I’m asking if YOU believe he was a hero, that you are citing as an authoritative advisor? I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember how Ronald Reagan was vilified by Democrats when he was in office and immediately afterwards. That’s why it’s laughable for Democrats to cite him.
Or maybe I’m wrong in your case. Is your answer to all of those questions yes?
Obviously, it is true about boats. But it’s a very poor analogy for countries imposing tariffs on each other.
A slightly better one would be two men and two different boats with one man shooting holes in the other boat. The “victim” in that scenario good simply keep vigilant, 24-7 bailing water and plugging holes. But how sustainable is that?
What if the victim decided to stop playing the victim and shoot a few holes in the other boat until the guy in the other boat was willing to agree to stop all the gunfire? If the trigger happy guy wisely agreed, then both men could focus on rowing instead of gunfire and staying afloat.
And even better analogy would be two ships instead of two boats. Each ship is carrying merchants and their goods. They meet on the open seas and the captains agreed to allow their passengers to trade with each other.
The captain of one insists on a payment of 25% for all goods sold to passengers on his ship. The other captain think that is idiotic and unproductive and charges zero. A one-sided arrangement, I’m sure you would agree.
Or… The second captain could also impose a 25% payment and when the first complains to eliminate those payments as long as it is a two-way street.
Yes, that is far better. It also happens to match almost exactly what we are already seeing from Europe, for example.
Reagan was great for his time. But he was a man of the 80s.