It really takes a wildly dishonest administration to declare that trade imbalances are "tariffs" placed on the USA by other nations. And I was defending Trump's tariffs this entire time! That is, until I found out his claimed tariff numbers were complete lies. This has been confirmed by China, Taiwan, EU countries and many more. Trump's touted "tariff" numbers are all based on trade deficits, not tariffs. In other words, Trump is saying that since Americans buy more stuff from China than China buys from the USA, the imbalance is therefore a "tariff" imposed by China. I had no idea of the level of economic illiteracy that's now being demonstrated by Trump's people. Next, they will probably call deficits "premiums" or something similarly stupid. Sadly, we've arrived at the point in history where the administration in charge of the nation doesn't know what words mean.

Now I'm getting really angry with the Trump team. They lied to us about tariffs. It turns out that their claimed "tariff" numbers charged by other countries aren't tariffs at all. They are trade imbalances, not tariffs. Trump's people are just calling them tariffs, which is wildly dishonest and deceptive. China isn't actually charging the USA a 67% tariff, if turns out. It's all B.S. Here's the real way in which these "tariffs" were calculated: