He confuses tariffs and interest rates, and invents phantom new steel plants.
At one point during his latest interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump mixes up tariffs (a kind of sales tax imposed on imported goods) with interest rates, which are the extra money you owe when you take out a loan. Bob Davis, the journalist conducting the interview, corrects the president. It’s the kind of verbal slip that could happen to anyone. Except that Trump, after acknowledging the error, flips back around and makes it again later in the interview.
It’s the kind of mixup that would get a first-term House member flayed in the right-wing press, but Trump is the president of the United States.
And it’s not just some random issue where he can’t keep the words straight. Trade policy is, along with immigration, one of his signature issues where he personally has really made a mark and is governing in a way that other Republicans probably wouldn’t. During the 2016 campaign, it was routine to warn that Trump’s blundering ignorance on trade matters would end up tanking the global economy. That hasn’t happened, and in reality, the continuation of the steady recovery that began midway through Obama’s first term has been the clear bright spot of Trump-era America.
View the complete November 27 article by Matthew Yglesias on the Vox.com website here.