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3471One of the most direct reactions on X captured the tone perfectly after the White House unveiled a new wave of tariffs under President Donald Trump: confusion and disbelief over how they were calculated.
Commentators piled on quickly. “Did the White House use ChatGPT Vibe Code a retarded formula for our tariffs and then were too dumb to cover it up?” asked @Mickey4x.
Yves Laurent (@sevynaturel) summed up the moment with what became the quote of the day: “Welcome to the Big Balls era of US public governance.”
Online discussions quickly turned chaotic. One user joked, “They had no idea what value to put for epsilon and phi so they set them both to 1,” while another sarcastically remarked, “Magical Plastic Reality. Vibe Coding. Vibe Marketing. Vibe Governance.”
Someone else quipped, “Trump and team are a new kind of phenom: Part Shaman, part DJ and part memetic engineer.”
Some users pushed back on the criticism. “Trump said from the start that his thinking on tariffs is based on the trade deficit, so this is not surprising,” wrote one commenter. “The actual formula is probably completely secondary. It’s a negotiation tool, first and foremost.”
A Math Problem or a PR Disaster?
It all started when Trump slapped tariffs on almost all countries, including major U.S. trading partners—Europe, China, India and Japan.
The administration claimed the new duties were calculated using tariff rates and non-tariff barriers, aiming for reciprocity.
But the final numbers didn’t line up at all.
Journalist James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, exposed what he believes was the actual method: “Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us. What extraordinary nonsense this is,” he wrote on X.
Using the European Union as an example, Surowiecki pointed out that the U.S. had a $235.6 billion trade deficit with the EU in 2024, and the bloc exported $605.8 billion to the U.S. Divide those numbers, and you get roughly 39%.
That figure became the basis for a proposed 20% tariff. Trump called that rate “kind,” saying it was almost half of the “unfair advantage” the EU allegedly held.
A Formula Disguised as Economic Science
After criticism mounted, the White House pushed back, saying Surowiecki’s claim was wrong—and posted their own formula, filled with Greek letters and academic references.
But it didn’t help their case. One X user pointed out that the published formula was essentially the same thing Surowiecki had described.
The administration’s explanation claimed it had accounted for trade barriers, import elasticities, and tariff pass-through rates.
Yet it also considered things like value-added tax—a domestic tax applied in the EU—as a trade barrier, despite it applying equally to local and foreign goods.
More importantly, the math behind the 39% figure was far removed from the EU’s actual average, trade-weighted tariff of just 2.7%, as reported by the World Trade Organization.
Europe Weighs Its Response
Meanwhile, the European Commission is figuring out how to respond.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is ready to retaliate but still open to talks.
What stands out now is that whatever formula the White House used, it wasn’t what they claimed, and the attempt to dress it up as economic science fooled no one.
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