After unglued demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump precipitously announced import tariffs on steel and aluminum last Thursday, sparking a plunge in the stock market and alarm among his economic staff and our allies, he's reported to have talked to world leaders and has ruled out any exemptions. According to his billionaire Commerce Secretary and Campbell soup fan Wilbur Ross, Rump's conversations have been "broad brush" (ed.: because he doesn't know what he's talking about). We're sure that he left the leaders puzzled if not angry at his rash buffoonery.
Meanwhile, Ross, who was the major proponent of the tariffs, has been making the rounds on cable and network programs downplaying the impact of the tariffs on U.S. industries. In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Ross dismissed the impact on the clothing, motorcycle, and bourbon industries expected to be targeted by the European Union:
"The commerce secretary dismissed European Union threats of retaliatory tariffs on flagship American products including Harley Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and Levi’s jeans as trivial and a 'rounding error'.... Ross said the Europeans were discussing a'pretty trivial amount of retaliatory tariffs, adding up to some $3 billion of goods.' In our size economy that’s a tiny, tiny fraction of 1 percent,' Ross said. 'So while it might affect an individual producer for a little while overall, it’s not going to be much more than a rounding error.'”Tell the workers and their families in California, Wisconsin and Kentucky that will be laid off that they're just a "rounding error" in Rump's destructive tariff blunder. Then tell them to remember to vote in November to throw the Rethugs out.
(photo: CNBC. Rump's geriatric pitchman for the
