title: Trump’s tariffs fail to dent EU-US trade surplus
author: u/1-randomonium
contenttype: redditpost
publication: r/Economics
published: 2026-02-28T07:57:15+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/1rgwtrd/trumpstariffsfailtodenteuustradesurplus/
word_count: 10
Link: https://www.euractiv.com/news/trumps-tariffs-fail-to-dent-eu-us-trade-surplus/
Score: 173 | Comments: 13 | Subreddit: r/Economics
Top Comments
u/1-randomonium (13 pts):
Trump boasted that his tariffs would bring in trillions of dollars of revenue every year and that other countries had pledged over 10 trillion dollars in American investments. His cabinet also claimed that the American economy would grow at 6%.
In practice, the total tariff revenues last year were just a little over $200 billion, much of which will now have to be refunded. It's not clear if any of the investments pledged will actually materialise and Trump himself inadvertently admitted in one of his Truth social rants that Q4 GDP growth in 2024(when the impact of the tariffs was at its worst) was just 1.4%.
Meanwhile Trump's tax cuts and defence spending have ballooned the deficit and hurt job creation. He's built an economic time bomb that future Presidents will have to spend multiple terms defusing.
u/ICLazeru (5 pts):
I still don't understand the obsession with the trade deficit, and perhaps that's because it isn't rational?
In a developing nation one might strive for a trade surplus to draw in capital, but the US doesn't need that, the US is capital rich, perhaps the most capital rich nation in the world.
Not to mention, the US is also the source of USD, and US bonds, and related financial assets, which are often in high demand, which means that to some extent, yeah...the US can basically print money and spend it, at least more so than any other nation could. As long as the USD and US assets are in high demand, it appears that the US can keep spending...but if demand for those things drops...like if we were to alienate our closest allies and trade partners...then we might create a problem where before there wasn't one, or at least it was a much smaller one.