First, if. Further, these tariffs are not "reciprocal." His formula includes trade deficits and other metrics which have nothing to do with his purported unfairness, and the inflationary fiat money system we have had since the collapse of Bretton Woods and the vestiges of the gold standard all but require money to flow out as other countries absorb some of the fiat as it gets churned out. Ending that process will likely mean even more price inflation as the consequences of money supply inflation hits harder at home. Nothing I have seen suggests Trump really understands any core economics, and just believes he can push everyone around to make magic happen. I won't be sad if it works out, but I have string doubts to say the least.
Second, other nations choosing self-destructive tariffs do not require us to join that policy any more than their socialized medicine requires us to do the same.
As for the tangent, I guarantee if my pessimistic predictions about Trump come true, the left and the mass media will call it more proof of "late-stage capitalism" and "market failure" because that is their only answer when things go wrong. Well, that and "reactionaries" if they have power and things go wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if the swamp wants such an outcome.
See, this is what I mean about most of my fellow lolberts not understanding strategy; you don't even know who your enemies are. The left - the real left, not the neoliberal political class - is actually happier with Trump than with Biden, though not by much, and with the exception of certain trade unionists, few of them will admit it. To hear them tell it, Biden and his ilk are the late-stage capitalists preventing the system from collapsing via "corporate welfare" (subsidies), shipping jobs overseas in order to maximise profit, keeping wages low, and manufacturing crises in order to coordinate price-gouging. The reason I brought up Zinn's book is because it supplies them with "facts" supporting the idea that price and wage controls work. Thus, they actually defend tariffs on principle, rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt as a strategic move like I just did.
Just so we're clear, they are the ones saying that we should have tariffs because everyone else does, not me.
The reason I know all this is that I still pop in on far-left blogs from time to time, and the way that they speak both of and to Democrats is profoundly telling (and hilarious). For example, according to them, the dems are a right-wing party, and moving further to the right as shown by their embrace of neocon warhawks like Dick Cheney. Does this mean that the GOP is moving to the left by embracing Tulsi Gabbard? Don't be silly, the GOP could be a communist party and the left would still insist it's far-right because it has to be (but enough about Jackson Hinkle's pet project). Strangely enough, shortly after my Marxist Muppet and shameless plagiarist of a former history professor (and Gabbard simp despite believing everything the legacy media says about Trump) publicly whined about some Democrat saying that he sounded like Hannity, I started seeing stink-pieces from Democrat pundits proclaiming that Republicans are secretly socialist, they've also finally begun to admit that Hitler was a socialist, and that's why socialism is bad. Unintentionally based.
The point of all this is that we need to pick our battles wisely, and pointing out the problems with tariffs is not the hill to die on. Let the disingenuous hacks in the legacy media do that. It's funny how they suddenly become economically literate when Trump does something that's actually stupid. The next four years are shaping up to be a repeat of the Summer of 2020, and it will escalate even further if enough people genuinely think that Trump will cause the system to collapse. It doesn't matter whether he does or not, because they won't just wait around for it to happen, they will help it along. Prepare accordingly.
!BBH