Over the last week Reddit's army of expert virologists, submersible engineers, Chinese real estate specialists, and Russian and Middle Eastern affairs analysts have discovered a new area of expertise--they are now all experts on global trade and finance. Absolutely amazing. Unbelievable, almost.
And worrying, frankly, when I see comments like 'there's nothing wrong with trade deficits' or 'obviously tariffs are always bad'. Because some of the brightest minds in investing have a somewhat more nuanced view. Perhaps the best example is this quote from Warren Buffett himself:
"We were taught in Economics 101 that countries could not for long sustain large, ever-growing trade deficits."
Although I have no doubt all Redditors are infinitely smarter than Buffett, perhaps it would be nonetheless prudent to read [this](https://faculty.washington.edu/ss1110/IF/Buffett%20Fortune%202003%20(6).pdf) 2003 article he wrote on the issues with trade deficits, and his proposal for fixing them (which was not, unsurprisingly, initiating tariffs simultaneously on all of the US's trading partners...but was, it turns out, still a variant of a tariff).
Unfortunately, no one took his advice back then, but the article still has considerable relevance to today. He discusses why parallels with Smoot-Hawley might be misguided, why other countries will find it so challenging to move away from the US dollar, and reminds the reader that "the batting average of doomsayers in the US is terrible".