When Chaos Is the Only Strategy

Trump’s tariff brainwave — if we can even call it that — looks less like strategy and more like Elmer Fudd economics: point the shotgun, blast wildly, hope something good happens. Canada? Bang. China? Bang. Champagne? Sure, why not. Tariff today, maybe not tomorrow. Re-tariff next week. It’s not negotiation, it’s a man playing Calvinball with the global economy.

He claimed tariffs would reshore American manufacturing and extract concessions from other countries at the same time — two goals so fundamentally opposed you’d think he was trying to lose on purpose. Lower tariffs? No reshoring. Stay protectionist? No concessions. Either way, every company in the world now sees the U.S. as a riskier bet than before, and the memory of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff spasms will linger like a bad smell across global supply chains.

And what’s the real outcome? A confidence effect slammed into full reverse, tanked investment, and the U.S. looking like a flailing mess. If Trump’s true goal was to destabilize America’s credibility while creating markets ripe for insider profiteering, well… mission accomplished, Agent Orange.

Meanwhile, Musk — who once played the genius free market entrepreneur — is now whining for government tariffs and subsidies too, like a drunk guy pounding on the door he insisted he didn’t need. Both Trump and Musk are proof that if you build a tower of ego high enough, the fall is guaranteed and it’s always loud, stupid, and hilarious.

Confidence matters. Stability matters. Predictability matters. When America abandons those, it stops being the place companies want to invest — and starts being a sitcom rerun nobody wants to syndicate.