When it comes to tax policy, Donald Trump already had a problem. His 2017 tax giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations were, by practically every measure, an expensive and unpopular failure. It’s against this backdrop that the Republican and his allies not only want to extend the tax breaks that didn’t work — adding trillions of dollars to the national debt in the process — they also want to add new tax giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations.

But the former president’s ideas when it comes to trade and tariffs makes all of this quite a bit worse.

It was last year when Team Trump made clear that the presumptive GOP nominee, if given a second term, intended to impose massive new tariffs, which a Washington Post report said would set the stage for a “global economic war.” CNBC reported late last week that the Republican candidate went a step further in describing his vision while speaking with congressional allies.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes described this as “one of the most deranged policies” of all of time, and it’s worth understanding why. As the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell explained in her latest column:

In other words, most Americans, including the entirety of the middle class, would end up paying more, not less, under Trump’s vision. Why? Because Trump’s tariffs would make products cost more, and since working families spend a greater percentage of what they make on these products, they’d end up worse off.

The result is an incredible contrast for voters: President Joe Biden’s agenda asks more from the wealthy and big corporations, while Trump’s vision is built on tax breaks for those on top, and a regressive trade policy that would ask more from working families.

I’ve argued repeatedly that it’s a mistake to see Trump as a “populist.” This adds fresh evidence to the argument.

To be sure, a common refrain over the last few days is that Congress would never approve such a radical agenda. Perhaps not, but Republican Rep. Byron Donalds appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend, and when asked about Trump’s tariffs policy, the Florida congressman said, “There’s some merit to it.”

There really isn’t.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com