What's the matter with your nose?.

Dear Friends: Don the Con Trumpolethinskin might be too fucking stupid to realize this, but getting into a trade war is no different than cutting off your nose to spite your face!

I had the Perspective Research Department look into how tariffs are affecting the average American and they gave me three good examples courtesy of Steven Rattner, even though things haven't really heated up yet!

Since mid-February, when the Commerce Department first recommended imposing tariffs on imported metals, prices for steel in the United States have been rising sharply and are now 38% above where they stood at the end of 2017.

That may be good news for domestic companies that produce the metal, but for American companies that rely on steel as an input, higher prices will be felt. (Comparatively, steel prices in the United States are now more than 50% higher than in both Europe and China.)

Moreover, the tariffs could well have the counterproductive effect of costing more jobs than they save or create. That's because steel-using industries employ more than 10 times as many workers as steel-producing industries.

** 

None of our trading partners have taken the United States' moves lying down. For example, China has dramatically slowed its purchases of American soybeans, causing prices to drop by 15% in just one month.

Soybeans may not sound like an important product, but they are our largest agricultural crop, as well as our largest farm export. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr. Trump won eight of the 10 top soybean-producing states, including Missouri, Indiana, and North Dakota, all home to Senate Democrats targeted by Republicans in the midterm elections.

**

Add caption

 China is not the only country targeting a key American product. Europe, Mexico, and China have all announced 25% tariffs on a variety of American goods, notably including bourbon. It's surely not a coincidence that the principal American purveyor of bourbon is the Brown-Forman Corporation, the maker of Jack Daniel's. Brown-Forman has its headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, the home state of Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader.

Steven Rattner is the chairman and chief executive officer of Willett Advisors LLC. In addition, he serves as the economic analyst on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and is a contributing writer to the New York Times' Op-Ed page.