Fascists are nothing if not predictable. Tariffs arise naturally from far-right ultranationalism. There’s a few reasons for this.
One is that it plays directly into notions of national/racial exceptionalism. “Our country/race is better than all the rest. Other nations/races should have to pay exorbitant fees just to do business with us.”
Second is that it severs ties with international mechanisms of diplomacy and peacekeeping. It serves as a convenient way to detach a state from its allies (who stand in the way of its conquests). This is typified by events like the Japanese Empire’s withdrawal from the League of Nations, in that case not over tariffs but a war of conquest, but tariffs can provide similar opportunities to break apart treaties and start preparing a populace for the conditions of all out war.
Thirdly is that it stops trade with other nations. This forces manufacturing facilities to be bolstered in the nation, isolationism. This means that once all-out war is declared, the nation has the full-scale production facilities to create machines of war at the pace required to sustain large-scale conflicts. This creates the precarious situation of having more production than you do resources (because you can’t trade for them anymore), but this problem is solved by conquering territories rich in natural resources.
And fourth, it serves as a direct prelude to declaring all out war. Trade wars are nearly always present prior to full-scale conflicts in modern history. Both Nazi Germany and the fascist Empire of Japan were widely sanctioned internationally in the years leading up to the Western, Eastern, and Pacific fronts of World War 2. These trade wars actually served fascist interests in so far as they made the lives of their citizens already feel constrained and pressured. An escalation to all-out conflict wasn’t that great a change when already all their sons were being drafted and common household goods were becoming scarce and rationed.
Trump is not original. We’ve seen these events play out before under a variety of different circumstances. The move of economically isolating the United States from the rest of the world perfectly serves the fascist conquering aspirations of his Christian white nationalist voting base. They’ll grumble about cost of goods, but they lap up his ultranationalist “making the world pay us” rhetoric like they’re dying of thirst.
Of course not. But that narrative is easily applied to tariffs. In political ideologies like fascism which promote centralized authorities not only on morality but on reality itself, what is real is far less important than what the narrative is.
They already doubt all information provided by any source other than their fascist authorities. What any other source has to say on the matter is irrelevant to them. “The entire world is a gigantic global conspiracy against fascism. All non-fascist media lies incessantly to discredit fascism.” Any non fascist academic institutions, non fascist news sources, non fascist people, and non fascist organizations will by default be assumed to be lying. The very notion that any information provided to them by anything outside of the fascist sphere of influence could be true is impossible to them. They are not scientists, nor are they economists, nor are they academics. Ask them what tariffs do, and they’ll say, “Make everyone else pay America our fair share.” That’s what the fascist authority has told them. They believe it unquestionably.
Are there non-ardent fascists who support fascism but oppose the tariffs, like investment firms and individual educated citizens? Sure. But we’re talking about fascism as it inflicts its ideology as a world view. Those who truly believe Donald Trump to be a good person, a messianic like figure sent from heaven. Those who voted for him not for any benefit they indirectly believed he’d give them (like tax cuts for the wealthy), but purely because they are true hearted fascists. They believe in white supremacy and in Christian nationalism. They want to make America a white christian ethnostate. Whether they state it openly or not, whether they believe that’s what their motivations are or not. Racism, christian nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia these are the only material things he has to offer these people.
So when he says that tariffs do x y and z, he could be saying anything, and they will most likely believe it. If the economy tanks, it couldn’t be because of him. He will blame someone like Biden and the deep state (jewish people), and they’ll believe him.