It’s the Trumpies vs qualified economists. Who ya gonna trust, as world markets tank? It only makes sense if you know Trump’s ultimate goal, to wreck the US economy, so his oligarch buddies can pick up the pieces, like Putin (Boss Hogg’s hero), and his pals did in Russia

 “This has to be the biggest unforced economic policy errors in US history,” wrote David Beckworth, an economist with the Mercatus Center, a right-leaning think tank. 

The Nobel-Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called the tariffs ‘shockingly stupid’.

Trump’s tariff announcement was full-on crazy. Not only is he imposing higher tariffs than almost anyone expected, but he’s justifying them with completely false claims about other countries’ tariffs. I don’t know where his numbers are coming from, but they have nothing to do with reality. ... It’s a really bad day for the U.S. economy.

Since the tariffs are paid by U.S. importers who can raise prices to recoup all or part of the cost of the tariffs, Trump’s “liberation day” announcement this week could be tantamount to the largest tax increase on U.S. consumers in decades. 

At the same time, economists have said the tariffs could increase price inflation and slow economic growth, potentially even throwing it in reverse and triggering a recession.