From the NYT today, Trump really does believe tariffs are a silver bullet:
>>>President Trump’s approach to tariffs has unsettled many corporate leaders who believed he would use the levies as a negotiating tool.
As it turns out, he sees them as an end in themselves. . . .
For corporate America, including some major donors, the shock of Mr. Trump’s second term is that it turns out he really does believe the thing he’s been saying publicly for 40 years: Foreign countries are ripping America off, and tariffs are a silver bullet for America’s problems. When he says that “tariff” is the
most beautiful word in the dictionary, he means it.
To Mr. Trump, tariffs are not merely a negotiating tool. He believes they will make America rich again. And they combine two of his favorite features of the presidency: They are a unilateral power that he can turn on or off on a whim, and they create a begging economy, forcing powerful people to come before him to plead for mercy.<<< (emphasis added)
President Trump’s approach to tariffs has unsettled many corporate leaders who believed he would use the levies as a negotiating tool. As it turns out, he sees them as an end in themselves.
www.nytimes.com
This is just my best guess, but it seems that Trump has an antiquated view of economic issues based on his experience as a real estate developer. He seems to be clueless about how modern economies operate.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is probably invoked too often, but sometimes it just fits.
>>>The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low
ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability. . . . Some researchers include a
metacognitive component in their definition. In this view, the Dunning–Kruger effect is the thesis that those who are incompetent in a given area tend to be ignorant of their incompetence, i.e., they lack the metacognitive ability to become aware of their incompetence.<<<
en.wikipedia.org
