US donald trump tariffs

This brilliant small business owner gets trade deficits so much better than Trump and it’s required reading for Magas everywhere

John Plunkett. Updated April 8th, 2025

Everyone who knows anything about tariffs knows why Donald Trump is wrong – so wrong – to take the world to the precipice of a devastating global trade war in the name of Making America Great Again.

But while Magas are many things, they are not necessarily majors in economics, which is presumably why he retains all the support that he does (at the time of writing).

But if anyone needed a totally on the button and easy to understand explanation of why a trade deficit is not necessarily a bad thing (we’re looking at you, Magas) look no further than this small business owner who took a moment to explain on Twitter.

And it went viral for reasons which will presumably become obvious.

And that post by @rthomas86 in full …

‘I own a small dessert business. My business has a 100% trade deficit with the grocery store. I’m always buying from them, and they’ve never once bought anything from me.

‘Now, of course, I take products I buy from the grocery store, turn them into delicious baked goods, and make a 50%+ profit, while the grocery store is running on 2-4% profit margins, but WE HAVE A TRADE DEFICIT! They’re ripping me off with their low, low prices, because they NEVER buy anything from me!

‘Of course, the alternative is for me to grow, harvest, thrash, grind, then finely mill all of my own flour, including into the various mixes of flour that I use for various products (cake flour, bread flour, all-purpose, etc…), maintain and milk a dairy cow, churn my own butter, make that milk into heavy cream, yogurt, sour cream, condensed milk, and evaporated milk, etc…grow cacao, and then turn into all the different kinds of chocolate and baking cocoa… grow and harvest sugar cane, sorghum, mine salt, make baking powder, baking soda, grow vanilla beans, etc, etc, etc…

‘All of that (plus WAY more), and we haven’t even talked about all the different fruits and nuts I would need, or how I would only be able to offer certain products during certain times of the year, or how a lot of what I said before wouldn’t even be possible in the climate I live in, but I digress.

‘If all of that wasn’t cost-prohibitive enough to completely wipe out my profits (it would be, and then some), the time commitment and significant additional physical labor certainly wouldn’t make any of it worth the tiny remaining profit.

‘Now, compare that to the current screeching about the trade deficits we have with other countries. We import raw materials (aluminum, steel, lumber, etc…) from other countries, which would be labor and/or cost prohibitive for us to make, or that we simply cannot produce or source here, and then we take those materials, and turn them into higher profit margin products, which we then export to other countries. It is exactly the same as my example, but on a macro scale.’

QED.

And here is just a little bit of the love it prompted.

Some Magas still didn’t get it, obviously, and got just the treatment they deserved.

Deliciously done!

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This side-by-side of how much Trump has pimped the Oval Office since his return is an absolute jaw-dropper

Source @rthomas86 Image Unsplash