In what feels like a horrible case of deja vu, President Donald Trump said he will reimplement the destructive and nonsensical tariffs on some of the United States’ biggest trading partners beginning on Aug. 1, once again setting the country up for economic pain.
Canada became Trump’s latest tariff victim on Thursday night, after Trump posted the idiotic letter to Truth Social that he sent to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney informing him that the U.S. is placing a massive 35% tariff on Canadian imports.
The new tariff rate is higher than the initial 25% tariff Trump had placed on Canada, but later pulled a TACO, which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out, and exempted a number of those imports after economists warned the tariffs would cause economic disaster.
The poorly written, bizarrely capitalized, and lie-filled letter Trump sent to Carney looks similar to the other stupid letters Trump sent to a number of other countries this week informing them that on Aug. 1, he will put tariffs on goods they export to the United States.
Among the countries Trump sent letters to is Brazil, which Trump said will face a 50% tariff unless the country stops prosecuting former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Trump’s far-right and corrupt buddy. That tariff amounts to literal extortion, as Trump said he will try to damage Brazil’s economy unless its political leaders cave to his demands.
Trump also threatened to put tariffs on goods from smaller Asian nations, with rates that look eerily identical to the “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump announced in April, but paused because financial markets cratered amid fears that the new levies would decimate the economy.
The stock market now, however, has barely budged, as Wall Street bets that Trump will once again chicken out and pause the tariffs before they begin—as has been his modus operandi.
“Liberation Day: Markets tanked and recession forecasts soared when tariffs were announced. Today: Tariffs are back, almost identical. The economic lesson Trump forgot: Doing the same thing and expecting different results is … well, you know,” economist Justin Wolfers wrote in a post on X.
Ultimately, no one knows if Trump will actually implement any of the new tariffs he’s threatened to go into place. But if he does, inflation could spike, companies could collapse, and a recession could ensue, causing immense pain for Americans.
Let’s hope Trump pulls another TACO.