No one, except for Trump and his billionaire Commerce Secretary, believe trade wars are a good idea.  For those in business, trade wars are often catastrophic.  Cue Harley Davidson, the largest US manufacturer of motorcycles, who just announced that THEY ARE MOVING MANUFACTURING OUT OF THE US due to Trump’s import tariffs on steel and Europe’s retaliatory tariffs against American motorcycles..  The tariffs are adding an additional cost of $2,200 PER MOTORCYCLE, or about $100 million per year.  This is why trade wars are stupid.

In general, companies are rational (when it comes to math, anyway).  If an outside force adds a cost, companies will look to immediately neutralize that cost.  The problem with motorcycles, as in other manufacturing, is that net margins are relatively thin.  Adding $2,200 in cost to a motorcycle puts the price of that motorcycle outside of the ability of many customers to buy, and Harley can’t afford to absorb.  Result?  Trump is accomplishing precisely the opposite of his stated goal of increasing manufacturing jobs in the US.  His stupidity is destroying jobs by the thousands.

And the invertebrates in Congress just lie there, doing nothing.