Not Very Bright

As “Deep Throat,” the whistleblower who was FBI associate director Mark Felt, tells Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in the film “All the President’s Men” as Woodward unravels the Watergate scandal: “about the White House—the truth is, these are not very bright guys.”

Fifty years later, that is again the truth.

How much of Donald Trump’s directive on U.S. tariffs imposed on nations all over the world—that in recent days has caused a stock market loss of trillions of dollars—is a result of h...