Trump tweets about his trade war with China, and a meme is born.<\/b>
\nAmerica, meet your newest superhero: He likes protectionist trade policies! Even though it\u2019s not clear if he understands how they work.
It\u2019s Tariff Man!
Okay, it\u2019s not a real superhero. But it is Trump\u2019s latest nickname \u2014 for himself.
The United States president introduced us to his alter ego in the middle of a series of tweets about a recent trade compromise reached with China at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires and future negotiations between the two countries.
\u201c…. I am a Tariff Man,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cWhen people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for doing so.\u201d He added that it would \u201calways be the best way to max out our economic power\u201d and that the US is \u201cnow taking in $billions in Tariffs.\u201d
But Tariff Man seems to be a bit unclear on what his superpowers actually do.
As Vox\u2019s Emily Stewart has written, \u201cThat\u2019s not really how tariffs work. The US may be generating some revenue from tariffs, but billions of dollars aren\u2019t pouring in. Moreover, a lot of the money that is made off of tariffs comes from US consumers \u2014 not Chinese companies.\u201d
So Trump\u2019s tweet may not be factually accurate, but it did provide the internet with the chance to take a break from worrying about the potential escalation of a trade dispute between two of the world\u2019s biggest economies and make some \u201cTariff Man\u201d memes.
(Note: The above tweet is from a parody account, not the actual news service of the North Korean government.)
The stock market took a nosedive Tuesday afternoon as investors started to reconsider the trade-war ceasefire that the White House claimed to have reached with China. Trump \u2014 er, \u201cTariff Man\u201d \u2014 made it clear that he\u2019s willing to keep using tariffs as a negotiating tactic if he doesn\u2019t reach a concrete deal with Beijing.
To recap: Trump agreed, during a working dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping, to hold off increasing tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on about $200 billion worth of Chinese products for 90 days, during which time the US and China would try to come to a bigger trade agreement and tackle major bilateral issues, such as intellectual property rights. In exchange, China would purchase some undetermined amount of US products.
On Monday, Trump touted the deal and claimed that China had agreed to reduce tariffs on US cars from 40 percent to zero. All this good news seemed to signal a real breakthrough, until it became clear that this agreement with China turned out to be shakier than originally advertised.
\u201cWe don\u2019t yet have a specific agreement on that, but I will just tell you, as an involved participant, we expect those tariffs to go to zero,\u201d Larry Kudlow, the National Economic Council director, said on a call with reporters Monday.
This lack of clarity has raised questions about whether this handshake agreement will do much to ease tensions with China. And Trump\u2019s aggressive 90-day timeline doesn\u2019t give Chinese and US officials much time to reach a consensus on complicated issues that have previously left the two sides at an impasse.
So Tariff Man, rather than saving America from a trade war, may have left more confusion in his wake.<\/p>\n