Donald Trump is, at his core, a big-government politician with profoundly misguided views on economics and the federal budget. He’s a more socially conservative Elizabeth Warren, which is to say he’s a 1980s Democrat. Neither he nor Warren understands that the debt limit is a feature of the Constitution. It exists to protect Americans from a profligate government run by people like them. Short of a constitutional amendment, there’s no such thing as “scrapping the debt limit”—at least not in the way that people imagine. The need for congressional approval of borrowing is built into the Constitution. Only Congress has power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. If you try to “scrap the debt limit,” then the new inherent debt limit is the current amount of federal borrowing. If you indefinitely pause or authorize an unlimited debt limit, then you’re in clear violation of the Constitution. Congress can’t simply repudiate one of its constitutional obligations (certainly not in such a direct and obvious way).

First declare a fake “emergency.” Then announce “reciprocal tariffs,” using a nonsensical metric. Then hand out subsidies to benefactors harmed by the tariffs. Then blame companies for the economic malaise the government caused and impose price controls. This is the playbook.

A trade deficit happens whenever you use money to buy something. This is not a loss. When you buy a good or service, you get something of value in exchange for money. Before money evolved, people bartered, and there were no trade deficits. They are a feature of a currency system.

“Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!” —Frédéric Bastiat