What did Donald Trump do today?

He took two completely opposite positions on tariffs in the space of a single 24-hour period.

Trump has imposed new tariffs at an astronomical 50% rate on a range of Canadian goods. They went into effect at 12:01 AM today, and will raise the price for American consumers on auto parts, alcoholic beverages, medical supplies, and products made of essential raw materials like steel or wood. Canada is the United States' single largest and most economically integrated trading partner.

 

Predictably, Canada responded with dollar-for-dollar tariffs of its own, which will go into effect next month. These are targeted at products manufactured in critical swing states in the upcoming Senate elections. The Canadian economy is smaller than the United States', which would normally put them at a disadvantage in this kind of tit-for-tat response, but the Canadian public has rallied around the aggressive stance taken by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has been working to decouple the economic links between the two countries in favor of more stable trading relationships overseas. In fact, in a very real sense, Carney owes his current job to Trump: his Liberal Party was widely expected to lose in to the Conservatives in the 2025 elections, until Trump's first round of tariffs and taunts about annexing Canada as the "51st state" rallied voters around Carney.

As with most of the import taxes Trump has imposed on American consumers, it's not immediately clear that he has any legal authority to do so. Most of the tariffs he's tried to impose have been overturned in court, although with the inflationary damage already done to Americans' bank accounts.

But less than 24 hours before raising prices on Americans who buy Canadian goods, Trump took exactly the opposite tack on another trade issue. He said he was temporarily cutting tariffs on beef, and said he was doing so explicitly to lower prices for Americans. The cut was tiny relative to overall consumption—about three week's worth, and then only if those savings actually trickle down the supply chain all the way to grocery stores—but for once, he was correctly framing tariffs as something that raise prices for Americans.

At least, that was what his social media post on the subject said, and Trump is very often not the author of policy pronouncements that go out under his name. In person, when asked about it by reporters, Trump was much hazier, and wouldn't (or couldn't) even say what countries he'd be lowering beef tariffs on.

Why does this matter?

• It never gets any less stupid to start a trade war with your largest and most important economic ally. 

• Nothing that raises costs American consumers while hurting American participation in the world economy going forward is a good idea.  

• A few weeks of slightly cheaper hamburger probably aren't going to make Americans forget about all the other reasons why they hate the Trump economy.