Trump creates another hero myth about himself, this time making his aides look like fools

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has invented another heroic myth about himself, this time making his own aides and staff look like ignorant fools who needed his tutoring to understand the basic functions of his own agencies in collecting import taxes.

The subject of his latest “lord story,” entirely fictional, is the tens of billions of dollars that Americans pay each month in new tariffs, thanks to his trade war against the world. According to Trump, “his people” couldn’t understand where the extra money was coming from.

“Our country is getting tens of billions of dollars and trillions of dollars, actually trillions of dollars in tariffs, you know all that. It’s been incredible. They say, ‘Why are we getting so much money?’ Last week they found $29 billion and couldn’t determine where it came from. I told them, ‘Check the tariff shelf,’ and they said, ‘How did you know where it came from?’” he said in a speech on August 14, in what appears to have been the first telling of the “tariff shelf” story.

Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at the Yale University Budget Lab and former top economist in Joe Biden’s White House, said: “Tariffs are taxes. When you raise them, you raise revenue.”

Tedeschi is among experts across the political spectrum, including those with substantial government experience, who said Trump’s implication that the new revenue is baffling officials at the U.S. Trade Representative, who drafts the language that implements the tariffs, U.S. Customs, which collects them from importers at ports of entry, and the U.S. Treasury, which tracks all incoming payments, makes no sense.

“Treasury, USTR and Customs staff fully understand tariffs,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who once headed the Congressional Budget Office and later was Arizona Sen. John McCain’s top economic adviser during his 2008 presidential run.

“I don’t know anyone who is surprised by the reality that new taxes generate new tax revenue,” said University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers.

The facts have not stopped Trump from telling the story. Again. And again. And again.

Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images

“The other day, they found $31 billion, $31 billion. ‘Sir, we found $31 billion and we’re not sure where it came from.’ A gentleman came in, a financier. I said, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ He said, “We don’t know where it came from.” I told him: ‘Check the tariff platform.’ ‘No sir, tariffs have not yet started in that sector.’ I said, ‘Yes, they did, they started seven weeks ago, check it out.’ He comes back 20 minutes later: ‘Sir, you’re right, it came from the tariffs. $31 billion,’” he told the Army’s top generals and admirals at a Sept. 30 meeting in Quantico, Virginia.

“They found $31 billion. They came to me and said, ‘Sir, we found $31 billion.’ They said, ‘We don’t know why.’ I said, ‘Was this a good find or a bad find?’ ‘It was a good find. It was a plus 31.’ We are used to finding -31, right, for the last 30 years. I told him: ‘Check the tariff platform.’ “Well, those tariffs haven’t taken effect.” ‘Yes, they did, they took effect two months ago. Check it out,’” he told Republican senators at a White House patio lunch last week in an increasingly embellished edition of the story. “He comes back two hours later and says, ‘Sir, you were right. We have an extra $31 billion… They took action sooner than we thought. You were right.'”

Trump White House officials did not respond to questions from News themezone. One official said Trump was using a “metaphor” and asked that questions be presented in writing, but then did not respond.

One of Trump’s favorite styles of falsehood as president has been a fictional account of his prowess in which he solves an intractable problem that has bedeviled experts in the field. The subgenre often features grown men crying out of gratitude. In their story, they almost always address him as “sir.”

In the “tariff shelf” version, Trump generally adds that the tariff money is paid by foreign countries, which is a lie. Tariffs are paid by American companies or individuals who import products from foreign countries. Those costs are then typically passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. In those cases where a company decides not to raise prices enough to recover the full amount of fees in order to maintain or increase its market share, that amount is effectively paid by the company’s shareholders and owners.

In fact, Trump began his claims about the mysterious tariff revenue in June, except in that version, it was congressional staff who were stumped by where the money came from, not his own agencies.

“Last night I got a call from Congress: ‘Sir, there’s a problem.’ I said, ‘What is this?’ “The money is pouring in. We don’t know how to account for it. “I said, ‘Look at the tariffs, $88 billion comes from tariffs,'” he told reporters on June 18 while showing off one of his new flagpoles he had installed at the White House.

It is unclear why Trump began claiming that there is something called a tariff “shelf.” The U.S. Treasury does not store cash on shelves in a building, and today most transactions are conducted electronically.

Trump began imposing tariffs by executive order almost immediately after taking office in January, despite language in both the Constitution and statute granting that power to Congress, claiming that several “emergencies” he has declared give him that authority. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a challenge to most of those tariffs next week. The ruling, when it comes, could also offer clues about how the high court will treat other extraordinary powers that Trump has claimed by citing emergencies.