Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: The Tariffs Have Some Math

Welp

I do not want to write about the tariffs, because there is a pretty overwhelming consensus that they are bad, and that consensus strikes me as correct, so what can I add? “Trump Tariffs Wipe Out $2 Trillion From US Stock Market,” reports Bloomberg. “Wall Street analysts anguish over ‘Liberation Day,’” reports FT Alphaville. “You Can NOT Be Serious!,” writes my Bloomberg Opinion colleague John Authers.

Perhaps there is something interesting about the “reciprocal” tariff formula, which notionally tariffs countries based on the “unfair tariff disparities and non-tariff barriers” that they impose on US goods, but ...