Patton Logistics Group president ‘more positive’ on economy because of Trump tariffs

The Trump tariffs designed to upend the global supply chain are actually somehow good for The Patton Logistics Group, the company’s president, Steve Patton, asserted to me in an email on Monday.

“You appear to be uninformed about the benefit of the tariffs for a U.S.-based trucking and logistics company, but I can assure you that I am more positive today than I was early last week prior to the tariffs being announced,” Patton wrote to me, in response to our story about his company’s planned $10 million expansion in Pulaski County.

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ICYMI

• Wonder how this new Pulaski County expansion will be impacted by the Trump tariffs?

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I’ll note that the assertion about there being a “benefit” from the tariffs to his company, which, according to its website, provides “integrated supply chain solutions ranging from motor carrier transportation, warehousing, distribution services, logistics and brokerage sourcing,” didn’t come with any kind of explanation.

You know, for example, how tariffs that are meant to limit the flow of foreign-made goods that currently make up 16 percent of our GDP into the country won’t reduce demand for “integrated supply chain solutions ranging from motor carrier transportation, warehousing, distribution services, logistics and brokerage sourcing.”

And also, how the trade war that Trump has started won’t impact the flow of our exports, which currently make up 11 percent of our GDP, won’t also reduce demand, again, for “integrated supply chain solutions ranging from motor carrier transportation, warehousing, distribution services, logistics and brokerage sourcing.”

It’s his $10 million, not mine, so, if the guy wants to go through with an expansion down in Pulaski County with the economy about to crater, that’s on Steve Patton’s bottom line, not mine.

Bless his heart, though, for how he ended his email to me:

“The team at The Patton Logistics Group doesn’t need you or your lack of business expertise to be successful in Southwest Virginia,” Patton wrote.

No, but it would no doubt be easier on his company if the Trump tariffs weren’t hitting at the very foundation of what it does.