Press Watch

08/01/2025

I’ll start with the good news: By and large, the mainstream media is no longer letting Trump get away with calling his new slate of tariffs “reciprocal” — when there’s nothing vaguely reciprocal about them. They are unilateral, and arbitrary, and massive.

Also good news: Many journalists are expressing skepticism about the devastating effect these tariffs are likely to have on both the global and domestic economies.

The bad news is that even the most skeptical coverage still treats the tariffs like some sort of serious, if flawed, policy move by Trump — when in fact they are the irrational and capricious product of Trump’s delusional thinking.

And some outlets are actually hailing Trump as victorious, and trumpeting his vindication over pessimistic economists.

The tariffs are not a rational response to economic conditions.

They represent a massive and destructive disruption to the world’s economy that almost no one but Trump thinks is a good idea. (Even the sycophants who support everything Trump does can’t really articulate any good reason for them.)

And he thinks it’s a good idea because he is clueless about how the economy works – including about how tariffs work – while he delights in arbitrary expressions of his power.