President Donald Trump’s terrible tariffs are terrific for America, and they are simply one segment of the Trump administration’s economic strategy to save America’s economy, supply chains and rebuild our production base, because he recognizes our current situation as a national security issue.

The goal is to ensure that the U.S. can stay dominant on the world stage without eventually being driven into oblivion by China and other trade cheats, who have taken advantage of our economic largesse for the past six decades, largely due to past presidents’ reluctance and cowardice to do the hard and necessary things to defend America’s interests. President Trump’s actions are his own reset of sorts and a long-needed move to re-balance the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world on trade and many other concerns.

Finally, a president has arrived more than willing to protect the American workers and the middle class, after a sixty years long globalist/ communist plot to steal their wealth and the wealth of America overall, through flawed trade deals and unrestrained “free trade” that have served to obliterate the U.S. manufacturing base, killing good jobs and reducing the nation to a nation of service workers in relatively poor paying positions. Millions of U.S. jobs found their way to Mexico and elsewhere across the globe, and the ones that remained have largely fallen into the hands of the millions of illegal alien invaders who flooded into our country under the Biden administration.

Our economic policy has been driven for years by lazy-ass desk-jockeys in government positions, who have consistently suggested that many menial jobs just can’t be filled by actual U.S. citizens and that most Americans today would rather die than work in a factory, and so we all heard a great sucking sound as American workplaces and jobs were essentially destroyed as they went to foreigners overseas. And in the meantime, the Democrat Party Communists and the Republicans-In-Name-Only globalists at the Chamber of Commerce imported a slave caste.

For decades, I have been against China’s “Most Favored Nation” trade status, as I have constantly explained that no true “free trade” scenario can exist when a capitalist system attempts to trade with a communist system that utilizes slave labor to a great degree, even if China has now allowed some capitalist endeavors to be undertaken in their private sector, such as it may exist.

Trump fired off the opening salvo on April 2nd 2025, a day he called America’s “Liberation Day”, as he noted/ tweeted:

“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to Make America Wealthy Again.” ~ President Donald J. Trump

Ludicrously, the idiots on the far left, like Politico, could barely contain themselves for two days, before declaring the “trade wars” lost, even as unfolding events were proving them wrong. Now, as reported by Fox News, nearly seventy nations are begging Trump to negotiate with them, stating they are ready to drop all tariffs. And to date, only China and Canada have retaliated against the U.S. with tariffs of their own.

Today, April 8th 2025, Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, announced that President Trump is prepared to impose an incredibly large 104 percent tariff on all Chinese imports tomorrow. This is happening because China has not made any move to stop its own thirty-four percent tariffs against the U.S., which go into effect tomorrow [April 9th].

Canada’s twenty-five percent tariffs on U.S. autos will go into effect tonight at midnight.

On April 7th, Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, told Fox News:

“I’ll reiterate what I saw last week for countries that don’t retaliate. We are at a maximum tariff level, and it is my hope that through good negotiations, all we will do is see levels come down. But that’s going to depend on other countries. And you know, President Trump is going to be personally involved in these negotiations, and he believes, as many of us do, that there’s been an unfair playing field, so the negotiations are going to be tough.”

On Sunday’s ‘Face the Nation‘, Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, stated what should be obvious but too many people seem oblivious to acknowledge or care about so long as they get their daily package of Twinkies from the U.S. welfare system, as he noted:

“We don’t make medicine in this country anymore. We don’t make ships. We don’t have enough steel and aluminum to fight a battle, right? …”

The other side of the coin hinges on various nations’ currency manipulations and devaluations and the creation of the euro that have left the Bretton Woods agreement pretty much neutered. Mechanisms outside the regular international monetary system have persisted in a manner that no nation would have agreed to accept in normal negotiations.

This has given rise to predictable problems and imbalances that have been tolerated, while idiot presidents such as George H.W. Bush and their advisors erroneously assumed that any industry lost to globalist offshoring would be of little value and low-tech, just as they erroneously assumed the U.S. would always dominate advanced technology. They had largely abandoned our manufacturing and defense industrial base by this time, as well as our shipyards, because they again erroneously assumed that our troubles were over with Russia and the Cold War was done.

And why would anyone worry about China? Wouldn’t they soon welcome to become more like us with all our so-called freedoms, liberties and “democracy” after we made them our number one trade partner and paved the way for them to enter the World Trade Organization? No. In fact, the Chinese government has simply grown larger and more hostile. It used the United States’ wealth and the technology it steals from the U.S, to arm the largest armed forces on the planet, with a navy that is currently larger than the U.S. Navy, while saber-rattling across the globe and quite likely making preparations to invade Taiwan by 2027.

Currently, the U.S. and Chinese trade is so intertwined that when one sneezes the other farts, but President Trump’s administration is attempting to decouple America from the current arrangement which has served to build China into a powerful enough superpower, that it now is emboldened enough to challenge U.S. preeminence on multiple fronts within international relations and affairs, especially as it pertains to international seaways and the sovereignty rights of other nations. But China is facing a debt crisis, much as the U.S. except bigger, with the Chinese total government debt burden at 300% of China’s Gross Domestic Product, which is certain to add a known parameter with unknown dynamics and effects to come.

The pressures on China could create an opportunity for a larger economic reordering, but it’s unlikely. They have cheated repeatedly on every economic agreement made through the WTO, and there is nothing today to suggest they are any more dependable or trustworthy now than in past years. It’s probably best if we completely decouple and rebuild our own capabilities to produce things independent of any Chinese “assistance” or interference, espionage and subterfuge aimed at weakening the U.S. overall.

Isn’t it ironic to see old video clips of Senator Chuck Schumer [D-NY] strongly advocating for trade tariffs against China in 2005, as he goes into some great detail on how millions of jobs previously done in the U.S. went to China that year?

They call it a “trade war”. President Trump calls it “leverage”, and now, the whole world, especially the clueless class, is going to see – maybe even learn – what economic warfare really looks like.

Raising taxes on imports marks a milestone and a major move in this term, as part of President Trump’s plan to reconfigure America’s relationship with Her government. On April 2nd 2025, he declared from the Rose Garden:

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.”

Yes – friend and foe alike. The lion’s share of America’s imports arrives from the nations of our allies.

The truth remains that tariffs are more of a tool of leverage than what one might call a true tax on Americans. Tariffs are railed against as “taxes on Americans” by people who either don’t understand economics or don’t care who gets trounced by foreign competition, so long as their stock portfolio stays flush with regular infusions from big money corporations. Tariffs are penalties, a strategic toll, on products that enter America under unfair terms, and they are how we force fair play and draw a line in the sand, that says no to a global system built to exploit America and the American worker, of whom we have very nearly lost by and large.

When one considers tariffs, they must consider what has made them necessary. If any nation was dumping is cheap, overvalued products into any country to undercut the local homegrown competition, the people who suffer the effects don’t just throw up their hands and say “let the free market work it out” do they, as factories shut down and people lose their jobs. No, they don’t; they stop the imbalanced trade, the cheating, and they protect their own people. They draw a line and say “enough”, in order that their businesses, factories and people may survive.

America recently heard the European Union’s dictator, Ursula von der Leyen, say that Europe was ready and willing to go zero-for-zero tariffs with the U.S. on industrial goods only, on April 7th, which leaves an entire array of other products in play. It’s important to understand at this point, that the EU under her leadership is also moving to freeze out American agricultural products. So, the tariff war dynamic between the U.S. and Europe might get interesting, as Trump bets America’s allies are too reliant on U.S. technology and security assurances to retaliate with their own tariffs, or that he can rapidly strengthen America to the point those allies will be less necessary.

From the White House website – ‘Tariffs Work – and President Trump’s First Term Proves It’ [April 2nd 2025]: Tariffs Work — and President Trump’s First Term Proves It – The White House

“President Trump’s first term steel tariffs led to thousands of jobs gains in the metal industry, along with wage increases.

* The tariffs were hailed as a “boon” for Minnesota’s iron ore industry, with state officials crediting them for bolstering the local economy.

* Steel and aluminum imports drastically decreased during President Trump’s first term, falling by nearly one-third from 2016 to 2020.

* The tariffs led to a wave in investment across the United States, with more than $10 billion committed to build new mills.”

The unhinged, far left “mainstream media” hysterically screamed about a “trade war” with China, during Trump’s first term, and all the so-called “expert economists” from those lofty halls of academia clutched their pearls. To which Trump said something to the effect of “good, let it be war, because America’s been losing a silent one for the past forty years” [note that America made China its most favored nation trade partner in 1980].

Now President Trump is attempting to usher in a new economic order for America, that may be accompanied by a little short term economic pain for the U.S. consumers. Whether or not his tariffs cause a recession is the million-dollar question of the day, but they will initially slow down growth; however, if Trump’s tariffs prove to be a little inflationary but good for our long-term financial health as a nation and our national security, so be it. The one is worth the other.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged over 2200 points or 5.5%, in response to President Trump’s tariffs and concerns over a potential global economic slowdown, and the S&P 500 dropped over ten percent. However, commodities such as oil, gasoline, agricultural and other products’ prices went into free fall and offered initial relief to the beleaguered household budgets of every day ordinary Americans still struggling to simply get by each day. Trump is choosing to sideline the markets and prioritize the regular blue collar working men and women of America.

Contrary to claims by President Trump’s many critics, reciprocal tariffs will not destroy jobs. Their assertion of such is far from the truth, because the reality of the matter reveals that these most recent tariffs have the potential to create fifteen million new jobs. A large percentage of these jobs will be high-paying manufacturing jobs of the kind that America saw disappear over the past sixty years to offshoring and the globalist thieves who perpetrated and set in motion America’s race to the bottom.

As an aside, one should note that President Trump signed a new executive order today, April 8th, that will facilitate a resurgence of the coal industry, as he said, “we have it, and we should use it”. This will most certainly jump start the energy sector and the economy in the process. This too will generate new jobs from within the mines, as well as those services required to keep a mine operating smoothly and safely.

If Trump’s tariffs succeed in just cutting our trade deficit in half and down to $460 billion, which is a very reasonable projection, this reduction alone would create 2.4 million jobs – 7 million when one figures support offshoots for those jobs.

And all this is being done to rebuild America’s manufacturing base and bring American corporations back home in an effort to make America wealthy and great again.

As Mike Watson wrote in ‘The Rocky Road to Liberation‘ [April 5th 2025]:

“Trump’s solution for these problems has three stages. First, unleash Elon Musk and his whiz kids at DOGE. As Musk recently told Fox News’s Bret Baier, his goal is to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget, which currently stands close to $7 trillion, “without affecting any of the critical government services.” Then, generate new revenue with tariffs. According to Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, the government should get about $700 billion annually from taxes on imports.

If all goes according to plan, there will be $1.7 trillion annually of cuts and new funding that can be used to accomplish other administration goals, such as zeroing out taxes on people making less than $150,000. At the end of this process, there should be less federal spending, fewer bureaucrats to create new regulations, fewer distortions in the tax code, and more incentives for businesses to move their manufacturing facilities to the United States.”

Americans need not fear any real or severe consequences from Trump’s tariffs, because any such consequences pale in comparison to what happens to us if we remain at the mercy of China and/or other nations for our medicines. What’s scary is the thought of America having to beg foreign nations for baby formula, or witnessing our country lose all of Her skilled labor to rely on overseas sweatshops and constant supply chain interruptions and chaos.

A reckoning is underway that our enemies-from-within and enemies abroad never saw coming. President Trump is acting to protect America more than punish trade cheats, to negotiate rather than isolate America and to put every country on notice that has mocked and taken advantage of America’s generosity that their free ride and good times are coming to an end. A correction. A course reversal. A restoration of America’s economic sovereignty. It’s a signal to the entire world to trade fair or pay a price. This is what America First looks like.

America is being moved and motivated to initiate a seismic shift in Her trade and economic policy by a man – President Trump – who is fighting for America and our economy like it really matters, something we haven’t witnessed in decades, and markets usually don’t like new things, especially tariffs. We knew the adjustment would come one day. But this isn’t chaos. It’s leadership, something else that has been missing in America for decades. It’s a hard shove to make America to build and produce again, to defend our economy like it’s the beating heart of America — because it is.

And it starts with President Trump’s tariffs, a hard stark dose of truth, and finally rejecting globalism in its illiberal construct, while all Americans who love America set about the hard work necessary to put America First.

April 13, 2025

~ The Author ~
Justin O. Smith has lived in Tennessee off and on most of his adult life, and graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, with a B.S. and a double major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – minors in Military Science and English, for what its worth. His real education started from that point on. Smith is a frequent contributor to the family of Kettle Moraine Publications.