(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Trump Tariffs Latest in Litany of Chaos, Incompetence, Corruption & Rising Costs [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-03
By Karen Rubin,
[email protected], news-photos-features.com
Trump with his reckless, cruel policies isn’t just raising prices, raising costs, raising taxes on working families, he’s also firing federal workers, hollowing out or shuttering altogether services people depend on, firing the scientists, engineers, researchers, destroying public education and higher education – and triggering the greatest brain drain from the USA in history - that would enable us to compete globally, destroying global alliances and coalitions. And as if that was not enough to wreck the economy – the single greatest factor in the USA’s status as a superpower – now he is implementing tariffs that have no rational basis, triggering a global trade war, destroying economic alliances and tearing up treaties, and further making the USA a pariah among nations.
And if he thinks companies will build manufacturing plants here, who will staff them? Someone who was a Nobel-laureate scientist reduced to working on the assembly line? (How very Stalinist Russia.) He’s deported the labor force that does all the jobs his billionaire buddies and their privileged progeny are too good for. Does he think that forcing women to have babies will make up the cheap labor workforce? Well, even though they are getting rid of child labor laws, it will be at least eight years before they can put that child to work.
Trump, claiming “emergency powers” to violate law and treaty, wants those tariffs to be the main source of revenue (just like before the 1913 income tax), and will make up the difference when he cuts taxes on billionaires by $4 trillion (and cuts $2 trillion from spending for social services like Social Security and Medicare).
Trade is the glue that keeps nations together. It is an instrument of cultural enrichment – think entertainment – and cultural and economic ties are the “soft power” that propelled peace and prosperity, the of democracy and the middle class around the world that Trump has been determined to destroy (shutting down Voice of America, USAID, withdrawing from WTO, WHO, Climate Agreement and every other humanitarian alliance).
Contrary to Trump’s warped, absurd and ignorant view of a trade imbalance as “countries are ripping us off,” the reason the US has a trade imbalance is because we are 5% of the global population but 25% of the global economy. Our living standard is supported by access to cheaper goods. Now, with Earth Day coming, it may be a good thing that Americans can’t afford all the extra material things, but 68% of the Gross National Product is based on consumer spending, and ironically, the companies that will have to eat some of the tariff tax rather than raise prices 25-50%, means that their shareholders will also take a haircut.
What Trump doesn’t realize – and doesn’t care – is that there will be a global rejection of American products and services, with or without reciprocal tariffs imposed by the European Union, Canada and Mexico and others. Already, international travel is down significantly – especially from Canada. The combination of a decline in purchase of products, inevitable job layoffs on top of tens of thousands of layoffs of federal workers, and harm to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans and family recipients means less consumer spending (60% of the US GDP), and sharp decline income tax revenue to the federal government. Stagflation – higher prices but job layoffs and recession – will result, and will not be repaired since no country will ever trust the US to enter a treaty or alliance again.
(Interesting the countries Trump DID NOT impost tariffs on: Russia North Korea, Belarus and Cuba. He even imposed a 17% tariff on Israel which does not impose tariff on US goods.)
Travel – usually the leading indicator for the economy – is reflecting the rejection of Trump’s economic policies. American consumers, with confidence sinking seeing the layoffs, higher prices and lost access to government services, are pulling back on travel spending (which had been forecast to be robust), actually cancelling trips, while international travelers, understandably fearful of being hauled away at the border not to mention America’s notorious epidemic of gun violence, and now repulsed by Trump’s animosity and disrespect, are pulling back on travel.
$1.3 trillion. That’s how much travelers directly spent in the United States in 2024, which produced an economic output of $2.9 trillion and supported more than 15 million American jobs, according to the U.S. Travel Association. As recently as early January, the U.S. Travel Association had projected total U.S. travel spending to grow 3.9% to $1.35 trillion in 2025. Some are estimating spending by international travelers (which in the past has been at a trade surplus, meaning foreign travelers spend more in the US than American travelers spend abroad), is forecast to be down by $64 billion.
Tourism Economics expects travel from Canada to plummet 20% this year, a decline that will be acutely felt in border states like New York and Michigan but also popular tourist destinations like California, Nevada and Florida, the AP’s Dee-Ann Durbin reported.
The U.S. Travel Association has warned that even a 10% reduction in travel from Canada could mean 2.0 million fewer visits, $2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses, the group said in February.
But travel is more than dollars so crucial to bolstering local businesses and jobs and providing the economic underpinnings that preserve heritage, culture and historic sites. It is part of that “soft power” that helps forge relationships, mutual understanding and cooperation.
Congress could and should stop this spiral into economic crisis and the further usurpation of Congress’ role as a co-equal branch responsible for checks-and-balance on an out-of-control dictator wannabe. The basis for Trump imposing these tariffs – even negating the treaties and agreements that the Senate has to authorize – is to assert an “emergency” that is manufactured out of air. Reject the premise of “emergency” that Trump keeps changing (fentanyl!) is relying on to act extra-constitutionally and violate the terms of the North America Trade Agreement that HE negotiated and said was the best trade agreement EVER. The Senate has already voted to rescind the tariffs of Canada but House Speaker Johnson has maneuvered to prevent any such vote in the House (by actually having the audacity to declare the whole rest of the year as one single day).
In March, employers announced the greatest number of layoffs in history – only other time: during pandemic.
(Reminder: Trump was first president since Herbert Hoover, who presided over the last great trade war with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 which is responsible for the Great Depression lasting so long, to leave office with fewer jobs than when entered. Then Biden came in, and increased employment each and every month of his presidency, and brought unemployment rates down to the lowest rate in 50 years, while wages increased at higher rate than inflation.)
Trump, to show his power, is weaponizing the economy built by Clinton, resurrected by Obama after the Bush Great Recession (credit default swaps!) and resurrected again by Biden after Trump 1.0 callous disregard for a global pandemic. Indeed, he dismissed the universal horror of a deliberate, willful destabilization of the global economy, as a “patient that had undergone surgery and came out of the operation a-okay” (except he said that before Wall Street had even opened, at more than 1300 points down, the worst slide since 2001).
What Trump called “Liberation Day”, The Economist - which had called the US economy “The Envy of the World” at the end of Joe Biden’s term in office - called “Ruination Day.”
This is all about bolstering his ego, to show that with a chart and a Sharpie, he can impact the economic fortunes and the future of the entire world, force heads of state to fall to their knees to beg for relief.
Trump (and his fascist Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who is either clueless or an economy assassin – he actually says he has no clue what the impact will be on prices or jobs, but will have to “wait and see”) isn’t the least concern that the dollar dropped after Trump’s tariff frenzy, throwing down the gauntlet to world economic order. Weakened dollar? No problem. Trump wants to prop up cryptocurrency, to benefit his own profit, Musk (creating an X currency) and the crypto bros who spent hundreds of millions to buy his election. (and not incidentally, helping the drug traffickers and Russian oligarchs who he wants to invite to become US citizens if they buy his gold visa for $5 million apiece.)
Why? Because Trump thinks the rest of the world will be harmed more than the United States, the USA (him) will still be the economic superpower (bully), and that tariff (tax) money will make up the revenue lost to the US Treasury from his tax cuts to billionaires, so they can continue to literally buy politicians, policies and elections (receiving an enormous Return on their Investment). When he says “Make America Great Again,” he means to return to 1850, before income taxes, when the government was funded by tariffs; before emancipation, when you could still lynch a slave, breed their children and sell them off; before women could vote or control their own money, body or future.
Hillary Clinton stated, “Why would a leader tank his own country's economy? It's a key part of the aspiring autocrat's playbook. Tariffs and economic chaos mean more power and control for Trump. But America has no king. The Republican-led Congress can stop this at any time. Let your representatives hear from you.”
This latest affront to Americans will no doubt help fuel the April 5 Hands Off! National Day of Mass Protest events taking place across 1200 locations in the United States and abroad. Visit handsoff2025.com to find one.
______________________________
© 2025 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles,Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com,email
[email protected] at www.dailykos.com/blogs/NewsPhotosFeatures
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/3/2314358/-Trump-Tariffs-Latest-in-Litany-of-Chaos-Incompetence-Corruption-Rising-Costs?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
