During a world war, you cannot trade with your international “enemies.”
This level of tariffs is to discourage international dependency and trade as a prelude to war. Look who does not have a tariff.
This is not good policy - leading economists have written about this [1] as “…perhaps the worst economic own goal I have seen in my lifetime.”
[1] https://www.thefp.com/p/tyler-cowen-liberation-day-was-even
This is both the most rational and most depressing take I have seen yet.
As I understand it, there is a trade embargo on Russia, so there's no trade to put a tariff on.
You’d be wrong. The US imported 3.5 billion dollars of goods from Russia in 2024, and exported 500 million dollars of goods.
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia...
And recent trade data for context.
In 2018, U.S. goods imports from Russia totaled $20.9 billion, up 22.4 percent ($3.8 billion) from 2017, but down 22.1 percent from ten years ago.
I've seen some recently manufactured Russian plywood for sale in the US that would disprove that claim.
There is, and it’s much more than an unknown penguin island.