Jamelle Bouie writes:

The fundamental truth of Donald Trump is that he apparently cannot conceive of any relationship between individuals, peoples or states as anything other than a status game, a competition for dominance. His long history of scams and hostile litigation — not to mention his frequent refusal to pay contractors, lawyers, brokers and other people who were working for him — is evidence enough of the reality that a deal with Trump is less an agreement between equals than an opportunity for Trump to abuse and exploit the other party for his own benefit. For Trump, there is no such thing as a mutually beneficial relationship or a positive-sum outcome. In every interaction, no matter how trivial or insignificant, someone has to win, and someone has to lose. And Trump, as we all know, is a winner.

This simple fact of the president’s psychology does more to explain his antipathy to international trade and enthusiasm for tariffs and other trade barriers than any theorizing about his intentions or overall vision. It certainly is not as if he has a considered view of the global economy. It is not even clear that Trump knows what a tariff is.

This isn’t a dig. The president genuinely seems to think of tariffs as fees that foreign countries pay to the United States. “We have massive Financial Deficits with China, the European Union, and many others,” he wrote on his Truth Social website on Sunday. “The only way this problem can be cured is with TARIFFS, which are now bringing Tens of Billions of Dollars into the U.S.A.” Here, you also see his related belief that a trade deficit is an actual absence of funds, akin to a negative balance in a bank account.

“I spoke to a lot of leaders — European, Asian — from all over the world. They’re dying to make a deal, but I said, ‘We’re not gonna have deficits with your country,’ ” the president told reporters on board Air Force One over the weekend. “We’re not gonna do that, because to me a deficit is a loss. We’re gonna have surpluses, or at worst we’re gonna be breaking even.”

Of course, a trade deficit is not a loss any more than it is a loss when you, as a consumer, spend your hard-earned cash at a restaurant or a movie theater or a grocery store. When American businesses buy raw materials from foreign countries to make their own products — when they buy finished products and sell them on their shelves — they aren’t incurring a loss. They are exchanging currency for something of value, which they will go on to use or sell for a profit. As a statement of economic policy, Trump’s pronouncement makes no sense. But as an expression of his zero-sum instinct, of his desire to dominate, it is perfectly coherent. [Continue reading…]