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They could give steelmans sure, but there's always been one issue with steelmanning as a concept and that it's sometimes equivalent to just making up ideas that don't actually exist in the person's head.
There's a lot of different reasons given by the Trump admin. From fentanyl, to trade deficits, to immigration, to bringing back American manufacturing, to replacing domestic tax with it, to take revenge on other countries with tariffs, to fight China, etc etc.
Some of these are even contradictory. Raising a significant amount of money to fund government with tariffs doesn't work if people stop buying foreign and start buying only those made in America from the ground up. And neither of those work as well if the goal is for them to lower their trade barriers for a bilateral drop in tariffs and protectionism on both sides.
Steelmanning just a single point (like if tariffs can help american manufacturers or if they could be used to punish foreign protectionist policy) has to just straight up ignore everything else being said. It has to be unaware of the rhetoric and reasons given in order to substitute with some "Well imagine if it wasn't actually that?" fanfiction.
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