Donald Trump fooled everyone. Behind the scenes of his “miraculous” tactics [OPINIA]
Likewise, the perfectly orchestrated announcement of the new tariff policy, celebrated in the White House Rose Garden as “Emancipation Day,” was a masterpiece of political PR.
The results after less than a year show that the waves of emotions were exaggerated. Friends and foes alike could spare themselves the strain of a racing heart rate. Trump fooled everyone.
There are essentially three issues that have led to the media and academic community misjudged Trump's tariff policy. Well, there are a few conclusions from this. The first is that Trump is not applying tariffs for economic reasons.
Protectionist tariff policies did not bring additional “manual workers” to the United States. The US trade balance deficit in the car market, which is so important to Trump, has even increased. People buy cars, not tariffs. And China is running its largest trade surplus in history — only now with different partners.
This ineffectiveness of customs policy also has its positive sides: contrary to the forecasts of many economists and almost all media, inflation has not increased. OECD June 2025 forecast [“Roczna inflacja bazowa wzrośnie do 3,9 proc. do końca 2025 r. z powodu wyższych cen importowych, ale oczekuje się, że w 2026 r. ulegnie ona złagodzeniu”] turned out to be groundless and raises doubts about the economic competences of this organization.
There are essentially three issues that have led to the media and academic community misjudged Trump's tariff policy.
1. Macroeconomic importance has been overestimated
The main error is a simple size relationship. U.S. Customs Revenues Increased Significantly Under the Trump Administration — with approximately USD 80 billion [285,5 mld zł, według obecnego kursu walut] in the last year of the Biden administration to approximately USD 260 billion. [927,8 mld zł] annually. It is politically visible and effective in terms of communication. However, from an economic point of view, this remains a small amount.
In relation to the total income of the United States, these incomes range between 5-7%. Compared to the nominal gross domestic product of over $30 trillion. [107 bln zł] this share is even smaller – 0.9 percent. Even assuming that two thirds of the duties were passed on to final prices, the impact on prices would be small.
Why? In an economy of this size, much stronger cost shocks are needed to change inflation dynamics: a sharp increase in energy prices, an expansive wage policy and a generous expansion of state fiscal programs. Trump's tariffs do not fall into this category.
2. Market dynamics offset the effects of tariffs
The second flaw in reasoning is more serious because it fails to take into account how markets function. Tariffs are never automatically passed on to consumer prices. They constitute costs in complex value chains – and are therefore subject to negotiation and adaptation.
Foreign suppliers partially give up their share of profits and – especially in highly competitive markets – they do not pass on tariffs to their customers, but collect money from suppliers or their own shareholders, giving up their margin first. The load is distributed along the chain and is not thoughtlessly passed on to end customers. There are large-scale avoidance effects.
A current analysis by the Bruegel Institute leads to the following conclusion: The U.S. auto trade deficit has increased as imports have increased and sourcing has shifted more to Mexico and other supplying countries.
Because the Bahamas were subject to a tariff of only 0.7%. , an island in the South Sea suddenly became an important transshipment point. EU exports to the Bahamas increased by USD 1.6 billion, or approximately PLN 5.7 billion [31 proc. ] in August 2025 compared to August 2024
Substitution effects occurred on the consumer side [zmiana struktury konsumpcji wynikająca ze zmiany relacji cen między dobrami, gdy jedno dobro relatywnie drożeje lub tanieje) przy utrzymaniu stałego poziomu użyteczności]. Private consumers and businesses, when they are not satisfied with the prices of current importers, switch to domestic products or alternative importing countries. This change has the effect of reducing inflation by reducing pricing power and reorganizing competition.
3. The announcements were greater than the actions
What is typical of Trump's actions is the fact that after crazy calculations that would result in maximum tariffs, no appropriate action was taken. Tariffs have been repeatedly postponed, significantly reduced, as after Trump's talks with Modi, or – as in the case of the Greenland tariffs – simply abolished.
Bruegel writes in his analysis that the effective customs burden is lower than the rates set by law and varies significantly depending on the origin of the goods: at the end of October 2025, it amounted to 37.7%. for China and 8.6 percent for the European Union, which is below the average effective tariff rate for the entire economy, which is 10.9%.
The conclusion is that Trump is using tariffs not for economic reasons, but as a political tactic. Since they seem to only affect “foreigners,” they are particularly well-suited for mass communication with his core constituencies.
What's more, the winner of tariff policy is not the American economy, but the president of the United States, whose business model is to attract attention. He aroused fear among his opponents and impressed his voters by activating the patriotic defense reflex. In this way, he strengthened his brand. Or as George W. Bush would say: mission accomplished.
