Trump screws himself with golf announcement

Brian Tyler Cohen (0:01)

Trump undermines his entire tariff regime, and I've got two interviews, Fox host Jessica Tarlov and the executive director of People Not Politicians, coming off his big map win in Missouri, Richard von Glahn. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

Not the smartest move for Donald Trump to make this announcement at the Irish Open that he attended this weekend.

SPEAKER_2 (0:22)

Possibly take the tariffs off of Irish whiskey. And I said, on behalf of the United States of America, I am going to take the tariffs off of...

Brian Tyler Cohen (0:39)

So that's Trump announcing the removal of the 15% tariff on Irish whiskey. And the full unfiltered explanation, when asked why, is that, quote, everyone's been bugging me to do it. That's the entire policy rationale, not a trade deficit calculation, not a national security review, just some people at a golf tournament bugged him about it, so he waived a tariff on an entire country's signature export at a trophy ceremony. And this might seem inconsequential, but it completely undercuts the entire stated justification that Trump has built around these tariffs for the last year and a half, these grossly unpopular tariffs. Remember, we have been told the tariffs are about national security. We've been told they're about fixing decades of unfair trade deficits, that they're strategic leverage to bring manufacturing back to the United States of America, to punish countries that take advantage of us, to fix a rigged global trading system over and over again. We hear all of these excuses. That's the pitch. And then the guy who's supposedly waging this, this careful calculated economic war struts up to a podium at a golf tournament and says he's ending a tariff because attendees quote wouldn't stop bugging him about it. And by the way, this isn't even the first time that we've seen this exact pattern from Trump. Back in April, he gave the United Kingdom a tariff break on Scotch right after King Charles and Queen Camilla visited the White House. And how did Trump describe that decision? He posted, quote, The King and Queen got me to do something that nobody else was able to do without hardly even asking. Again, this wasn't after a careful review of our trade deficit. This wasn't in exchange for reciprocal concessions. This was the King and Queen visiting, asking Trump nicely, probably appealing to his ego, and Trump changing federal trade policy on the spot as a personal favor.

That is what it looks like when you have a president who hands out favors to whoever happens to be standing in front of him while he's jacked up on golf dopamine.

And think about what that actually means for how seriously we should take any of the stated justifications behind this entire tariff regime.

If tariffs were actually calibrated economic policy, if they were actually built around trade deficits and reciprocity and national security, any of the things we've been told, then removing one wouldn't hinge on how much a crowd cheers when you announce it live at an award ceremony. Real trade policy doesn't work like that. Real trade policy isn't decided by whichever industry group happens to have lobbied Trump recently, or whichever foreign leader last bestowed upon him a gold trinket, or whichever golfer happened to be in his ear last weekend. But increasingly, that is exactly how Trump navigates this whole process. That is exactly how all of this is being run. And I think this is worth remembering every single time this administration rolls out some new tariff, but dresses it up in the language of some grand 4D chess strategy. Because we now have Trump's own words on camera at a trophy ceremony, telling us the truth about what he's doing. These decisions come down to nothing more sophisticated than his golf buddies asking for a favor and him announcing the carve out to applause.

And meanwhile, in the United States, we've got some auto workers somewhere who lost their job to a tariff driven supply chain disruption, or some family paying hundreds or thousands of extra dollars per year in tariff inflated grocery prices, who might like to know that on the other side of the world right now, you've got an Irish golf tournament crowd who got their tariff lifted because they clapped loud enough and asked the right guy at the right trophy ceremony to lobby the president.

Something to think about when you're deciding who cares about you and who is looking out for themselves.

Next up are my interviews with Fox's Jessica Tarlov and the executive director of People Not Politicians, straight off of their win in Missouri on that map dispute, Richard von Glahn.