“Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.” — Abraham Kaplan, American philosopher.

Kaplan’s formulation was reworded to the more familiar expression, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” by psychologist Abraham Maslow. This concept, now known as “Maslow’s Hammer,” is on full view in Washington, D.C.

In less than three weeks, Donald Trump has pulled out his executive order tariff hammer to pound Mexico, Canada, China and Colombia. He threatens to pound Europe next.

Is Colombia refusing to accept deportees? Tariff hammer. Are Mexico and Canada lax in policing the border? Tariff hammer. Is Europe doing who knows what? Tariff hammer.

The only “nail” where a tariff hammer would traditionally be used is trade with China.

Tariffs as trade policy serve several purposes. Alexander Hamilton advocated tariffs to foster the growth of infant industries. This was done to protect American start-ups until they grew large enough to compete with British manufacturers.

Tariffs can protect domestic for-profit companies from foreign competitors who are subsidized by their government. This falls under the rubric of “fair trade” or “leveling the playing field.”

Tariffs can preserve domestic production of goods and technologies vital for national defense.

Less benignly, tariffs can be handed out as special interest party favors shielding higher-cost domestic producers from legitimate foreign competition.

Even if Trump was using tariffs for traditional purposes, his executive order hammer is the wrong way to go.

Executive orders are ephemeral. They come and they go. Trump suspended the tariffs on Canada and Mexico within 48 hours of saying nothing could be done to stop them. The next president could reverse any and all executive orders issued by Trump. What company is going to invest billions of dollars building tariff-protected capacity in the U.S. knowing that it could be turned into a money-losing white elephant at the stroke of a pen?

Even worse, Trump demonstrates that laws and agreements are not worth the paper they are written on. In 2020, he himself negotiated and signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace what he called the “nightmare known as NAFTA.” Said Trump at the time, “The USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law. It’s the best agreement we’ve ever made.” Now, Trump claims that a tiny amount of fentanyl and a few undocumented immigrants coming across the Canadian border constitute a USMCA emergency justifying 25% tariffs.

Similarly, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not explicitly delegate tariff authority to the president. The proposition that a president can use the IEEPA to unilaterally impose tariffs is dubious at best.

Some will view recent events as the successful sequel to Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” In the long run, when Canadians start booing the American national anthem at sporting events, when the president of France urges Europe to decouple from the U.S., when the ugly American reappears in Latin America, when rules and agreements mean nothing, it may well look like the pilot episode of a new show, “Law and Disorder.”

Jeffrey Scharf welcomes your comments. Contact him at jeffreyrscharf@gmail.com.