Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love affordable foreign ground beef to save the midterms.

There is nothing quite like the cold, hard awakening of an impending midterm election to transform a committed protectionist into a sudden, wide-eyed fan of global trade.

For years, the core gospel of MAGA economics has been simple, loud, and tattooed on the conceptual forearms of every rally attendee: Foreign goods are bad, tariffs are a beautiful work of art, and domestic producers can do no wrong. Tariffs were billed as a magical tollbooth where foreign countries paid for the privilege of stepping onto American soil, while American manufacturing and agriculture would rise majestically from the ashes like a bald eagle wearing a hard hat.

Then ground beef hit $6.89 a pound.

Suddenly, the beautiful tollbooth looks a lot like a barricade trapping voters in a supermarket aisle where nothing is affordable and a package of hamburger meat costs as much as a tank of gas. And with the midterms looming like an approaching root canal, the White House has developed a frantic new economic strategy: Market interventionism, but make it temporary.

Enter the great 90-day beef rescue. In a stroke of political panic disguised as policy, the administration announced it will temporarily waive tariffs on up to 300,000 metric tons of imported beef. According to the White House, foreign exporters have graciously promised a 25% discount that will somehow miraculously travel across oceans, bypass greedy middlemen, and materialize neatly wrapped in plastic at your local Piggly Wiggly.

It is a fascinating spectacle. To save the American consumer from inflation, the administration had to temporarily dismantle one of the foundational pillars........

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