In life one can be assured of a few things, one of them is pain.
Be it the wonder of childbirth or for millennials, the searing discomfort of that frog in a cowboy hat tattoo, the suffering is necessary for the accomplishment. In the former, the anguish is outweighed by the beauty; the latter confirms misery and stupidity are an inextricable tandem.
Speaking of misery and stupidity, the panic caused by Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs gripping Democrats, weak-kneed Republicans, the Left and the Legacy Media is to be expected. They are shortly to be relics of history confined to its enormous dustbin.
Tariffs cause pain. There is no better example of that hurt than the stock markets’ response, no matter how irrational, to Trump’s new tariffs. Vast sums of money have been lost over the past few bloody days on Wall Street.
Despite this, could the administration’s plan be good for the country in the long term?
Tariffs are used to protect native markets. Taxing incoming products can, if the imported products come from a place where the costs of production are less, equalize the difference in cost to the native consumer.
I am certain many economists will suggest I have drastically simplified the subject. To be fair, I am an exceedingly simple man and thus I could do no less.
If the US is late for the tariff party, rest assured our allies and foes alike are not. What is the effect on a world economy in which the only country with a deep-seated resistance to tariffs also happens to be the biggest consumer economy in the world?
Trump’s “Liberation Day” is intended to free American industry from decades of oppression that shifted our manufacturing capabilities to foreign shores. Oppression in the form of artificially lowering the cost of imported goods while drastically raising the cost of exported American products.
An inverse system that drove US companies to build new factories in other countries. Driven from our shores by the lure of drastically lesser wages, regulation, and governmental interference, these now foreign goods return to the US where they are bought by American citizens at a discount.
This system of unequal trade made countries such as India, Taiwan, South Korea, and China rich. Their things are made by their citizens and then land here with no fear of exorbitant or punitive import taxes, at least until now.
According to The Economist, in 2024 India exported $88 billion into the US while taking only $42 billion in US products. It would be bad enough if the trade imbalance was 2 to 1, but it’s worse than that. Indian products came into the US at an average duty rate of 3% while India charged four times that amount on imported US goods.
The imbalance in tariffs is proportional to the trade imbalance. The India example is illustrative of the situation with most, if not all, of our trading partners.
Now American globalists are screaming the loudest. They roil the markets with talk of recession, or even worse depression. A world economy on the brink, why?
Because the biggest economic chump of all time, the US, finally wised up and is telling the leeches it’s time to pay up.
If globalists are to be believed, the world economy is predicated on the victimization and destruction of the US economy and the country itself. For years they have not only ignored the effects of ruinous trade predation on us but encouraged it. Now they are the ones ringing the alarm bells.
Too late, our pain is their pain.
If tariffs are so horrible then why does every other country use them? If US tariffs are going to ruin the global economy, why then do those imposed by China and others not have the same effect? If tariffs are good for South Korean consumers, then why wouldn’t they be good for Americans?
Trump’s brave move is meant to draw our trading partners to the table where we can look them in the eye and tell them the days of abusing US consumers are over. That American manufacturing is in ascendency. They can invest in us, but they will no longer bleed us for pleasure and benefit.
The US can survive comfortably without Canada, but who could possibly replace US purchasing power for Canada? They may never be a US state, but without us they could become a province of China.
There will be pain in the short term. In the long-term gain, prosperity, and the unshackling of the greatest country and economy the world has ever known.
