Tariffs are like extortion

Like many of you, I have been nodding my head, stroking my chin and muttering, "These damn tariffs will be the end of us."

- Ben Trovato

Luckily, the cat isn't much of an economist and the conversation rarely goes much further.

Sometimes she looks at me through skeptical, half-closed eyes and goes to sleep. This really is the only sensible course of action when it comes to anything Donald Trump says or does and all of us should try to be more like my cat.

Every news channel I watch, it's either genocide or tariffs. Whether it's destroying entire communities or developing economies, I don't quite understand the need for either.

Frankly, I grasp the idea of genocide more than I do tariffs. But while most people are pretty awful, I would never go so far as to get Israeli on their asses.

Tariffs, on the other hand, leave me scratching my head. This generally comes after the chin-stroking, when the cat is asleep and can't witness my confusion.

It's important for pets to think that you have a firm grasp on things, even if you have to pretend. If they ever found out just how stupid we are, they'd mobilize in an instant and we'd all be speaking Labrador by Christmas.

So, even though news anchors and analysts worldwide are going on about tariffs, nobody is actually explaining what they are.

Everyone except the tangerine cockwomble in the White House seems to agree that they will do more harm than good. Then again, so do cigarettes and look how popular those little babies still are.

Thing is, I understand how cigarettes work. You set fire to substantial amounts of money over the years and then die of lung cancer.