The Tariff Trap - when bad math becomes bad policy
Sync-ing ourselves into current affairs
There is a popular fiction circulating in American political circles. It’s not just a slip, but an intentional distortion that was repeated so often it begins to sound like common sense. But it’s not sense. It’s stagecraft.
Let’s call it what it is: Tariff Theater.
A few year ago, US officials took to the podium and declared, with straight faces, that countries like Indonesia and Vietnam were “charging the US” outrageous tariffs - 64%, even 90%. Naturally, this made headlines. What didn’t? The fact that these figures weren’t from any trade agreement, WTO dataset, or customs schedule. They were pulled from a numerical sleight of hand dressed up as economic policy:
US Trade Deficit ÷ that country’s exports to the US = “Tariff”
That’s not a tariff, that’s arithmetic cosplay. So, let’s break it down with an example.
Say the US imports $28 billion in goods from Indonesia, and exports only $10 billion in return. That leaves an $18 billion trade deficit. Divide that $18B by $28B, and voila - 64%. But instead of calling it what it is - a trade imbalance shaped by demand, comparative advantage, labour costs, and global logistics, they call it a tariff. And a routine economic reality is rebranded as international aggression.
A trade deficit is not a tax, it’s not a punishment, it’s not a villain in a red cape, it’s simply the ebb and flow of buying and selling. Supply and demand. Yet, this fantasy persists. The danger here isn’t just the bad math, it’s what that math is weaponised to justify. When the public is told that foreign nations are ripping us off, they get angry - rightfully so. But their outage is misdirected - toward retaliatory tariffs, and isolationist policies that do more harm than good. Let’s be clear the real average tariff rates US exporters face are typically between 5% and 15%. Not 90%, not even close.
So why does the lie work? Because it’s clean, it’s dramatic, and most people don’t have the time or the patience to cross-reference their economic outrage with WTO trade tables. But we should, because policy built on numerical fiction is still fiction. And fiction makes terrible legislation.