Leave it to Heritage to nit-pick a colossal mistake. This formula has no basis in theory beyond a two-country model where trade must be reciprocal by definition. In a large open economy, you would expect trade deficits with some countries and surpluses with others according to comparative advantge

Trump tariffs based on massive error, conservative think tank says The error over-inflates tariff rates by about a factor of four, AEI's economists say.

The formula used by the Trump administration to levy reciprocal tariffs contains a serious math error that over-inflates the impact by about a factor of four, per economists at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

(1) Rapid GE trade modeling returns for April 2nd tariffs.

We model: April 2nd tariffs + 25% on CAN/MEX imports + 20% on PRC imports + 25% on iron/steel/alum/cars.

Fig. shows total tariff by country. Avg. is 20.4%, about 10X pre-Trump rates.

What are US and foreign country impacts?

James Surowieki figured it out. Trade balance/imports

Energy Markets, Decarbonization, and Trade, Spring 2025

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Later the White House clarified that the president was referring to cutting 65% of funding at EPA, not 65% of staff. This is still significant but if it includes all the cuts and freezes made so far it's less onerous,especially compared to cutting 65% of staff

My take on the Continuing Resolution (CR) - in any difficult negotiation start by finding common ground. In US politics that often means Agriculture and Defense. Throw in a Congressional pay raise, bc everyone in Congress will vote for themselves.

The bipartisan budget proposal was about as plain as it gets. Yet Musk and Trump came out against it citing the overall cost but silent on what they would cut. Disaster relief? Farm support? Weapons or troops?

All of it is pretty basic, with the exception of pay raises, and will probably be approved by the new Congress and signed into law whenever the grandstanding ends.

So what's really going on? Grandstanding. Decrying deficits while insisting on a "clean' CR that keeps funding at current levels. Thats not cutting anything, it's preserving budget priorities.