It Would Be Hard — To Be More Willfully Dense, Than John Hinderaker. He Cannot Read Trade Graphs, For Comprehension, Apparently.

Tonight, as a supposed deflection — from Trump’s loony tariff/trade wars (which even the WSJ has called the stupidest of foreign economic “policies” decision, in US history, BTW!), Hinderaker shows the world a chart of customs revenue — and notes that it was higher under Mr. Biden, than it was toward the end of Tangerine 1.0’s time.

Well… Duh.

That’s… stultifying, because from it, Hinderaker falsely infers that the NYT is “being mean” — in picking on Trump’s tariffs.

But Hinderaker admits that those revenues shot up under Trump, right after his tariffs 1.0. See image at right — he spiked customs revenue, but TANKED international trade for the US businesses. Idiot.

And Hinderaker admits these revenues then declined late in his term. [We all know he pulled the whole tariff idea about eight months after he started that lunacy, in 1.0. But it all takes a while to unwind through the supply chains.] Here’s how John (in an utter lie) puts his nonsense, tonight:

…So tariff [Ed. Note: No John, you show only CUSTOMS revenue in your chart!] revenue, on average, was higher during the Biden Administration than the first Trump administration. Were the newspapers hysterical about a trade war during Biden’s term in office? Maybe I missed it….

What a dipsh!t. No, John — they were NOT, because Mr. Biden GREW our international trade, and with it, CUSTOMS duties (your revenue bars), naturally also rose.

Pure increased economic activity is the source of the increase John foolishly decries. It was precisely the removal of tariffs, by Biden — and the stimulus packages he enacted, that drove the increase Hinderaker is complaining about here.

In fact, under Tangerine 1.0… our international trade levels WITHERED. Do see my pair of charts, above right (domestic US steel was particularly hard hit), due to his tariffs, after the initial shock spike from paying for freight already on board — inbound to the US.

What a dipshit. I strongly suspect this is less about stupidity on John’s part, and more likely… just willful, wholesale… lying.