Donald Trump is tough tariff-talking again.

In a post on Truth Social, the president-elect vowed to slap tariffs on all imports from Canada, Mexico, and China until the flow of fentanyl and undocumented immigrants into the U.S. ceases.

Hey, why didn’t anyone think of that before?

True to Trump’s size-obsessed personality, the promised tariffs will be big: 25 percent on Mexico and Canada, our largest trading partners, and 10 percent on Chinese goods.

Perhaps, as some suggest, Trump was just playing the bluffing bully — one of his favorite professional wrestling poses. If he’s serious about imposing tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners, we’ll end up paying for them in the form of higher prices. Others can chew on the economic nonsense of his social media edict, but by now everyone should agree that his loyal followers can’t get enough of that tough-guy talk.

What should give pause is the simple-mindedness of the threat: “This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

It should be particularly disturbing to those who have actually risked their lives battling transnational drug trafficking organizations, which are far more sophisticated than they’re often presented on popular television series. They corrupt governments and terrorize nations. Their histories are written in blood and billions. They kill many thousands of people a year, including brave law enforcement and military officers devoted to fighting them.

During more than three decades in the Drug Enforcement Administration, Mike Vigil rose from undercover agent working throughout Latin America to the agency’s head of international operations. Few people can rival his knowledge of the world of narco trafficking. Vigil cringed at Trump’s incendiary statement, but wasn’t surprised by it.

“It’s a very complex issue, but Donald Trump doesn’t have the intelligence to make sense of complex issues,” Vigil says. “When you have drug trafficking cartels like the Sinaloa Cartel or the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, they’re ingrained in the political system. It’s not only the cartels in Mexico. Most powerful cartels are ingrained into the political system. They’re also ingrained into the economy.

“Tariffs are not going to have any impact on the drug trade. We’re talking about well-entrenched cartels, cartels that operate in six of the seven continents. You can’t wave a magic wand and make it disappear. … Using tariffs to eliminate drug cartels would be like saying we’re going to eliminate Stage 4 cancer by taking a teaspoonful of castor oil.”

Even scratching the surface of Trump’s remark reveals how hollow it is.

As expected, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to Trump’s insult with a stinging letter reminding the president-in-waiting that many American companies do business in her country and, "migration and drug consumption in the United States cannot be addressed through threats or tariffs. … What is needed is cooperation and mutual understanding to tackle these significant challenges. For every tariff, there will be a response in kind, until we put at risk our shared enterprises."

To Vigil, Trump’s ignorance is a national embarrassment that misleads his true believers, in this case, by what he left out.

“Trump doesn’t mention anything about [drug] treatment and reducing the demand here in the states,” Vigil says. “This is critical because if you have the demand here in the states, you’re always going to have somebody to supply it. If it’s not Mexico, if it’s not Colombia, it’s going to be somebody else.”

If the U.S. really wants to help control cartel violence, it could work harder to control the torrent of military grade weapons that flows into Mexico. Vigil reminds us that approximately 80 percent of the firearms recovered in Mexico originate in this country. “Putting those weapons in the hands of the cartels allows them to create violence and confront Mexico’s security forces,” he says.

In addition to the negative, trickle-down impact on our own economy, Vigil believes that over time tariffs on Mexican goods would put further economic stress on that nation without impacting drug trafficking in the least. But destabilizing Mexico would have another effect. It would put even more pressure on the border at a time migrant crossings are in a steep decline.

“His whole idea is extraordinarily flawed,” Vigil says. “The only thing that he would do is create a trade war. And why would you want to start a trade war, for example, with Mexico? But Trump doesn’t care. He has a narcissistic and arrogant personality that acts as horse blinders. He doesn’t care about understanding this issue. As long as he’s got power, he’s going to exert it. And he’s very much a bully. To me, all bullies are cowards. He is no exception.”

And, just think, the interesting times of a second Trump administration haven’t even begun yet.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.