As former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote on X, “This is to economics what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science.” The Trump formula was silly and deceptive, but it was also a perfect expression of his view that trade deficits are evidence that America is being ripped off. The sole reason you would equate a trade deficit with a tariff rate is because you think that trade deficits exist only as a result of trade barriers or other manipulative activity. In fact, that’s exactly how a White House official explained the reasoning: “The model they used is based on the concept that the trade deficit that we have with any given country is the sum of all the unfair trade practices, the sum of all cheating.” And that’s exactly what Trump thinks. So it’s no surprise that, as The Washington Postreported today, Trump personally decided to use that formula, instead of an approach that would have actually targeted high trade barriers.