"Reality is starting to puncture the Trump administration's fantasy world in which tariffs are paid by other countries and 'Trade Is Bad.' How much longer will the Administration maintain the charade of pretending that tariffs are helping American businesses and consumers." #QotD

"Reality is starting to puncture the Trump administration's fantasy world in which tariffs are paid by other countries and 'Trade Is Bad.' Roughly a year after Trump gleefully launched a trade war with the promise that it would be 'good and easy to win,' it is now increasingly obvious that the president and many of his top economic advisors oversold the benefits and underestimated the costs of trade policies that have caused America to clash with not just Canada and Mexico, but China, Japan, Europe, and other major trading partners...
    "Most studies of Trump's ... trade policies have found economic damage. Tariffs are draining $1.4 billion out of the U.S. economy every month, according to a comprehensive review published in March by a trio of economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. New jobs created in steel and aluminium manufacturing have come at a steep price, and the trade deficit that Trump vowed to reduce has continued growing...
    "Facing [a] mounting pile of evidence, the Trump administration is now quietly pivoting away from the "easy to win" framing. Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, tells Bloomberg that the economic pain caused by tariffs is the bitter pill that must be swallowed to improve the economy in the long run...
    "Is all this merely a long series of bitter pills that must be swallowed, or is it an indication of a failing set of trade policies? It's unclear how much longer the Administration will maintain the charade of pretending that tariffs are helping American businesses and consumers, but this week seemed to show that the mask is starting to slip." 

~ Eric Boehm, from his post 'The Trump Administration Is Finally Admitting That Trade Wars Aren't Easy to Win'