someone teach them LaTeX

https://mander.xyz/post/27771350

someone teach them LaTeX - Mander

A microblog post by @kareem_carr saying “as soon as i saw they were using asterisks for multiplication symbols, i knew we were in trouble”, with an image from the “Office of the United States Trade Representative (Executive Office of the President)” showing the mathematical formula $\Delta \tau_i = \frac{x_i - m_i}{\varepsilon * \varphi * m_i}$. The formula show asterisks (*) instead of multiplication signs (×).

I don’t get the significance. How should the formula be represented?
Basically what other people in the comments are saying, but here is a video Matt Parker explaining it: youtu.be/j04IAbWCszg?t=461
Explaining the Trump Tariff Equation

YouTube