You Get a Tarrif?

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  In the summer of 2025, I saw our president hand out tariffs like Oprah handing out cars: “You get a tariff! You get a tariff! Everyone gets a tariff!”




No one was safe from this gift. Friends, enemies, and neighbors all were all chosen. I didn’t think much of it (besides the fact that our president basically announced a bar brawl and invited the entire world to it.)

Like one would expect, the other invitees took a small swing back, a mere 20% increase on all American goods. It’s like watching kids on a beach building sandcastles. One kid goes to stomp all over the other kid’s sandcastle, yelling that he is the best. Naturally, the other kids go stomp on the troublemaker’s sandcastle. Problem solved right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. In the end, no one has any castles left — it's a lose-lose situation.

But I mean hey, who doesn’t like a good scuffle? Imposing tariffs on each other limits trade. As one would learn in economics 101, countries specialize in certain products (ones with lower opportunity costs) and trade those for other goods. The trade allows both countries to consume more than they could produce by themselves. If countries were all self-sufficient, there would be less goods for the public. While trade creates mutual benefit, the ineluctable reality of tariffs is that they minimize those benefits. 


Countries with no trade can only consume at point 3 or 4, but with trade, they can consume at point 2

Instead of focusing on the winners and losers, all leaders of individual economies should work together to make everyone as better off as possible. Leaders shouldn’t be throwing each other under the bus because they will get dragged with them too. Just like David Wallace said, “the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see.”

Comments

  1. Lily AulSeptember 14, 2025 at 11:36 PM

    This post made me laugh out loud to the point that my dogs looked at me funny. I especially love that you added the video of Oprah. As someone who is currently in AP Econ seeing the graph was traumatizing from the last test but still a great comedic addition no the less. I also think the ideas and current history behind it should be talked about more. I mean we spent the week talking about politics but never fully discussed current politics. The ides that our current president just increased tariffs Is kind of scary. I think you are fully right is saying we need to focus less on winners and losers and more on working as a team.

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