Trump announced a “trade deal” with China today. Here’s the deal: the 20% fentanyl tariff stays, the 10% reciprocal tariff stays, the effective rate on Chinese goods sits near 30% — the highest on any country on earth — and the bigger tariffs he threatened get paused for sixty days. That’s the whole agreement. He held a press conference to tell you nothing changed and that this is a tremendous win.
A tariff is a tax, and you’re the one who pays it. The Tax Foundation put a number on it: this trade war is the largest tax hike as a share of the economy since 1993, about $1,500 a year out of the average household. So when the man stands at a podium and announces he kept that tax exactly where it was, understand what he’s actually celebrating. He’s celebrating that the fifteen hundred dollars is still coming out...
