Regarding tariffs, it remains the case that Donald Trump doesn’t know what they are, how they work, or especially who pays them. He always talks about “charging” countries tariffs, because he is so stupidly, stubbornly uneducated about literally everything, but especially about finance and economics, therefore he doesn’t understand the Econ 101 fact that tariffs are paid by we the American people.
Yesterday the mathlete Trump released the formula he uses to calculate tariff rates, to come up with perfect tariffs that are highly respected and everybody always talks about, with tears in their eyes. It is a math formula. Of math.
“The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we’ve been treated over the years. And based on raw numbers… They’re based on very substantial facts and also past history.”
Got that?
The formula is: common sense + deficits + how we’ve been treated over the years + raw numbers + very substantial facts + also past history = the perfect tariff!
How does one plug numbers into this? And how is Trump’s tariff plan for “90 deals in 90 days” going? OK, how about two deals (sort of) and now the 90 day deadline is over? Are you impressed? Art of the Deal!
So now he’s graded himself on a curve again and extended the deadline to August 1 for the rest of the deals to come through (LOL), at which point he will grade himself on a curve again, etc.
Because he’s fucking bad at this, and he’s fucking stupid.
This week, Trump has sent a bunch of new halfwit tariff shakedown letters, riddled with errors, to random nations all over the globe, because nothing says you’re dealing with a Very Serious Person besides Randomly Capitalized Words from a Total Dumbass who can’t even Master The Motherfucking Language Of The Country He Purports To Lead, who has proven himself so utterly incapable of Speaking Proper English For Fucking Christ’s Sake.
All the letters threaten new tariffs on August 1, if the nations don’t agree to whatever he’s trying to force them to submit to against their wills.
He sent letters to Japan and South Korea, two big trading partners Americans buy lots of nice things from, so that sound you all heard is the money falling out of your wallet. (Because who pays tariffs? We do!)
Twenty-five percent tariffs to you, South Korea and Japan, says Trump! Unless you reduce your tariffs and stop treating us poorly!
Of course as Paul Krugman points out, South Korea and the US have a free trade agreement, and Japan doesn’t put big tariffs on products it exports to us, because of its Most Favored Nation status (those aren’t Trump capital letters, that’s actually how you write that), so the question that comes to mind here is what tariffs, you dumb bitch?
Trump does not know. He does not know about the free trade agreement with South Korea, or what Most Favored Nation status means. He is extremely stupid.
His letter to South Korea demanded “more fair, and balanced, TRADE.” Because “our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal.” (We wish we were kidding here.)
“Please understand that these Tariffs are necessary to correct the many years of Korea’s Tariff, and Non Tariff, Policies and Trade Barriers, causing these unsustainable Trade Deficits against the United States.”
So again, what tariffs, you babbling cumstain?
So that was one thing. As NPR reports, Trump sent 12 more tariff threat letters — he’s putting these on Truth Social, obviously — on Monday, the same day he sent the Japan and South Korea letters, just to completely fucking random countries. (Ya tariffed, Kazakhstan! And Brunei! And Moldova!) And he explained on Tuesday in his Cabinet meetings that each one of these illiterate babbling randomly capitalized ransom letters is a “deal.”
OK, Grandpa Dear Leader Mister President Guy! You’re doing “deals”! Oh no, don’t get mad and throw your ketchup at the wall!
Love It When The American President Throws His Ketchup At The Wall SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK
It gets waaaaaaay more embarrassing, though, and Trump essentially shoots himself in the microdick in any forthcoming court challenges by admitting completely out loud that these tariffs aren’t economic policy, but rather him just trying to anoint himself king of the world, rewarding and punishing nations as he sees fit. This will be hilarious for him in the US Court of International Trade, which has already ruled recently that Trump does not have the power to snap his fingers, say “Emergency!” and declare emergency tariffs.
We are of course talking about the letter Trump posted yesterday to the great nation of Brazil.
Mean Judges Take Away Old Taco Bitch’s Loser Tariffs
Remember Trump’s math formula of tariff math? Let’s look at Trump’s very good letter to Brazil and see if we can math the math of his math formula of tariff math.
He begins:
“I knew and dealt with former President Jair Bolsonaro, and respected him greatly, as did most other Leaders of Countries.”
Leaders of Countries, they respected Jair Bolsonaro greatly, says Trump, with his piss-brained capital letters. (No they didn’t, he’s a real piece of shit, unworthy of human respect, corrupt as all fuck just like Trump, tried to January 6 his country like a common Donald Trump, and everybody hates him. But other than that, he’s great.)
This doesn’t sound very much like a tariff formula letter, though!
“The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”
Can you imagine being the president of Brazil and laughing at this shit in Portuguese? No you can’t, because you don’t even KNOW Portuguese. But we, having made friends with some Brazilians in our time (there was a while in the 2010s when they all decided to hang out in the Wonkette comments), know they laugh on the Internet like this: kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
“Due in part to Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans (as lately illustrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which has issued hundreds of SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders to U.S. Social Media platforms, threatening them with Millions of Dollars in Fines and Eviction from the Brazilian Social Media market), starting on August 1, 2025, we will charge Brazil a Tariff of 50% on any and all Brazilian products sent into the United States, separate from all Sectoral Tariffs.”
In other words, because Brazil didn’t rig its elections to let Trump’s ugly little weak authoritarian friend Bolsonaro win, and didn’t let Bolsonaro steal power in his own attempt at a January 6 coup, and because Lots of Other Randomly CapitALIZED THINGS! — Trump really typed this one himself, didn’t he? — then therefore Ya Tariffed! AND THANK YOU for your ATTENTION to this MATTER!
And so forth. “Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal.” (Lots of copy/paste lines like that in these letters, but in fact, we actually have a trade surplus with Brazil!)
Because Donald Trump is an idiot pig who thinks we’re being cheated if we pay Money to Nations for their Products. Because he’s a bad businessman, who doesn’t understand the concept of a deal where both parties win, because he doesn’t have the mental capacity to negotiate one of those.
As Krugman notes, this letter is “evil and megalomaniacal,” and yes, we agree. (And hardly even pretends to be addressing an economic situation.) But, just like everything Trump does, it is so brazenly stupid and incompetent, we could not even write this post without laughing constantly. How we are we to imagine the president of Brazil would receive this differently, that he wouldn’t also be laughing at Trump?
Real talk, what world leader takes this stupid dumbass seriously? Don’t say Putin, because we know that is not and was never true. What world leader is not laughing at him behind his back, or in the case of Putin, to his face in a different language?
Does Trump Know How Much Putin Makes Fun Of Him To His Face?
For perspective, this is the senile old windsock who also yesterday practically jizzed his Klan hood at the White House because the president of Liberia spoke such beautiful English. Isn’t that crazy, since the official language of Liberia is fucking English?
As Krugman notes, this Brazil letter is Trump trying to threaten a country of 200 million, whose exports to the US come to a piddly less than two percent of its GDP.
And Trump thinks that functionally illiterate mouth diarrhea is going to effectively bully them? (Lula responded yesterday, saying Brazil won’t be lectured, and will slap that 50 percent tariff right back at the US — which we’ll note, again, we sell them more of our stuff than they sell us theirs.)
Write more letters, Donald. The world needs things to laugh at.
It’s not like we can ever count on being treated as a serious country ever again. Might as well embrace being the world’s comic relief.
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