Trump's new tariffs are not a mistake. They are extortion

Editor's note: Today's edition of the Editorial Board is for subscribers only. It's thanks to you that any of this is possible. Without your generosity and continued support, politics in plain English for normal people and the common good would still be just an idea I had eight years ago while working at the American Library Association. From the bottom of my heart: thank you thank you THANK YOU! And I hope you will consider a tip. Thanks! --JS

The last round of tariffs was not only vastly unpopular but completely illegal, according to the US Supreme Court. A sane president would back off, vowing never to repeat the same mistake. Yet this week, Donald Trump announced a new round of tariffs on more than 60 trading partners, including Canada, which is subject to import taxes as high as 50 percent.

Lots of smart people will spent lots of time sifting through the president's reasons, but I think all of them will eventually conclude that his reasons are utter nonsense, and that Donald Trump's only true motivation is his junkie need to show he's One Special Boy.

Indeed, a sane president would determine for himself that where he is now – in the depths of unprecedented unpopularity, with a party on the brink of "the end days" – was caused by his decision, in April 2025, to implement a ruinous tax regime. He would say to himself: "A tax that unpopular and that illegal was a no good, very bad idea, and I should never do it again."

And yet.

It's tempting to call Trump insane, but I suggest we think of the intent as being faithful to the result, which is to say that his tariffs were a statutory and constitutional crime, and that crimes are what criminals do. Stop looking for normal democratic political behavior from a man who will never allow himself to be held accountable to normal democratic politics.

Donald Trump is an outlaw in the purest sense of the word and his presidency is a gangster presidency. The question isn't why he's implementing a new round of taxes despite them being unpopular and illegal. The question is what he hopes to gain by breaking the law.

For most of his second term, the answer to that question was bribes. Corporations and world business leaders lined up to pay him off in exchange for lifting punitive levies. All should be sanctioned or prosecuted by future administrations, but that's something to discuss later.

From now until the congressional elections, the answer will be more ominous. As we draw closer, I expect Trump to suggest, or allow it to be suggested, that America has a choice: the easy way or the hard way. We can choose the Democrats and keep feeling the burden of high, criminal taxes, or we can choose the Republicans and relieve ourselves of that burden.

In other words, Trump's tariffs are a protection racket, which Wikipedia defines as:

a racketeering scheme, usually perpetrated by a criminal organization, that coerces payments on a regular basis from an individual or group in exchange for agreeing to not harm them (or for purportedly "protecting" them). ... The payments are called "protection money" or a "protection fee". An organized crime group determines an affordable fee by negotiating with each of its payers to help ensure a consistent and punctual payment. ... Due to the frequent implication that the racketeers may contribute to harming the target upon failure to pay, the protection racket is generally considered a form of extortion.

The worst part is that voters don't have to be explicitly aware of the fact that their gangster president is extorting them for them to feel the corrupt consequences of his extortion. For all his talk about Democrats being communists, Trump's real enemy has always been faith in democracy. It's probably the last thing that truly threatens him now that he's above the law, thanks in part to the Supreme Court. If Americans still believe there's a point to voting, they will. That's why his administration is doing what it can to salt the earth of public trust.

The mind reels at all the examples of sabotage but the one that comes immediately to mind is this: the CDC's website says, in the section about "Autism and Vaccines," in a post dated July 22, 2026, that "the claim 'vaccines do not cause autism' is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism."

The above appears to be an "update" of a page posted about seven months ago that was worded the same or similarly. The "reason" is unclear, except to bring renewed attention to antivax propaganda. (I am not going to dignify the lies here by deconstructing them. They're lies.) Anyway, the point is not to inform and educate, but to decimate public trust. What happens when fear and superstition about vaccines moves from the margins of society into the halls of power, in this case the CDC? This, for instance, per the AP's reporting today:

Again, decimating public trust of vaccines is just one example of a gangster president's goal of decimating public trust in all forms of democracy. (Good public health is one form.) Without trust, the regime need not suppress individual liberty, as individuals doubt themselves so much that they suppress themselves. Robert F Kennedy never says "don't get vaccinated." He merely repeats the lie that vaccines cause autism, achieving the same goal.

Bottom line is the power of a gangster president cannot endure if the people he seeks to dominate and control believe in themselves and in their inalienable right to manifest their collective destiny. I don't think it's a coincidence that Trump is implementing this new round of tariffs months after the Supreme Court deemed the first round illegal. It is certainly not a "mistake," and he is not insane, as he does not answer to normal democratic politics. In the beginning, tariffs were leverage over elites, an inducement to bribery. Now they are leverage over everyone else. Nice democracy you have here. Shame if anything happened to it.