Spare a thought for the poor billionaires who backed Trump — and hate tariffs
Trade Wars, Episode V: The Empire Shoots Itself in the Foot. As the world financial markets fail to appreciate his genius, tariff-excreting president Donald Trump has explained it all away by stating that 'sometimes you have to take medicine'. Why am I reminded of the bit in Covid where he appeared to suggest that disinfectant could helpfully be injected into the lungs? I guess that was just science, same as this tariffs plan is just economics.
Even so, can it really still be less than a week since a Wall Street Journal poll found 77% of US Republicans thought tariffs would have a positive impact? Ah well. Famously, the American people have a great tolerance for pain. If only one of their kindly gazillionare firms could come up with some sort of financial opioid epidemic to take the edge off the coming agonies.
As discussed here recently, in China, they call Trump 'the nation builder'. And, spoiler alert, the nation they're taking about is not the United States. Perhaps, then, it is not altogether strange and unpredictable that the Chinese have, thus far, failed to fold in the face of the American president's tariffs, even as Trump threatens to slap an extra 50% tax on Chinese imports as revenge for Xi Jinping's government having had the temerity to impose a 34% counter-tariff on the US.
'If the US insists on going its own way,' a spokesperson for Beijing's commerce ministry stated on Tuesday, 'China will fight it to the end.' Big talk – but what about Xi's midterm elections? This could really pile political pressure on – oh right, I just remembered. Presumably a future stage of Trump's masterplan will be to explain that for too long, the rest of the world has been taking advantage of America because it has indulged them by holding regular elections. Well, NO MORE! The United States cannot be made a fool of by democracy any longer.
Still, as the world burns, we've got to take our cheap thrills where we can – so who's your favourite embarrassingly disillusioned billionaire Trump backer? My current one is Bill Ackman, hedge-fund supremo, who last July publicly endorsed Trump, grandly declaring: 'I assure you that I have made this decision carefully, rationally, and by relying on as much empirical data as possible.' Well, flash forward to Sunday, and – whaddayaknow? – the same Bill Ackman could be found explaining that Trump was launching 'economic nuclear war on every country in the world', and that we were 'heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter'. Mm. I guess the ONE piece of empirical evidence Ackman overlooked about tariffs was all the many, many, many times during the election campaign that Trump clearly stated he was going to impose tariffs. Can't believe he's imposed tariffs. I guess strife comes at you fast. According to Bill, 'this is not what we voted for'. Oh dear. Always read the big print, Bill!
Then again, of all the wanky things Trump's mega-rich backers say about him, the most masturbatorial of all is surely 'take him seriously but not literally'. How many times have we had to sit through this trite little piece of wisdom-effect nonsense? But, gentlemen … he has quite literally done the very serious thing he said he was going to do. How to play this wholly unpredictable state of affairs? Tell you what – if any of your companies or the ones you invest in need goods or parts from overseas, why not simply inform your suppliers that you are taking the presidential tariffs 'seriously but not literally', and see how you get on?
The added irony, of course, is that this is happening to members of that special class of Trump big-hitters who think about the Roman empire every day. I wonder which period of it they've been thinking of this past week. The good days, definitely! Especially when Trump hit the golf course while the markets were on fire. Take presidential first buddy Elon Musk, who has wimped out of saying anything explicit about tariffs, preferring instead to drag his brainworms on to his own platform again and post a video of Milton Friedman debunking the very notion of trade taxes. Good to see the guy retreating into his clicktivist phase, the period where he – along with everyone else on X – thinks that posting about something is the same as doing anything remotely useful.
Speaking of conspicuously absent friends, though, whatever happened to Trump's local beta, Nigel Farage? He's gone rather quiet on the cheerleading front. In fact, given the raging shitstorm, it's no surprise that all this is playing out as one of the great submarine moments of Farage's career. He always does this when he's afraid to front up, eventually emerging with some mealy-mouthed bollocks long after backbone and leadership were required. He didn't surface in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Jo Cox during the referendum campaign. He had scarcely a soundbite when his much-touted new friend Musk suddenly turned on him and said he didn't have what it takes as a leader. And now Nigel's declining to be meaningfully drawn as Donald Trump – a man in whose colon the Clacton MP has spent more time than his constituency – has unleashed destructive turmoil, even though Nigel told everyone he was a very stable genius. Nigel always pulls this trick when the going gets tough, somewhat like the child who imagines that putting his hands over his eyes means no one can see him.
We've certainly yet to hear him expand on the real-world implications of the tariffs. After all, speaking of 'taking medicine', health secretary Wes Streeting has this morning said that tariffs could affect the UK's medicine supply. That, I suppose, would be quite literally – and definitely seriously – 'taking medicine', in that it would be taking medicine away from people who urgently need it.
Of course, Elon Musk isn't the only wingnut to own his own platform, so let's play out with a genuine statement posted to Truth Social by the occupant of the Oval Office. 'The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don't be Weak! Don't be Stupid! Don't be a PANICAN (a new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be a result'. Righto. Last week, Republican house speaker Mike Johnson declared: 'You have to trust the president's instincts on the economy, OK?' Do you trust in the instinct of the man who wrote the above word salad? Or do you, like rather a lot of people, find yourself slightly panican?
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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