possible way to understand what was happening and then trying to figure out how you and, if you were running one, your business should deal with it?
All the while, Donald Trump was being exactly what he always wanted: the king, watching everyone dance to his tariff tune and stopping and starting the music depending on his latest whim. It’s what he has lived for throughout his entire career, being the center of attraction, be it in New York real estate, reality television or any of the dozens of other business areas he’s been involved with — most of which ultimately failed.
None of this is about economic policy. Or helping America or Americans. It’s about Trump and keeping him on top of the global pyramid, the one everybody has to watch to see what he does next.
Covid lasted years and years and there’s no reason to believe the tariff pandemic won’t do the same. He will continue to run this thing ragged, reveling in being the ringleader of a worldwide crisis of his making. And as we know, he will tell you he’s the only one who can fix it.
In this case he is right: he is the only one who can stop this tariff madness. And until he — and he alone — stops this, the New Covid will continue.
WarrensReport 