The event known as ‘Liberation Day’ has ended. Despite the lack of coverage in mainstream media and cable news, the nation remains unharmed.
Although investors have caused a decline in the market, it’s important to note that the S&P 500 does not represent the entirety of the economy. The impact of tariffs is not as catastrophic as some Democrats and ‘free market’ Republicans claim, nor is it as groundbreaking as the Trump administration promotes.
Indeed, the jury is still out.
But here’s what Trump’s Democrat and Republican critics alike miss: Whether one agrees with the tariff policy or not is now largely beside the point.
President Trump has influenced the situation in the country, and now the choice facing American citizens and policymakers is not centered on whether tariffs are inherently good or bad.
The question now is: Are you rooting for America’s success — or are you rooting against it?
On Friday, just two days after Trump’s tariffs were revealed, there were signs of progress.
The president took to Truth Social to brag about a ‘productive call’ with To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who expressed interest in reducing tariffs to ‘zero’ if the U.S. reaches an agreement.
‘Liberation Day’ has come and gone. And while you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the corporate media headlines and cable news chyrons, the country is still intact. (Pictured: Trump in Rose Garden).Â
Investors, jittery as ever, have tanked the market. But the S&P 500 is not the economy. And tariffs are neither the apocalyptic disaster that Democrats and ‘free market’ Republicans argue they are nor are they the revolutionary success that Team Trump touts them as.
In that same vein, Bill Ackman, the prolific hedge fund manager who boarded the Trump Train during the last election cycle, has offered the most pragmatic counsel: ‘My advice to foreign leaders is that if you have not already reached out to President [Trump], you need to do so immediately. Trump is, at his core, a dealmaker who sees the world as a series of transactions.’
Call it the art of the deal!
But Democrats and many Republicans have taken a decidedly different tack.
Senator Chuck Schumer emerged from hiding after a progressive revolt over his implicit support for Trump’s latest budget to release a tweet-storm.
‘Trump singlehandedly started a financial forest fire with his tariffs Yesterday was the worst day for markets since COVID,’ he railed.
That’s easily dismissed as politics. He’s clearly hoping for Trump – and America – to fail.
But what of Republicans?
Consider Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) deeply ideological statement after he voted to undo Trump’s tariffs on Canada: ‘We ought to strengthen our friendships abroad, and reinforce our allies as pillars of American prosperity and security.’
Reasonable minds can differ on the wisdom of tariffs on our friendly northerly neighbor. (I, for one, am skeptical.) But McConnell’s stance is just trite gobbledygook.
It’s copy-and-pasted from a bygone era — perhaps from the 1990s-era ‘Washington Consensus’ that pushed unfettered globalization and trade liberalization.
It’s a reminder that there are Chamber of Commerce-Republicans so closely tied to the interests of big business that they adopted a religious commitment to utopian ‘free trade’ and globalization.
For decades, we’ve heard these moralizing-types preach that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization.
Globalization was meant to bring China into the fold of the Western world. The Bushies argued as much when they supported China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization in 2001.
And how has that turned out?
America only made its number one geopolitical adversary more powerful. We provided the Chinese Communist Party the very rope with which to hang ourselves — all while patting ourselves on the back for taking a faux-moral high ground of ‘openness’ and ‘free trade.’
Elites of both parties allowed America to deindustrialize. We deluded ourselves into thinking that the only thing that matters in an economy is maximizing consumption and minimizing prices. We convinced ourselves that production and supply chains don’t matter. GDP over national dignity.
Remember that prior to Trump’s first term, it was the overwhelming opinion in Washington that China must be appeased.
Now, the bipartisan consensus is exactly the opposite.
Trump, a billionaire iconoclast and class traitor par excellence, has made a career out of rejecting prevailing groupthink.
He’s often been proven right.
When COVID-19 came, China hoarded up the very ‘PPE’ (personal protective equipment) that our hospitals so desperately needed.
Amidst the supply chain shocks of a global pandemic, we realized how dependent on foreign nations the U.S. really is for everything from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors.
It may be painful for well-meaning laissez-faire Republicans to admit this — but perhaps they got tariffs wrong as well.
These Republicans must admit that we don’t exist in a fairy tale world of unencumbered free trade. And globalization, furthermore, has not made American society more equal — the income gap only continues to grow.
Perhaps cheaper flat-screen TVs for consumers aren’t always what is best for the common good. As the late, great country star Toby Keith once sang, sometimes we should ‘spend a little more in the store for a tag in the back that says ‘USA.’
Most important — all these debates are now academic.
The die is cast. America is in a trade war. Pick a side.
