After months of uncertainty, “Liberation Day” finally arrived. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump gathered the people he loves most, his inner circle and the legacy media, to announce his big and not-so-beautiful tariff strategy, lauding it as a “declaration of economic independence.”
Using national emergency powers — because the word “emergency” is the executive branch’s favorite cheat code — 10% tariffs are being placed on all imports into the United States, while higher tariffs will be placed on goods from dozens of other countries that have a high trade deficit with the U.S.
In an act of spectacular statistical manipulation, or, to put it bluntly, fraud, Trump is making the argument that trade deficits, which simply means that our powerful and wealthy consumer market is importing more from some countries than we export, are synonymous with tariffs in a global trading system that is apparently hell-bent on screwing over the U.S. by selling us cheap goods.
With the sound of markets crashing in the background and nations rushing to formulate alternative trade agreements, high-profile figures in the Republican Party and Trump’s reliable band of online influencers celebrated what is the voluntary knee-capping of not only the American economy but the global economy.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose neck is still sore after sycophantically nodding his way through Trump’s address to Congress last month, said, “Tariffs are part of the president’s proven strategy to fix our economy again, level the playing field, and put America first.”
The only thing proven about tariffs is that they fail.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) thanked Trump for “putting America’s workers and innovators first with reciprocal tariffs that level the playing field and make trade fair.”
Level the playing field — by making everyone poorer.
Commentator Jack Posobiec celebrated “the return of the American Dream,” X account DC Draino praised “Trump’s plan to free American workers from indentured servitude to the Deep State,” and former congressman Matt Gaetz shared the grossly misleading chart of “reciprocal tariffs” while asking: “Who the f*** does Madagascar think they are?!”
It seems like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is one of the few reliably sane politicians remaining in Washington, pointing out the obvious: that tariffs “don’t punish foreign governments” but “American families” and that taxing imports will raise the price of everything.
The Republican Party, as well as the influencer hack class, used to hold the concept of free trade and free market capitalism as an untouchable foundational pillar of conservatism. Now, under Trump and the MAGA movement, conservatism is defined by a pseudo-monarch who is treating the American economy like a game of Monopoly based on the Great Depression.
Yes, many of the people celebrating this economically illiterate move by the president are simply ignorant. But then there’s a greater danger: those who are smart but are pretending to be dumb, cheering on an absurd and self-destructive policy because Trump wants it.
TARIFFS TEST CONGRESSIONAL GOP’S FAITH IN TRUMP
As Vice President JD Vance obsequiously put it, “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires.”
What we are witnessing is not the return of the American dream, a return of American manufacturing dominance, or “freedom from indentured servitude.” What we are witnessing is an economic version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” where everyone knows Trump’s tariff plan is lunacy but won’t risk their fragile membership to MAGA by daring to speak the truth.
Ian Haworth is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and podcast host. You can find him on Substack and follow him on X at @ighaworth.