Stop Lying To Me About Trump’s Tariffs

Can people please stop talking complete, unmitigated claptrap on the subject of President Donald Trump, Mexican tariffs, and the U.S. economy? Is it really too much to ask?

The panic over the last few days about possible Mexican tariffs is even more ridiculous than the panic we had last month about the China tariffs — and that was bad enough.

Trump’s new tariff threat will send prices soaring for U.S. households, say the doomsayers. They’ll cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. They’ll crash the stock market. They’ll crash the economy.

Really? No doubt this is why the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.60% plunged 350 points in a panic on Friday. And the Dow’s performance since then through Wednesday? Up around 600 points.

Trump contrasts ‘tough’ Vance to ‘velvet’ Rubio during Board of Peace meeting

GOP rips FISA court for tapping ex-Biden ‘disinformation’ lawyer to advise on surveillance

Hunter Biden’s former ‘sugar brother’ lawyer drops big money on Swalwell’s campaign: ‘Biggest cheerleader’

Watch: DC Water Manager Admitted Deciding Agency Had Too Many Whites – DEI Fixed That But Also Covered DC in 240 Million Gallons of Raw Sewage

BREAKING: Former Prince Andrew Arrested in Epstein Case

DC Mayor Bowser declares emergency over Potomac sewage spill, asks for federal help

RNC sues to stop Democrats’ Virginia redistricting push

California avalanche that killed 8 is deadliest in state history

Inside ICE’s battle with local Democrats to convert warehouses into detention centers

Former Prince Andrew of the UK has reportedly been arrested and more top headlines

Strapped New Yorkers swarm chaotic Mamdani-inspired free grocery store pop-up: We’re ‘in pain’

Trump hits campaign trail in key battleground as race to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene heats up

Is DEI Dead? Jasmine Crockett’s Texas Senate Run Seems Like an Afterthought Following Colbert’s James Talarico Stunt

LATE BREAKING: Massive Guthrie Kidnapping Break – FBI Now Has Names and Photos of Suspects

Hiker dies of hypothermia after slipping off trail near summit of New York’s tallest mountain

The Standard & Poor’s 500 SPX, +0.54% is now higher than it was last Thursday, just before Trump shook his little fist at the Mexicans. And it’s not just the popular stocks such as Apple AAPL, +1.09% Netflix NFLX, +0.13% , and TSLA, +4.54% U.S. industrial stocks — as measured by the S&P 1500 Industrials index — are up 3%. The stocks of automobile components companies are up almost 5%. Small company stocks, often a useful barometer for the domestic, Main Street economy, are up about 1.5%, whether measured by the broad Russell 2000 RUT, -0.49% or the narrower, higher-quality S&P 600 index SML, -0.63% .

Sure, a few days’ stock market action doesn’t mean much long term. And the stock market isn’t America. But then again, apparently it was an Infallible Omen of Doom when the stock market fell on Friday. You see how that works?

Whether or not these tariffs are a sensible policy is another matter. But anyone claiming they will cost households a small fortune and wipe out vast numbers of jobs is relying on some heroic assumptions. Or, as non-economists call them: guesses.

U.S. imports from Mexico came to $372 billion last year, according to the federal government. So slapping a 5% tariff on them amounts to a federal tax hike of… er… $19 billion. Total federal taxes last year: $3.3 trillion. So we’re talking about a 0.6% tax hike.

But the Mexican peso USDMXN, +0.4490% has already reacted. It has weakened by 2.7% against the U.S. dollar DXY, -0.30% in a few days — wiping out more than half of that cost increase.