The writer is the junior US senator for Connecticut

Economists and pundits have spent the last two weeks frantically trying to decode what President Donald Trump’s ultimate aim is with tariffs. Last week’s spectacular flip-flop, in which he paused the majority of them for 90 days, came after the White House had spent days insisting the tariffs were not up for negotiation but were instead a long-term strategy to help revitalise the US industrial base and bring back jobs. However, there is a simple reason that Trump’s shortlived tariffs make little economic sense: they are not designed as economic policy but as a means to compel loyalty to the president. 

When combined with smart domestic industrial policy, tariffs can help to protect American jobs and goods. But these chaotically designed blanket global tariffs are not accomplishing anything other than threatening to send prices skyrocketing and destabilising the global economy. This makes sense because Trump’s goal seems to be to impose economic chaos, requiring the leads of industry to come running to him to plead for relief.