Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again. So today, we're going to talk about tariffs,

trade wars, and Trumpiness. As we talked about yesterday, the wealthy in the United States were

relieved by the selection of Bessent for Secretary of the Treasury Department. The wealthy believed Bessent

would curtail Trump's fascination with inflationary tariffs and stop him from making

mistakes that would harm the U.S. economy. The think pieces went out and everybody relaxed.

Well, somebody must have read some of the articles to Trump,

and Trump apparently didn't like the idea of people thinking that he could be controlled or

influenced. He set out to prove that he wouldn't listen to people smarter than himself.

I feel like somebody mentioned that might happen.

Less than 24 hours after the relief set in, Trump announced that he would immediately impose

a 10% tariff on China and 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada. That's only three countries. How bad could it be? Those three

countries make up about 40 percent of U.S. imports. So get ready for almost half of all imports

to go up in price. That will surely fix inflation. Another interesting development here is that two of the three

countries are part of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement. That's a free trade agreement

that was negotiated by Trump himself. Whether intentional or not, this sent out a message to every country in the world.

U.S. trade agreements aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Incidentally, the price of paper is

about to go up. Officials from Mexico, Canada, and China have all issued responses, and,

unsurprisingly, it looks like we're headed into a trade

war. The response for Mexico's president was the most interesting, and she signaled a willingness

to impose tariffs of her own. She also laid out the basic economics of tariffs, saying,

quote,

It is unacceptable and would cause inflation and job losses in Mexico and the United States.

...