‘World’s dumbest trade war’: Kimmel, Meyers, and more late-night hosts react to Trump’s tariffs
Who knew tariffs could be so funny.
President Donald Trump’s use of the bully pulpit to bully America’s allies with threats of tariffs was mocked by late-night hosts Monday.
Trump has backed off, at least temporarily, but Jimmys Kimmel and Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers wondered if the president was ever really serious. Or, in the words of Kimmel, was he just “pretending to issue tariffs so that Canada and Mexico can pretend to bend over for him, and then it’ll look like he’s the big hero.”
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Colbert noted that the conservative The Wall Street Journal, not known for progressive hot takes, thought Trump’s tariffs were a bad idea. “So now, we have a one-month cease-fire in what some liberal rag called The Wall Street Journal described as ‘the dumbest trade war in history.’ To which the Dallas Mavericks said, ‘Hold my Luka Dončić.’”
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Kimmel also cited the WSJ’s characterization of Trump’s tariff plan. “Starting the ‘world’s dumbest trade war’ is an accomplishment to add to a very long list: first of all, world’s dumbest trade war, world’s dumbest Covid response, world’s dumbest climate policy, world’s dumbest hurricane map, world’s dumbest election interference, world’s dumbest wildfire response, world’s dumbest crowd-size comparison, world’s dumbest insurrection, and world’s dumbest Eric.
“He’s like the Michael Phelps of the world’s dumbest stuff,” said Kimmel, who shared a unique theory about why Trump decided, for now, not to impose a stiff tariff on Mexico.
“I guess he must’ve seen the guacamole bill for his Super Bowl party,” said Kimmel.
Even Fallon, whose monologues tend to be less political than those of his peers, couldn’t resist Monday. “People are wondering why Trump would start a war with our closest allies, and he was like, ‘I didn’t say anything about Russia and North Korea,’” said the “Tonight Show” host.
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Seth Meyers, whose show follows Fallon on NBC, was ready with a few jokes of his own.
“President Trump imposed a 25-percent tariff over the weekend on goods coming from Canada, including honey, whiskey, and peanut butter. Or, as Rudy Giuliani calls it, ‘my morning smoothie.’”
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Mark Shanahan can be reached at mark.shanahan@globe.com. Follow him @MarkAShanahan.