Just when the free traders thought that President Trump really was going to hurl us into a global depression,

and just when the protectionists were convinced that Trump was going to hold firm on all the tariffs,

just when the pundits and prognosticators and all manner of bloviators were dead certain that they knew exactly what Trump was going to do and why he was going to do it,

President Trump confounded all of them by pausing his tariff plan for 90 days on every country but China.

And of course, as is always the case with pundits and prognosticators, both sides are claiming victory.

The free traders, the panic hands, as Trump dubbed them,

insist that they prevailed in convincing Trump to abandon the policy. The protectionists, on the

other hand, insist that this was really the plan all along, to bluff with all the other countries

only to zero in on China, 5D chess. And both of those theories have big holes in them,

which we'll get to in one second.

But amid all those voices of total confidence,

among all the people who are frequently wrong,

but never in doubt,

there was one man who offered an alternative view.

You know how much it pains me to say say I told you so. But there was one

man who said that both sides of the debate were talking out of their derriers. There was one man

who admitted the unspeakable obvious, namely that no one, including senior administration officials,

really had any idea what the rationale was behind the tariffs, that Trump's distinct political gift is unpredictability, a man who offered

this advice on how to handle the situation. In case you forget, here is a little clip from just a

couple of days ago to jog your memory.

We'll see how this goes. It is entirely possible that this doesn't work out. It sends us hurtling

into a global recession. Republicans get completely destroyed in the midterms. A Republican never wins

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