Please don't break the site guidelines like this.

I'm not saying you owe the person in question better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think he's well aware that the reasons he is giving for his actions make no sense. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a plan, he's just lying about it.

As for the actions themselves, they're pretty much his standard operating procedure:

> I think I can get away with bullying these people, so I will

When he talks about the existing agreements being unfair, he means that we have leverage that we're not using. The proposed tariffs are proportional to the trade deficit because the trade deficit is a reasonable proxy for how invested that country is in its economic relations with the US. You can extort more from somebody who is heavily invested, and less from somebody who is lightly invested. It's a classic protection racket, just on a sliding scale.

He's trying to look ignorant because it's at least a better look than showing the malice that actually drives him.

Ever since the tariffs were first announced I've been trying to understand if there is any method to the madness.

There is sound reasoning behind the tariffs, and I can at least understand the motivations. However, to execute the vision behind the tariffs would be tantamount to severely contracting the American economy, and the voters would never agree to go hungry in order to militarily independent.

He knows what he's doing, but him and his ilk are openly lying to the American public because no one would ever agree to it.

Being an illiterate moron isn't fringe. It's quite commonplace. Educated and intelligent is fringe.

I think he knows exactly what he is doing. Him and his friends are making boatloads of money doing it.

Unfortunately, there's a number of folks that think otherwise and they're more than a fringe.

>Or is there a fringe number of folks that think otherwise?

If about 30 million people count as a fringe number, yes.

Illiteracy is common.

If social confirmation of your worldview is what you seek, you're certainly in the right place.