President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One on April 11, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. “I know what the hell I’m doing!”That boaster-in-chief Donald Trump would say something like this is not surprising in the least. With his taking the wheel of a healthy economy and driving it headlong toward a cliff, that a single American can still believe him — now that is a surprise.At the core of the president’s trade agenda is his “gut” feeling that if a country sells the US more goods than it imports, it is by definition “ripping us off.” He believes that a trade deficit with foreign countries increases the US budget deficit. He thinks that by imposing tariffs, he forces exporting nations to send money to the United States Treasury.Every single one of his beliefs is dead wrong.Madagascar, for example, is a poor African island nation that exports vanilla to countries all over the world, including the United States. It imports very little in expensive American goods because, as mentioned, it is poor. American cooks get a useful ingredient in recipes, and farmers in Madagascar get useful foreign revenue. There is no “ripping off” going on.Second, there is no relationship between a country’s balance of trade and its internal finances. It’s entirely possible to have almost no exports and have a budget surplus, which i