America to pay hefty 'moron premium' thanks to Trump: Financial Times columnist

The United States is about to pay an economic price that Edward Luce for the Financial Times calls the "moron premium," he argued in an article published on Monday.

A sign of how far things have fallen on the right now, wrote Luce, is the constant appearances of failed former British Prime Minister Liz Truss to MAGA conventions — and Trump is somehow proposing a scheme even worse than that which got Truss kicked out of office faster than a head of lettuce could rot.

"Though I am no admirer, I feel cringing sympathy for Britain’s former prime minister whenever she tries to channel her inner Churchill," wrote Luce. "It is one thing to warn an audience there are only ten years to save the west; quite another to issue a call to arms to a row of empty chairs. But Truss should be better briefed. Maga hates the 'west', which ranks up there with 'ESG' and 'Latinx' as something liberal and therefore alien. Why on earth would they save it?"

"Trump’s magical thinking is far grander," wrote Luce. "He wants to finance tax cuts by declaring economic war on the planet. The theory is that the mountain of import duties he collects will more than pay for the tax cuts. Nobody believes him although most of his party pretends to. Trump has quite a bit more capacity for damage than Truss. The only place Truss harmed was her own country. Trump’s impact is global. But America is still his chief victim."

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Already, Trump has provoked a runaway trade war with China that threatens to destabilize international markets — none of which he apparently saw coming. It's a self-inflicted wound on par with Brexit, wrote Luce — and though Trump is trying to save face with a 90-day grace period in which all non-China countries will pay reduced versions of his tariffs, no one is counting on anything good to come of it.

"Investors are skeptical that Trump can negotiate anything serious with such a large number of countries within his 90-day pause window," wrote Luce. "That is roughly two lettuces worth of bargaining time. On average it takes years to wrap up a conventional bilateral trade deal. Even Trump’s renegotiation of Nafta with Canada and Mexico in his first term took more than a year. The odds that Trump’s trade war will resume are therefore high."

"Almost three years after Truss’s political suicide, Britain still pays a 'moron premium' on its debt," Luce concluded. "The cost to the US of Trump’s actions will last at least three years and nine months."