👉 By now we have all figured out that the „Tariffs charged to the US“, which serve as the basis of, or justification for (, or whatever of) Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs were calculated as the U.S. trade deficit with that country divided by that country’s exports to the U.S.
👉 What I, and from what I understand most other economist, have thus far not quite been able to grasp is, where this magic formula comes from.
👉 One explanation, however, is as simple as it is disturbing:
💥 Dominic Preston (The Verge) points out (here) „that if you ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok for an “easy” way to solve trade deficits and put the US on “an even playing field”, they’ll give you a version of this “deficit divided by exports” formula with remarkable consistency.“
👉 Are Trump’s tariffs really based on a recommendation by major AI chatbots? I have to admit that with this administration I cannot dismiss this ridiculous claim simply out of hand.
Trump’s new tariff math looks a lot like ChatGPT’s
