Still, they have Trump’s ear, because the rocks in their heads fit the holes in his: They’re telling him what he wants to hear, because their errors play to his gut instincts, and when it comes to policy, he don’t need no education.

Yet they’re not the only faction talking dangerous nonsense on international economics. The Trump administration has also become home to what we might call neo-goldbugs: people who think that a nation’s strength can be measured by the strength of its currency, and refuse to see any downside in a strong dollar, never see any reason a weaker dollar might be needed.

Like neo-mercantilism, or for that matter supply-side economics, this view has been debunked many times — I wrote about it in 1987! — yet keeps shambling along, because it appeals to the prejudices of wealthy and powerful people.

Until now, the most visible neo-goldbug in the administration has been David Malpass, the under secretary of Treasury for international affairs — normally a position of great policy influence, although under Trump, who knows? Malpass is the former chief economist of Bear Stearns, and a man with a Kudlow-like record of being wrong about everything. In particular, however, back in 2011 Malpass published an op-ed article declaring that what America needed to fix its economic ills was a stronger dollar (and higher interest rates).

It was a bizarre claim. After all, at the time the unemployment rate was still 9 percent — and a stronger dollar would have made things even worse. Why? Because it would have made U.S. products less competitive, increasing the trade deficit — and a situation of persistently high unemployment is the one situation in which trade deficits really are an unambiguously bad thing, reducing the demand for domestic goods and services.

But here’s the thing: Kudlow appears to share Malpass’s worldview. In fact, his first newsworthy statement after Trump announced his selection was a call for a higher dollar — something that would worsen the very trade deficit Trump sees as a sign of American weakness.

Why has Trump hired people with such conflicting notions about international economic policy? The answer, presumably, is that he doesn’t understand the issues well enough to realize that the conflict exists. And what both sides in this dispute share is a general propensity for invincible ignorance, which makes them Trump’s kind of people.

Anyway, on international economics the Trump administration is now on track for a battle of the zombies — a fight between two sets of bad ideas that refuse to die. Pass the popcorn.