John Oliver creates economic tutorial to teach Donald Trump about tariffs

President Donald Trump believes that "Tariffs are the greatest!" In fact he tweets about them quite a lot. But on Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Oliver pointed out that like many things, the president may not fully understand how they work. Trump has imposed tariffs on billions of dollars worth of goods, resulting in a trade war with both allies and foes. And as Oliver pointed out, "Everyone knows he doesn't know a lot of things, but occasionally it's important to remember that he also doesn't know anything." Oliver referenced Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs which could generate around 26,000 new jobs in America, which is great. But the increase in cost to companies could also result in the loss of over 400,000 American jobs, which is bad. Oliver said, "If Trump's trying to create jobs, almost anything would be a better idea than tariffs. He'd be better off dressing a turtle up like David Bowie and throwing him into a pool full of milk. Will that create jobs? No. But it won't actively lose hundreds of thousands of them." Oliver's concern for the president's lack of understanding how tariffs affect the economy as a whole, led him to make an animated economics tutorial in hopes Trump will watch and learn. In the video, Uncle Sam throws a tariff boomerang at China, but it comes back to hit the groin. Meanwhile a narrator explains, "If you think you can use tariffs as a weapon, you should understand a tariff isn't something other countries pay you, it is a tax you are forcing your own people to pay, which might end up hurting them a lot less than it hurts you." Last Week Tonight With John Oliver airs Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO.