The trade deficit persists because the real issue is spending, Watson

Scene: 221B Baker Street. Rain streaks the windows as Sherlock stands by the fireplace, violin in hand but silent, staring into the flames. Watson sits in his armchair, flipping through a newspaper, brow furrowed.

Watson: [tossing the paper onto the table] Sherlock, have you seen this? Some madman across the pond’s decided to slap tariffs on half the world—Canada, Mexico, China, even the EU next, they say. Twenty-five percent here, ten percent there. What’s that even supposed to achieve?

Sherlock: [not turning, voice clipped] Oh, Watson, it’s not about achievement. It’s about posturing. A grand deduction wrapped in economic illiteracy. Tariffs—taxes on imports, yes?—are being flung about like a child’s tantrum, as if they could fix a trade deficit. But the deficit’s not the problem, it’s the symptom. Open your eyes.

Watson: [leaning forward] A symptom? I thought tariffs were meant to protect jobs, keep money at home. You know, buy local, that sort of thing.

Sherlock: [spins around, eyes flashing] A charmingly naive assumption, even for you. Yes, tariffs might shield a handful of industries—steel, perhaps—but it’s a mirage. Imagine you’re trying to fix a leaking pipe by mopping the floor. The trade deficit persists because the real issue is spending, Watson. The government’s haemorrhaging money—six percent of GDP, if memory serves—spending more than it collects. Borrowing to fill the gap. And from whom? Often the very countries it’s now taxing. It’s circular stupidity.

Watson: [blinking] So, the tariffs don’t stop the borrowing?

Sherlock: [smirking] No, they don’t. They’re like pressing one side of a fully inflated balloon—flatten it here, it bulges there. Costs rise for consumers, supply chains tangle, trading partners retaliate. The deficit doesn’t shrink; it festers. All because someone refuses to see the forest for the trees—or rather, the fiscal deficit for the tax cuts and spending sprees.

Watson: [rubbing his temples] Hang on. If it’s about spending, why bother with tariffs at all?

Sherlock: [paces, gesturing sharply] Politics, Watson. It’s a shiny distraction. Wave a flag, slap a tax, claim you’re “fighting back.” Never mind that it’s economic nonsense. Take steel again—protect the producers, fine. But what about the car makers, the builders, everyone who uses steel? More jobs lost than saved. It’s a deduction so obvious it’s almost boring.

Watson: [frowning] And then there’s this other bit—suspending military aid to Ukraine. That’s got nothing to do with tariffs, but it’s just as reckless.

Sherlock: [stops pacing, voice low] Oh, it’s worse. Far worse. Tariffs are a blunder; that’s betrayal. Abandoning an ally mid-fight, handing a gift to an old enemy across the East. It’s not just economics at stake there—it’s the whole fragile web of alliances that’s kept the West steady since the war. One decision tears at trade, the other at security. Both unravel the system that nation built.

Watson: [quietly] So, it’s all connected. The tariffs, the aid—they’re undermining everything.

Sherlock: [nods, staring out the window] Precisely. A rules-based world—trade, alliances, predictability—crumbling under the weight of ignorance. Someone thinks strength lies in isolation, in bullying friends and cozying up to foes. They’re wrong. The data’s clear: trade deficits aren’t about “cheating” partners; they’re about overspending. Services, capital flows—ignored. Bilateral goods balances—obsessed over, irrelevant. It’s a mind that sees complexity as weakness and simplicity as virtue.

Watson: [sighs] And no one’s telling him—I mean, them—this?

Sherlock: [scoffs] Oh, there are voices—economists, advisors—but they’re drowned out by yes-men or sacked outright. Leadership would demand facing the real problem: balance the books, tax the aristocrats, cut the spending. Instead, we get this—tariffs and tantrums. The emperor’s not just naked, Watson; he’s parading it.

Watson: [half-smiling] You’d solve it in a day, wouldn’t you?

Sherlock: [smirks] An afternoon. But then, I’d have to explain it to you, and that’d take longer.

Watson: [rolls eyes] Cheers, Sherlock.

https://www.ft.com/content/2389b7f1-e38e-43d9-ba95-b39b5ea7d5e6