The economic equivalent of the nuclear button

Trump's tariff war has shown us that we've essentially handed unchecked power for economic devastation over to one person. Do we really want to leave it that way?

So, Trump has reversed course - temporarily - on his tariffs.

The stock markets rebounded somewhat - which is a big deal if you're one of the fortunate Americans who has enough money in the stock market to matter - though it's important to note that they're still below what they were when Biden left office.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal

Obviously, this whole episode was ridiculous, as I'll get into.

But perhaps - perhaps - it was good in one way - it exposed something that I'm not sure anyone had quite realized until now.

It's understood that the US president has his finger on the nuclear button and could destroy all of human civilization, sort of on a whim. Yes, there are some safeguards in place. But not really. The primary safeguards depend on top military officials questioning the president's orders and refusing to obey. Don't think about that too long.

Well, we now know that the US president also has the nuclear button equivalent for the world economy.

A bit of backstory.

Under the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to impose taxes. And tariffs are taxes, paid by Americans. But over time, Congress has delegated a lot of this authority to presidents. Note there, delegated. It's not an inherent power of the presidency. And Congress could reclaim its power over tariffs at any time - today, in fact, if sufficient members of Congress got on board.

Well, it sure feels like it’s time for Congress to do exactly that because this absolutely was the economic equivalent of threatening countries with a nuclear strike - unless they did Trump's bidding.

Now, Trump and MAGA dress all of this up quite a bit. He's a master negotiator who was using the tariffs as leverage. Strong man, good.

Just on that, leverage to what, exactly? What they had been saying was that these tariffs - this glorious new day - were permanent and that it would lead to the re-industrialization of the US economy. But now he's "paused" the tariffs. Is that plan on pause, too?

But back to my main point - Do we really want to invest the power to destroy the global economy in one person - with absolutely zero checks or systems in place? I mean, he could do anything.

Earlier today on his social media platform Truth Social, he told everyone to "be cool" and that it would all work out.

Only to reverse course just hours later.

By the way, on that - just four hours before he did reverse course, he posted this - telling people to buy:

In other words, stocks were low, so buy low, sell high later. That sort of thing.

Now, personally, I'd like an investigation into who made out on this with what was like public insider information about a major market move that was coming. But of course, since Trump has seized control of many independent federal agencies - like the Securities and Exchange Commission, which monitors market manipulation - we'll never get one.

But I digress. I guess.

You hear sometimes about the rules-based world order. This is how people refer to the global trading system created by the US and other nations after World War II.

In that order, countries were expected to behave according to a clearly defined set of rules - agreed to by everybody - so that we could reduce the amount of economic turmoil that comes from shocks to the system.

See, uncertainty can kill an economy. Businesses don't know whether to make major investments. You and I don't know whether to make major purchases - like cars, houses - take a new job, and so on - unless we can be reasonably confident about the future. If uncertainty goes through the roof, people will just hunker down and not spend - possibly leading to a recession.

In his reversal today, Trump said today that he has imposed a 90-day pause on many of his tariffs. Really? Just 90 days? Are we just going to go through this every three months?

Who knows? He's the only one making the rules.

Good luck trying to get anyone to make solid business decisions in that environment. At the personal level, if you work in an industry that was about to get blasted by tariffs, should you be worried about your job in 90 days?

See, Trump is capricious. He is not a steady hand. It's whatever strikes him that day. It's whoever talked to him last, or what he saw on cable TV, or saw on social media. Yes, it's that flighty.

But that's not the whole of it.

It's also about him. It's about his personal power. He loves it. He craves it.

Check out this clip from an event last night:

He wants people to kiss his ass.

And check out this one of him praising the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, in an off-hand conversation with a Fox News host:

Trump is loving all of the global personal attention he's getting from his wild trade war. (It's almost like he was a ratings-hungry reality TV star before becoming president.)

But you know who isn't loving it? Anyone we trade with. Sure, in the short term, they might strike a deal. But in the longer term, trust has been broken. Trust built up over decades. And they're going to do anything they can to make sure they're not beholden to this jerk in the future.

Now look, that rules-based world order that I mentioned above can be gamed. In fact, I happen to believe that China did exactly that over the decades. And I think there is a place for a well-thought-out tariff regime that protects essential parts of the US economy and maybe redresses some of de-industrialization. So, I welcome what appears to be a focus on China with the tariffs he's left in place. But, the speed and size of those tariffs - overnight shooting up to 125% - look, economies can't adjust that quickly. We all better prepare for higher prices and fewer product choices in the near future.

But you know what, I don't think that matters much to Trump because this is becoming a personal pissing match with Xi - another dictator he has praised before, by the way. Yes, I think we have to think in those petty of terms.

But hey, there is a solution to all of this.

It's time for Congress to reclaim the tariff power that it has delegated so that no one person has the ability to threaten to tank the US and global economy like this again.

Sure, it'll be tough. Elected Republicans in Congress are going to have to toughen up, grow a pair of ovaries, and do what's right for the country and the world. Yes, they'll face blowback from MAGA for breaking with the Dear Leader.

But you know what? You can do something about that.

If you're an American citizen, you have an amazing thing that several billion people across the world would like right now - a member of Congress that you can call to express your point of view.

Sure, it's hard at first, but do it. I promise you'll be okay.

There actually are bills in Congress right now that legislators are trying to get through - taking this threat of an economic nuclear winter off the table.

Back them up.

It's well past time to rein in Mad King Trump.

Good luck, America. And well, everybody.