You may have heard of the underpants gnome business plan, but even if you haven’t, you’ve probably at some point seen an allusion to it on the internet. It was originally laid out in a South Park episode involving gnomes who have a plan. Here’s the plan:
1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit
Do you get the joke? The joke is that this isn’t really a plan and that there is no possible second step that could make the practice of stealing used underwear into a profitable one.
Similar logic is at work in the proposals Donald Trump outlined in his Thursday speech and a Wednesday interview with the New York Times.
Abandon our “horrible trade agreements.” (Trump will try to renegotiate “individual deals” with all the countries in the world, but he says he’s ready to “walk away if we don’t get the deal that we want.”)
Abandon our commitment to defend Europe from a Russian invasion if Trump decides the countries therein aren’t paying us enough.
“Build a great border wall” to cut the U.S. off from Mexico. You might have heard about this one.
Trump concluded, in his speech, that “trillions of dollars will start flowing into our country” when his policies are enacted.
Into our country. Indeed, if there’s one thing international investors are looking for, it’s an opportunity to pour capital into a country that’s hostile to the idea of imports and exports, views other countries through a lens of aggressive military paranoia, and is literally cut off from the rest of the world by a giant wall. It’s why places like Myanmar and North Korea are such notorious economic success stories.
The underpants plan, frankly, was better.
