So, in a development that reads like satire but tragically isn’t, the Trump White House just unveiled a brand-new trade policy formula that appears to have been cribbed from a late-night ChatGPT session and then run through a fraternity pledge hazing ritual with Greek symbols duct-taped on for aesthetics. I’m not even exaggerating.

The Formula: A Closer Look

The White House revealed a formula to justify a new wave of tariffs slapped on, well, nearly everyone—including countries that are either minor trade partners or, in one case, literally uninhabited islands. (Yes, really.)

This formula, shared proudly via social media, includes Greek symbols like ε (epsilon) and φ (phi), which economists use in very specific, complex contexts—none of which apply here. In this case, they’re assigned the values 0.25 and 4 respectively. Multiply them, and you get… 1. Meaning they do nothing. Like putting lipstick on a calculator.

In reality, the underlying math is astonishingly simple—more like a middle school homework problem than a global economic strategy:

Tariff % = (Trade Deficit / Imports) ÷ 2

Or as one economist called it, “extraordinary nonsense” (The Verge).

Did they literally and truly just ask an AI to spit it out for them?

Here’s the part that’s both hilarious and horrifying: multiple people ran the same kind of vague prompt—“What’s a simple way to calculate tariffs to fix trade deficits?”—through ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok. Every single one coughed up that exact dumb formula. Divide the deficit by imports. Maybe cut it in half. Slap a flag on it.

Tariff Rate (%) = [(Trade Deficit with Country) / (Total Imports from Country)] ÷ 2

Even Grok, the one owned by the same guy who renamed Twitter to a slur, recommended halving the result “to make it reasonable.” You know you’re in trouble when the AI that lives inside Elon Musk’s brain tells you to tone it down.

So yeah. Either someone in the Trump admin asked an AI to do their econ homework—or worse, someone somewhere thought the AI’s response was good enough for national trade policy.

Why This Actually Matters

Beyond the obvious comedy of it all, this whole circus raises real red flags:

1. AI Isn’t an Economist. Chatbots are glorified autocomplete machines. They’re trained to imitate coherent answers, not to evaluate outcomes or model economic complexity. They will give you plausible-sounding junk if you ask for it. And someone did.

2. Math-Washing Public Policy. Dressing bad math in fancy symbols to make it look “scientific” is how snake oil gets sold. It’s the same tactic anti-vaxxers and crypto bros use—except now it’s being used to set actual tariffs.

3. Economic Consequences Are Real. Markets tanked when this was announced. JP Morgan’s summary of the fallout? “There will be blood.” (Washington Post) Prices will rise, supply chains will buckle, and all for the sake of a dumb little cardboard sign and a math formula that makes zero actual sense.

The Bottom Line

This is what happens when ideology meets technology without adult supervision. A chatbot coughs up some “common-sense” garbage, someone slaps Greek letters on it to look smart, and suddenly you’ve got a global economic policy that could’ve been brainstormed on Reddit.

And the worst part? It’s going to work—not economically, but politically. Because it’s “simple,” and simple sells. Never mind that it’s economically illiterate. Never mind that it doesn’t solve the problem it claims to address. The grift marches on.

If you’re not terrified, you’re not paying attention.

Further Reading (Because You Shouldn’t Just Trust Me):

• Trump’s new tariff math looks a lot like ChatGPT’s

• Trump’s tariff formula has fancy Greek symbols. No one is sure why

• Trump White House cited economists for its tariff formula. They pan it.