He’s not executing some exquisite theory; he’s running around naked in a diner and calling it ‘art.’

In his post distinguishing between different types of tariff, Michael defends Donald Trump’s spastic weekend by describing his threats as “a species of negotiation.” He writes:

It was never clear when they would be implemented to start. And the White House used telling language about “leverage” in its fact sheet announcing the policy. In less than a day or two, Mexico has already agreed to move some troops to the border and to open up a series of further talks with Secretary of State Rubio. Whatever this is, it’s not about fundamentally changing economic relations between Mexico and the United States, and so should not be judged on that scale.

“Whatever this is” is about right. It wasn’t diplomacy. It wasn’t economic policy. It wasn’t even hardball. It was caprice. By threatening Canada and Mexico as he did, Trump didn’t teach the world a lesson in focused statecraft; he ran around naked in a diner waving his arms in the air, and decided after the fact to call the performance “Art.” I will grant Michael’s asseveration that Trump’s decision was “not about fundamentally changing economic relations between Mexico and the United States.” But that does not make it virtuous or worthwhile, it does not make it “negotiation,” and it most certainly does not recommend it as an example of the “prudence and statesmanship” that he believes tariffs can represent when sedulously applied.

Ultimately, Michael sees a deliberate logic to Trump’s behavior — a logic that he hopes will persuade Americans of the value of tariffs as “tools like any other tax.” I disagree. Certainly, Trump’s actions caused reactions. But that, being inevitable in almost all circumstances, doesn’t tell us anything of use. What Trump did on Saturday was akin to a person walking into a bank, pulling out a gun, informing the teller that there is nothing she can do to prevent a hostage situation, and, having created a crisis, only then seeing whether he could use the situation to negotiate a couple of points off his mortgage rate. Yes, one can detect an impetus and a consequence amid the pandemonium, but that doesn’t change the fact that, from start to finish, the whole thing was a chaotic game that had no rules and only one possible outcome. Whatever had happened here, Trump was going to claim victory — which, quite obviously, makes his decision impossible to judge in a meaningful way.

I comprehend the desire to explain away the president’s conduct — especially if, like Michael, one is worried that it will damage the reputation of tariffs among the general public. I also think that it’s a futile exercise. Trump holds so many positions at the same time — and his stated aims remain so malleable and so vague — that any coherent justification ends up being rendered unfalsifiable at best and meaningless at worst. Over the last ten days, Trump has simultaneously promulgated the idea that (a) tariffs are wonderful, beneficial, imperative tools that ought to be used to fix our “trade deficit,” to ensure that more goods are Made in America, to make us as rich as we were in the 1890s (?), and, ideally, to replace the more than two trillion dollars that are brought into the Treasury each year by the income tax, and (b) that tariffs are so economically destructive that the mere threat of them — even on a limited scale — is sufficient to advance the interests of the United States. Michael contends that this doesn’t matter because not all tariffs have the same purpose. But that’s Michael’s view, not Donald Trump’s. Both as a general matter, and during this particular adventure, Trump has flitted seamlessly between his two positions, blending them at will. It is others, not Trump, who have post-rationalized and created patterns from his moves. On Friday, when he announced his plan, Trump said that there was “nothing” that those affected could do to prevent it from going into effect, and that the only people who opposed it were “controlled by China, or other foreign or domestic companies.” “Anybody that loves and believes in the United States of America is in favor of Tariffs,” Trump proposed: “They should have never ended, in favor of the Income Tax System, in 1913.” Now, having delayed the order, Trump is claiming that he never wanted those tariffs, and that he got what he wanted all along. I understand why Trump did this. I’m not, however, obliged to take it seriously.

Its chronic unfalsifiability aside, this was a ridiculous way for an American president to behave on the world stage. I have no issue whatsoever with the United States using its leverage to achieve concrete national goals, but there is a profound difference between the government deploying a discrete tool to effect a discrete outcome (as with Colombia) and the government deploying a nebulous tool in the hope that doing so might prompt others to rush scared and confused to the negotiating table. Such an approach becomes even more ridiculous when one of the countries being targeted in this manner is Canada. Not Iran. Not China. Not Colombia. Not even Liechtenstein. Canada: our peaceful neighbor to the north, with which we have a detailed, congressionally ratified trade agreement that was negotiated, signed, and touted by . . . Donald Trump. As examples of his “negotiating” category, Michael lumps “tariffs on Mexico and Canada” together. But this only demonstrates the absurdity of the ploy. If, as Michael argues, “tariffs have discrete ends as policy, and should be judged by whether they achieve them,” one would expect the tariffs in question to be carefully tailored to each situation, and for the ends in question to be clear to the lay reader. Clearly, this was not the case. Why, as Michael complains, do critics of tariffs “denounce government planners” and reject the exquisite subtleties that the advocates of trade wars like to proffer? I’ll give you one reason: Because, apparently, those government planners cannot distinguish between Mexico and Canada.

Ultimately, Michael euphemistically contends that the ploy worked as “a simple diplomatic negotiation.” As evidence of this, he assiduously ignores Canada, and observes instead that “Mexico has already agreed to move some troops to the border and to open up a series of further talks with Secretary of State Rubio.” But what, other than that the United States is stronger than Mexico, is that supposed to prove? I, no doubt, would agree to certain things if my neighbor kidnapped me at knifepoint, but that would still be the wrong way to settle a dispute over our mutual fence or his overhanging tree, and any “agreement” that resulted from the endeavor would boast the character of an extracted confession. As instruments of diplomacy go, this one had all the finesse of an earthquake. There are other, better ways to achieve our national goals.

Why does this matter? Well, for one thing, it matters because the president is not constitutionally permitted to behave this way — and for good reason. As with declarations of war, the Constitution grants the power to levy duties to Congress, not to the president. Over time, Congress has delegated some of this power to the president, on the grounds that, from time to time, the United States will face emergencies that require an immediate response. Personally, I do not believe that this delegation is permissible under the original meaning of the Constitution, or that the laws in question are written in a way that satisfies the doctrinal restrictions that the Supreme Court has imposed. But, whether I’m right or wrong about that, it seems clear that the issues that were at stake here do not warrant an exemption from the norm. The law that Trump used to threaten Mexico and Canada requires as its prerequisite that there be an “unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.” One can make the case that fentanyl from Canada is a “threat” and that the border with Mexico is insecure, but, given that these problems have obtained for more than a decade, one certainly cannot contend that they are “unusual” or that they are “extraordinary,” or that the use of tariffs to solve them could only be achieved in haste by the president, rather than left to the customary deliberations of the legislative branch. For a while, I expect, the public will remain indulgent of Trump, but that will not always be the case, and, when sentiments change, so too will the view of tariffs, which, despite the best efforts of those who would project nuance onto the president’s face, will come once again to be seen as rusty and blunt instruments, wielded in anger by the myopic and the vain.