Comment by whatshisface

There has been a lot of speculation about why this is being done, given that even a young child could understand that a grocery store is not taking advantage of you when you exchange your money for goods. Some say that it doesn't need an explanation, because the President has so much power that caprice and a little bad advice from a cabinet member is all it takes. That is not a complete picture, though, because power in the US is spread out enough that while only the President needs a reason to do something, many others must have a reason to allow it.

Here's one idea for a "why are his supporters allowing this," sort of explanation. In the US, educated professionals hold way more importance than the global average, due to the US's status as an exporter of services. They tend to vote for liberal (in the European sense) policies, whether Republican or Democrat.

If you wanted to destroy liberalism in the United States, you would have to drastically reduce the importance of higher education and professional labor. This can be done by placing very high taxes on the import of goods and base resources, so that young people who would have become engineers have to become miners, loggers and machinists instead. While I do not think this is true (blue-collar workers do not live up to the ultraright's "noble savage" sort of fantasy about their preferences and are actually just like anyone else... but if you're an elite you don't know that firsthand), it sounds plausible that enough of the people who are important for a season might believe it, and support it as a plan to remake American culture, not in their image, but in the image of a fantasy they share.

This works together with the strategic need to decouple from trade with a country before invading them, dramatically increasing the number of opportunities for self-aggrandizement through the threatening of war, high-stakes diplomacy, negotiations over individual prices... which also offer some respite for elected officials who would otherwise take an unending beating in the news over consumer data.