Here are some things Donald Trump has said about his trade war with China since first hitting Beijing with tariffs last March, a move supported exclusively by his craziest advisers that caused National Economic Council director Gary Cohn to sprint across the South Lawn of the White House and hail the next cab back to New York:

• “Because of Tariffs we will be able to start paying down large amounts of the $21 Trillion in debt that has been accumulated, much by the Obama Administration, while at the same time reducing taxes for our people.” (August 2018);

• “Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China” (November 2018);

• “The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly” (January 2019);

• “Trade negotiators have just returned from China where the meetings on Trade were very productive. Now at meetings with me at Mar-a-Lago giving the details. In the meantime, Billions of Dollars are being paid to the United States by China in the form of Trade Tariffs!” (February 2019)

He says these things because he doesn’t actually have any idea how tariffs work, despite having it explained to him numerous times—which in itself is a great reason to follow the directions on the box of Just for Men, and wash it out before it seeps into your brain. If he did, he’d tweet something like, “Billions of Dollars are being paid to the United States by Americans in the form of Trade Tariffs!,” because in reality, U.S. companies and consumers are the ones who’ve paid for his little trade war. And according to two studies published over the weekend, they’ve paid a lot!

In a study published on Saturday, economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University, and Columbia University found that tariffs imposed last year by Trump on products ranging from washing machines and steel to some $250 billion in Chinese imports were costing U.S. companies and consumers $3 billion a month in additional tax costs and companies a further $1.4 billion in deadweight losses. They also were causing the diversion of $165 billion a year in trade leading to significant costs for companies having to reorganize supply chains.

In a separate paper published on Sunday, four economists including Pinelopi Goldberg, the World Bank’s chief economist and a former editor in chief of the prestigious American Economic Review, put the annual losses from the higher cost of imports alone for the U.S. economy at $68.8 billion.

“This is kind of the worst-case scenario in terms of consumers,” Columbia University professor David Weinstein told Bloomberg. “It’s pretty unclear that this trade war is a net win for the economy at this point.” Moreover, as Paul Krugman points out, the fact that consumers are paying for the trade war is just one of several reasons why this whole thing ranks somewhere around Trump Airlines on a list of the president’s worst ideas:

By the way, in practice any manufacturing jobs added by the Trump tariffs are probably offset by losses of other manufacturing jobs. Partly that’s because most of the tariffs are on intermediate goods—inputs into production, so that job gains in, say, steel are offset by losses in autos and other downstream sectors. Beyond that, the tariffs have probably contributed to a rising dollar, which makes U.S. exports less competitive.

Meanwhile, Wall Street appears to be sick of the White House’s frequent pronouncements that a deal is just around the corner, which have so far proven empty. “After a while it feels like the boy who cried wolf,” R.J. Grant, director of equity trading at KBW Inc., told The Wall Street Journal. “The market can only rally so much on hope. We actually need tangible results. The rally has gotten a little bit long in the tooth, given the fact that we’re really not seeing much global growth.” On the bright side, reports suggest that a deal may be imminent. On the less-bright side, it’s not totally clear whether the results would justify the last year of pain:

Strategists have said the biggest market pop would come from a deal that peeled away tariffs but also included serious structural reforms on intellectual property and technology transfers. As per current discussions, China could possibly include language about state-owned enterprise subsidies and forced technology transfers, in to a new foreign investment law changing equity ownership rules. But sources tell CNBC, they are skeptical about how strong that language would be.

According to news reports, Beijing would also increase purchases of U.S. goods, a move that responds to Trump’s concern that it’s the trade deficit between the U.S. and China that needs to be fixed. The purchases would include $18 billion in natural gas from Cheniere Energy. But some worry that any deal will not have enough teeth for enforcement and the rules on technology would ring hollow. It also seems likely that any deal would still be followed by rounds of negotiations on some of the knottier issues.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials are reportedly worried that Trump’s failed summit with Kim Jong Un has resulted in sheer desperation. “His failure to get a deal in Vietnam increases the pressure on him to get a deal with the Chinese,” Fred Bergsten, founder of the Institute for International Economics in Washington, told the Journal. And if those singular negotiating skills we’ve heard so much about don’t magically appear in the next several weeks, just remember: it’s all Michael Cohen’s fault.

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Report: Gary Cohn ignored Trump’s demands to use the D.O.J. to exact revenge on his media foes

In the midst of today’s bombshell New Yorker story detailing the various ways Fox News has functioned as Donald Trump’s “servile propaganda operation” comes this fun tidbit re: the president’s attempts to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, a move that would have had the dual benefit of both hurting Fox’s competition and screwing Time Warner subsidiary CNN:

. . . in the late summer of 2017, a few months before the Justice Department filed suit, Trump ordered Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, to pressure the Justice Department to intervene. According to a well-informed source, Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, “I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it 50 times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”

Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, evidently understood that it would be highly improper for a President to use the Justice Department to undermine two of the most powerful companies in the country as punishment for unfavorable news coverage, and as a reward for a competing news organization that boosted him. According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, “Don’t you fucking dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.”

Cohn declined to comment to The New Yorker and Kelly did not respond to inquiries. While the Justice Department has repeatedly claimed that Trump did not involve himself in the suit, a former White House official told reporter Jane Mayer, “The president...wanted to bring down the hammer,” an observation seemingly confirmed by his many online meltdowns on the matter. And according to Kellyanne Conway’s husband, if it turns out that Trump did indeed force the lawsuit (which the D.O.J. lost, appealed, and lost for a second time last week), that would be a very bad thing for a president whose party no longer controls both chambers of Congress:

And speaking of Congress

House Dems sent out a whole bunch of interesting queries today:

House Democrats sent more than 80 letters Monday demanding documents from family members, business associates, political confidants, and others with connections to President Trump, opening a sprawling investigation of whether he and his administration have engaged in obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power.

The most far-reaching request since Democrats took control of the House underscored lawmakers’ determination to hold Trump and those around him accountable for controversies that have dogged the president during his first two years in office—and perhaps lay the grounds for impeachment proceedings. . . . The inquiry touched on a wide array of matters, from the president’s business dealings with Russia to the firing of former F.B.I. director James B. Comey to hush payments made to women. Many of those issues are already being examined by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York—not to mention other committees in the House.

Asked during his five-star dinner with North Dakota State’s championship football team if he plans to cooperate, Trump told reporters “I cooperate all the time with everybody,” adding that “the beautiful thing” is that there’s “no collusion . . . it’s all a hoax.” (He later repeated himself on Twitter just in case they didn’t hear it in the cheap seats.)

Lyft would prefer people to take a more chill approach to its near-billion-dollars worth of losses

When you think about investing in the company through its upcoming I.P.O., think of the $911 million it lost in 2018 as focus on the future:

The co-founders write, “We thoughtfully balance investments in growth and profitability considerations, while deliberately leaning more towards growth (especially in these early days).”

Expect Lyft to emphasize focus when speaking with prospective investors. It's a ride-hail company, growing at a faster clip than is Uber, and not too distracted by large side projects like food delivery and autonomous vehicle development.

It’s not clear how Uber fared for 2018 overall, but it lost $1.07 billion in the third quarter so Lyft is in good company.

Historian Anthony Scaramucci thinks London will be fine post-Brexit

“We were actually opening [our Skybridge London] office a week or two before the Brexit vote,” the asset manager turned White House communications director turned asset manager told City AM. “Somebody said to me, ‘Well, what if Brexit happens? Isn’t that going to change your decision? Wouldn’t you rather put it on the continent?’ I said, ‘No. The City of London has flourished for 500 years, with or without the economic union, with or without being in the E.U.’”

Elsewhere!

Barclays banker unwilling to “take a hit” to save top execs (Financial Times)

How Accountants Break the Bad News About Tax Refunds: Chocolate and Tissues (W.S.J.)

Purdue Is Preparing for a Possible Bankruptcy Amid Opioid Lawsuits (Bloomberg)

Team Trump Keeps Pushing Deal to Send Nuclear Tech to Saudis (The Daily Beast)

“. . . such as using a Keurig coffee maker to cook ramen.” (N.Y.T._

Prosecuting Bankers Proves Exercise in Frustration (W.S.J.)

Mariah Carey’s ex-manager is suing infamous former Trump Russian pal Felix Sater for more than $1 million, alleging he hacked her computers and phones while they were dating and plotting “The Russian Sopranos” together last year. (N.Y.P.)

Ivanka Trump tries jokes (The Washington Post)

Man survives on Taco Bell sauce packets after being trapped in a snowstorm (N.Y.P.)

— Inside the chilling final months at Theranos

— Ivanka Trump: Americans want to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, just like me

— Reading between Mueller’s lines: is the story of Russian collusion hiding in plain sight?

— Bernie Sanders is already repeating some crucial 2016 mistakes

— Look at these Oscar party photos!

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