We are living in the middle of a trolly problem. You know, those moral dilemmas where a trolly is coming and you are manning a switch. On one path there is a baby and on the other are three old people. Which path will you choose? How about a baby on one and your spouse on the other?

There is method in Trump's madness - and, yes, there is a high level of madness together with interesting method. You have to hold these two, conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time.

Actually, tariff implementation may be a microcosm of the Trump approach.

• Hit 'em in the mouth.

• Sit down and talk.

• Throw your weight around.

• Extract concessions addressing real problems.

And the US has a LOT of real problems - see my Themes and Theses, above, which just hit the high points.

• Huge debt, deficits and entitlements.

• Critical strategic dependence on China, which is outflanking the US is almost every category.

• Financialized economy that really produces very little that's tangible. As a corollary, our educational system produces few people who can do anything tangible.

• An aging, dying population that is taking all of the strategic and practical, eg welding, skills with them.

• The global order is changing from US dominance to the emergence of a challenger in China and pesky interlopers like Russia, Brazil, Turkey, Poland and Saudi Arabia. Pax Americana is over. China is in ascendence - at least for a while.

(AI is coming, but is not an actual threat, yet.)​

I am not even close to being a Trump supporter, but, along with grift and corruption, and no small measure of heavy-handedness, he (or maybe Bessant) does at least begin to understand the perilous condition of our country.

Get those two, conflicting thoughts into your head.

In a complete overstatement to make a point, he is both an abomination and perhaps the only person who has a shot at correcting the country's disastrous course.

Continuation of the status quo will certainly lead to disaster.

So, you modify Google's old motto - move fast and break things - and relentlessly beat people over the head, while skimming off the top.

You have to radically change the rules of the game and you have to use whatever weapons are at hand. And you have to move fast because midterm elections are coming and if you win those, the next presidential election is coming. That's all the time you have - about ten seconds to revamp a culture and foreign relations.

Actually, you can't revamp anything - there is not enough time - it's just too big - but you can make a start.

What are your two best weapons? Miliary and economic strength. Since the US is economically fragile, I'm using the term, economic strength, in the sense that we buy a LOT of stuff and can use that to our advantage. Another major, fortuitous situation is that Congress has neutered itself, so that everything Trump wants to do is either doable or a scrimmage with the courts. (I actually believe this is profoundly tragic - one of our foundational institutions is failing us. However, from Trump's perspective, it is fortuitous.)

A general discussion around this topic would take more electrons than I have, so let's take a look at tariffs. Tariffs are the lynchpin of Trump's policies. The Supreme Court's ruling against one legal basis (among several) for Trump's tariffs correctly threw a spanner in the works. Trump made a bet that the cost of reversing his tariffs would be so large by the time the Supreme Court got around to it, they would not strike them down.

He was wrong.

It is, however, critical to understand that for Trump's efforts to succeed, he MUST have the cudgel and sweetener of tariffs.

So, there will be tariffs, as best as he can create tariffs.

• Tariffs to promote onshoring and friend-shoring of manufacturing.

• Tariffs to extort investment in the US.

• Tariffs to reduce the trade deficit.

• Tariffs to gain access to critical materials.

• Tariffs to influence geopolitical behaviors.

I don't want to get carried away. Trump's "tariff dividend" and his talk about replacing the income tax with tariffs in an era of massive deficits are simply, unmitigatedly bonkers. Even if his method has some logic to it, he could end up shooting himself in the foot (that's as far as I will go with mixing metaphors).

One of the challenges Trump will face is that the likely, primary legal basis for the new tariffs only lasts for 150 days before expiring, unless Congress weighs in.​

The US and the international community will be shocked by his actions, and the resulting instability as everyone grasps for a new international order.

I don't necessarily like or agree with much of what he is doing.

But something has to be done.

Otherwise, my predicted outcomes are actually pretty much a slam dunk.

And, we really, really don't want me to be right.

​

When you change the rules of the game - good or bad - a system will reorganize itself around those new rules. The world will begin new trade patterns. China will get its soybeans from Brazil; countries will begin to trade one-on-one instead of with the US, kinda like shopping at mom-and-pop stores instead of WalMart. It's not efficient, and the whole world will suffer a decrease in their standards of living. It turns out that free trade and comparative advantage really are very important. However, the devil is in the details and China's dominance when being an adversary at the same time are a major inhibitor to free trade - as are Trump's tariffs.

​

In the end, I'm afraid Trump, by angering Democrats, will hasten the breakdown of our country. I fear that his Hail Mary will fail. Our downward momentum is so great that anyone would have failed, and many of Trump's actions are counterproductive and infuriating.

Democrats do not begin to understand our underlying, fundamental problems, and will, if they come to power, revert to their old ways, ignoring the reasons Trump was elected in the first place, and fulfilling my prophecies.

But, it's worse than that.

They could / probably will take vengeance on all things MAGA, significantly upping the ante on the underlying civil strife.

And there we will be.

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Ian Bremmer - 

"But the point of IEEPA (the tariff basis struck down by the Supreme Court) was never really the tariff wall. It was the unilateral power it conferred on the president.

Under IEEPA, Trump could wake up and impose 50% tariffs on Brazil because its Supreme Court was prosecuting his friend Jair Bolsonaro, with no congressional authorization, no formal investigation, and no bureaucratic process to support a national-interest rationale. He could threaten European allies with levies if they interfered with his Greenland ambitions. He could threaten them against companies whose executives spoke out against him and grant exemptions to businesses that helped build his ballroom. He could function as a kind of economic central planner – moving rates overnight to punish enemies, reward allies, squeeze negotiating partners, and reshape entire industries, all from a single emergency declaration he could invoke and extend without limit.

This is what made IEEPA different from any other tariff tool (or policy tool, for that matter) in American history. In Trump’s hands, it was an instrument of unchecked executive power – a way to entrench the “Rule of Don,” where favor and punishment flow from one man's will rather than law or process.

The alternative tools can rebuild most of the tariff wall, but they can't restore what Trump actually lost with IEEPA. Section 122 is time-limited – up to 150 days without congressional reauthorization – and imposes a uniform global rate that leaves no room for country-specific punishment or selective exemptions."