"dumbass economics"? "holy cow"!

The President had only a few hours left in the deadline that he had set for himself.  After all the bravado, he meekly extended the deadline by another month.

The deadline was regarding the tariffs on steel and aluminum.

The Trump administration has decided to hold off on imposing most of its tariffs on imported steel and aluminum until at least June 1.
Tariffs were scheduled to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday on imports from Canada, the largest U.S. supplier of steel and aluminum, as well as Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and the EU.

Daniel Drezner calls these tariffs and other aspects of trump's policies as "dumbass economics."

The case for protectionism is weaker than at any moment in this century. Neither the Trump administration nor its supporters have any valid economic or national security reason for these tariffs, and even tariff supporters admit it. Still, actual trade policy will get worse in the short run. The current schism on the issue has little to do with economics and everything to do with identity, and the metamorphosis of this debate spells trouble for defenders of the open global economy.
The economic arguments in favor of freer trade are pretty darn strong.

Indeed they are.  But, try explaining that to 63 million voters!

Much of the country views trade policy through the lens of race and identity. Temple University political scientist Alexandra Guisinger has demonstrated that support for protectionism correlates with who is being protected. Simply put, tariffs are more popular with Americans when they are thought to benefit white workers.

Ok, then!

What the demagogue does not tell his voters, or perhaps he doesn't even understand, is this:

To date, the gains and pains of globalization and automation have been felt mostly by the manufacturing sector. In the future, the gains and pains will be felt by professional and service-sector jobs.

trump and his base can feel good about themselves over the steel and aluminum tariffs.  But, try as they might, they are doomed to fail in their attempts to close the American trade doors.  We are merely at the beginnings of a new phase of globalization.  The 200-year story is rapidly taking a new turn:

Service jobs have been shielded from globalization because they require people to be face-to-face, or at least near each other. For most services, you can’t put them into a container and ship them from China to New York. So global competition was deflected by the shield of high face-to-face costs.
Digital technology, however, is opening a pipeline for direct international wage competition.

We are vastly underestimating the impacts of technology.

There’s a point at which the exponential path of technological growth crosses the straight line of human expectation, and it’s the point at which the real power of this technology that we’ve alternately over- and underestimated fully dawns on us. I call it the “holy cow” moment. We haven’t quite reached it yet

Yep, we’re getting close to the holy-cow moment.  Before that, we are going to have lots and lots of "holy shit!" moments though, thanks to 63 million voters of America!