Blanket tariffs to cure trade deficits do not make sense. For example we can’t grow cocoa beans here, but Trump put a 20% tariff on the Ivory Coast, a predominantly agricultural country which is the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans. We are one of the world’s largest consumers. IC has a population of 29M. They can never buy enough of our products to cure our trade deficit with them. Switzerland has no tariffs on American products, but a population of only 9M. They can’t buy from us as much as 340M Americans can buy from them. There are numerous other examples like this.

The purpose of tariffs is to protect domestic industries from unfair foreign competition, not to cure trade deficits. The problem here is an administration which has no knowledge about economics.