To the Editor:

In only 80-days under Trump II, America, once the bedrock of the global financial system, has morphed into an unpredictable
and unreliable economic partner. Trump declared false “emergency” tariff policies then retreated, cratered and only partly
restored the pandemonium of the stock market and, most concerning, weakened the Treasury bond market, signaling that
investors around the world no longer trust Trump, the US, or its economy.

Trump claims he wants to advance American manufacturing, but his lurching tariff policies/reversals are creating chaos and
uncertainty, making it much more difficult for US companies to grow, make, and sell their products. The convulsive policies
created turmoil in the financial markets and the recession risk rises.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said that the rollercoaster ride “was the plan all along.” Trump declared that national
and international concerns over the trade wars are “stupid and weak,” and that he “doesn’t care if prices go up.” (But
under Biden, a traitorous calamity.) Commerce Secretary Lutnick said that the seniors who complain about delayed SSA checks
are “fraudsters.

Trump brayed that “hundreds of countries are calling to ‘kiss my ass’” and beg, “please sir, may we deal?” As he happily
anticipates his bum-polishing, we and the rest of the world look on with anxiety and distrust for what many economists fear
is “economic suicide.”

Economists know that the best conductor of a healthy economy is stability, but Trump has defied that maxim nationally and
internationally. The American Economic Institute, a right-leaning think tank, discovered that the WH made a “bush-league”
math error and used the wrong factor to determine tariffs that quadrupled the new rates, e.g., Cambodia should have had a
12.5% tariff, not the 46% imposed by Trump, and McDonald Island, inhabited only by penguins and seals, should probably have
been 0%. This WH is so imperious, nobody checks for possible math or intelligence errors.

World trade is undergoing transformation as third-world countries become “contenders” and we are not automatically top of
the food chain. Rather than negotiating tariffs first, Trump said, “if a country thinks our tariffs are too high, they can
stop dealing with the US”, an arrogant and economically unviable solution. This is not wizard economics. This is not
negotiation. He treats our allies and trade partners as if they were expendable and inconsequential. Just as he is treating
Congress and the Courts.

The EU, Japan, India, etc., disgusted, alarmed, and recognizing that America is unreliable, is looking toward China for the
stability it needs. The tariff debacle, the autocratic, ego-driven “America First” policy with which the Trump II
administration has confronted a world which requires alliances, the way Trump has treated Ukraine and Zelensky and excused
Russia’s false promises and aggression, have deeply wounded the once respected status of our country. In 80-days.

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) admitted, “The [Trump] administration has not given one clear rationale for its tariffs.” And
neither Trump nor the Republican Congress thinks he has to.

Kelly Scoles,

Fillmore, Ca.