Three-Point Shots, Vol. 3, No. 5: April 8, 2025
Trump doesn’t know what he is doing with his tariff regime. But he knows how to profit from it in power and treasure.
Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.
But first, your moment of Zen … Late-spring snow in a yard in Marfa on Saturday, April 5, 2025. Photo credit: David Marwitz.
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Quote of the Day:
“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
Field Marshal Óscar R. Benavides, former president of Peru.
1. The Tariffs Endgame
The tariffs announced by Donald Trump last Wednesday (“Liberation Day”) are, in the opinion of most all economists, so breathtakingly stupid that they risk cratering the U.S., and potentially the world, economy. Stock markets here and around the world seem to agree. Here are the major U.S. stock indexes in the 36 hours after Trump announced the tariffs:
And here is the trend line for stock exchanges in major economic powerhouses, this time since Trump took office. Check out those last couple days:
And the slide has continued into today. Economists estimate that Trump wiped $11 trillion of wealth off the face of the earth since he was inaugurated. In The Atlantic, James Surowiecki performed an exegesis of Trump’s previous statements about tariffs and trade deficits to divine a rationale for his tariff scheme:
Understanding Trump’s view requires no great interpretive skills, because his position on trade is a very simple one: If the U.S. has a trade deficit with another country, that means the U.S. is being “ripped off” (a phrase he has used many times in his political career). … for Trump, any trade deficit means that Americans are being played. And Trump hates few things in this world more than feeling that he’s been played.
Surowiecki’s explanation is as good as anyone’s. But whatever the “policy” rationale for the tariffs was, Trump is already figuring out how to make them work to accomplish his second-term project – amassing personal wealth and power.
The very capriciousness of the Trump tariffs – on the dirt-poor African country of Lesotho, for example, or the penguins in the Antarctic (although there is more to that than meets the eye) – suggests that U.S. trade policy will be jumbled and chaotic for a while. But Chaos is Trump’s middle name, and he is already thinking of how to exploit the confusion for his own benefit. Like Field Marshal Benavides, he is already plotting to reward his friends and punish his enemies.
CASE STUDY #1: The Big Three automakers realize that the auto parts tariffs on Canada and Mexico will drive up prices for their cars. They meet with the President to lay out their concerns. After they make a generous contribution to the “Trump Presidential Library,” the tariffs are swiftly reduced.
CASE STUDY #2: The Japanese send an urgent delegation to Washington to seek relief from ungainly tariffs. After several meetings, the delegation leader is ushered into the Oval Office, where President Trump offers to reduce the tariffs in exchange for concessions on regulatory obstacles to construction of a Trump Luxury Hotel in Tokyo.
Trump’s ideological fixation on tariffs may be incorrect and absurd, but it seems deeply held. Does anyone think, however, he won’t abandon it for a chance to pad his own pockets?
2. Measles
You will not be surprised to hear that the measles outbreak continues to spread unabated – 505 Texas cases now, according to the Department of State Health Services. Nationally, the total exceeds 600 cases across 22 states.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., came to Texas over the weekend to attend the funeral of a second Gaines County child who has died of measles. In a social media post, he encouraged use of the MMR vaccine, which had the dual effect of enraging the anti-vaxxer community he has cultivated for years while providing no comfort to the grieving families.
To its credit, Texas DSHS still advises that “the best way to prevent getting sick is to be immunized with two doses of a vaccine against measles, which is primarily administered as the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are highly effective at preventing measles.”
3. In Memoriam
Time marches on for all of us, and Your Humble Correspondent has reached that point in life where the obituaries hold more interest than, say, the society wedding notices or birth announcements. Such is the way of the world, but that last two weeks have still been a downer, as I have lost three good friends in that time.
Susana Aleman was the Dean of Students at the U.T. Law School from 1984 to 2006. I was a student there, and she probably learned her first key lessons in crisis management from my antics. A high point in our relationship was when she helped Paul Begala and me sue the Engineering School (successfully, I might add) for the return of a statue purloined by some engineering students. The full story of “Alec” deserves telling in the future – but not today.
Chuck Bailey was one of those public servants who give public service a good name. Chuck was a brilliant lawyer. After a long career in state government, most of which he spent as an invaluable adviser to Bob Bullock, Chuck became an author, sharing his love for Texas politics and political memorabilia.
Chuck and I stayed in touch as we both moved out of day-to-day politics. Hee was an early subscriber to this publication. He never liked or commented on my posts, instead writing thoughtful emails when he thought I’d got it wrong – thankfully, not often.
Carlton Carl was a giant of Texas progressive politics, working mostly behind the scenes. He lived in the space between journalism and politics, and excelled at both. He worled for Governor Preston Smith and House Speaker Price Daniel, Jr., but made more impact working with notables like Bob Bullock and Ann Richards. He also edited, proofread and served on the board of the Texas Observer during a challenging decade of its always-turbulent existence.
Carlton and I were part of a group of Austin political and public servant types – call us the “Unusual Suspects” – that celebrated New Year’s in Marathon each year beginning in the last 1990s. We frequently had adjoining rooms at the Marathon Motel, and enjoyed the ritual of sitting on the porch of our cabin in the mornings, grunting at each other and absorbing the energies of a new day.
May they rest in peace.
I also think trump and his billionaire bastards are working the rises and falls of the market to squeeze even more out of other's losses. All this while his congressional toadies look the other way because it's for the good of the country that we're gonna have after this evisceration is done. I'm running out of wondering what's next.
In a dream world, the resistance to Trump in Congress spreads and he can be removed from office. Ha, sure. But now the remaining Koch brother and his myriad corporations are suing, too, saying the president does not have the authority to tariff, congress does. Of course, Trump declared national emergency, which does not exist, to take the authority.
And sorry for the loss of your friends, too. I've been enduring the same thing. I'd known Carlton a long time, as well, and he helped me on many reporting trips to Washington through the years and pointed me in the right direction on a few things when I was writing "Bush's Brain." What he did for Martindale is pretty amazing, too.