April 2 was dubbed “Liberation Day” by Donald Trump and his cult. Most people had no idea what the hell those idiots were talking about, but we soon found out when Trump waddled outside for his big announcement. Liberation Day = Trump’s plan for massive tariffs on foreign goods across the board. Trump waited until after the American stock exchange closed, but the global and futures markets reacted with panic.
President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday, which the White House dubbed “Liberation Day.”
“This is one of the most important days in my opinion in American history,” Trump said during a press conference at the Rose Garden, outside the White House. “It’s our declaration of economic independence.”
The fresh round of tariffs — hitting allies and enemies alike, with tariffs up to 50% — also included minor trading partners and marked a significant escalation from previous levies slapped on some foreign goods in recent weeks. The new tariffs feature two key policies: A uniform 10% tariff for all imports and “reciprocal” tariffs imposed on many nations that place duties on U.S. imports. The universal 10% tariff amounts to a wide-ranging trade barrier that will touch every product that enters the U.S.
Trump said the measure would ensure foreign firms pay a price for benefits derived from the purchasing power of U.S. consumers.
“Foreign nations will finally pay for the privilege of access to our market,” Trump said.
In addition to the universal tariff, Trump said, the U.S. will impose tariffs on many countries that levy U.S. goods. Trump described such duties as “reciprocal tariffs,” though he noted that the U.S. would impose tariffs at half the level of the trade barriers slapped on U.S. products.
“We will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us,” Trump said. “We’re kind people.” He added later in his remarks, “This is not full reciprocal. This is kind reciprocal.”
Absolutely none of this makes sense from an economic standpoint. Trump has zero understanding of national or global economics. What’s happening here is, in my opinion, an extremely senile cult leader whose drug-addled mind is continuously focused on this one thing which only “makes sense” to him. No one will tell him to let it go, so his entire Cabinet all came out for this demented Nazi’s big announcement that he’s imposing tariffs on a bunch of Antarctic islands which are only inhabited by penguins.
Per NBC, the global markets “reacted sharply and swiftly” as investors fled the US stock market. S&P 500 futures plunged by 3% and they’ll crash even further when the NYSE opens this morning. Trump keeps doing this at the start of every month too. In February and March, he backed down after a day or two. Will the same thing happen this month after he hears from the Fortune 500 CEOs?
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- US President Donald Trump arrives to announce reciprocal tariffs against US trading partners in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 April 2025. Trump has branded the day ‘Liberation Day’, though most economists expect US consumers to foot the costs Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 02 Apr 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- US President Donald Trump arrives to announce reciprocal tariffs against US trading partners in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 April 2025. Trump has branded the day ‘Liberation Day’, though most economists expect US consumers to foot the costs Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 02 Apr 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- US President Donald Trump arrives to announce reciprocal tariffs against US trading partners in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 April 2025. Trump has branded the day ‘Liberation Day’, though most economists expect US consumers to foot the costs Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 02 Apr 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- US President Donald Trump arrives to announce reciprocal tariffs against US trading partners in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 02 April 2025. Trump has branded the day ‘Liberation Day’, though most economists expect US consumers to foot the costs Featuring: Donald J Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 02 Apr 2025 Credit: POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
I hope we see the same voter reaction in the 2026 national mid-term elections that we saw in the recent Wisconsin election for a State Supreme Court Judge.
I fear that in a year most people will be emotionally numb. After a few months of living with constant stress you either go crazy or you shut down. There will be few people left who will still be able to actively fight this madness. The defense mechanisms of the psyche will take their toll.
IDK man…social security has notoriously been called the third rail for a reason. Seniors have all the time in the world to attend town halls and vote. If anything, I envision people becoming angrier and less tolerant of this insanity–and I say that as a pessimist who never ceases to be impressed with American complacency. Fingers crossed I guess…
That’s what they want.
There is a clear thing to do: change your spending patterns. We already see it working by Europeans stopping to buy Tesla and Canadians stopping to buy all kinds of things American of compromised companies. Even many Canadians still buy from Costco as they consider that a company that is better for its people and treat Canadian employees well.
Stop buying from compromised companies and start buying from companies that are not (can be domestic or foreign) or directly from people producing things.
There are easy lists to find online. Start with something.
Make it “no woke, go broke” instead of the opposite.
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Also, join protests if you can and networks of people who feel the same way. That helps keep the spirit up.
@Bay I agree. I hope Dems are able to use this to destroy the Rs in 2026.
Also how are you? I was thinking the other day that you hadn’t been around in a while.
Me too! I hope you’re doing well Bay–I miss reading your comments!
“unprecedented protests this morning on heard and macdonald islands, as the population rises up against trump imposition of 10% across the board tariffs.” https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1907746031233532325
😅 that’s cute 🐧
Is he stupid, evil, acting secretly in his own (or someone else’s) best interests—or all three? The perennial question.
…all three
It makes sense if you look at it as his way to make his rich cronies even richer – tarriffs make the stock market drop, so they’ll buy. He then ‘pauses’ the tarriffs and the market goes up, so they sell and make money.
It sucks for everyone else, of course, but they don’t care about that.
Yes, he is stupid. He said that Lee Iacocca thought these tariffs were a great idea. Iacocca died in 2019!
c) All three
But he truly does believe in his tariff-focused economic plan. He was talking about what he perceived to be “unfair trade deals” when he was just a young lad bankrupting his businesses and squandering Daddy’s money. He also wants the US to return to the robber baron days, where wealth was amassed and hoarded by the richest among us while income inequality reached critical mass. And he’s also stupid enough to believe that crashing the global economy and plunging us into a recession will somehow be good for him. Like, he actually believes that he’ll be remembered as a genius for bringing back industry to the US and punishing global trade partners. He doesn’t realize that it’s already too late for him: his legacy will be that of the worst American POTUS who destroyed our country beyond all repair.
Honestly, at this point I have no clue. I do think he’s stupid, and I do think someone is whispering to him (maybe that person is in his head, who knows at this point.) I also think he that he is obsessed with the idea of looking “strong” and doesn’t understand why this isn’t a sign of strength.
I do admit that I’m enjoying watching the Rs squirm a bit as they try to defend this. So many of them know this is a disaster but won’t say it.
If he’s not a Russian agent he sure acts like one.
Completely right, Ciotog. He kind of gave the game away by not imposing any tariffs on Russia.
Look at that fancy chart! It even has the official White House seal!! So professional!!! And not one sharpie. After the first version, he added more countries just to make the chart bigglier! He’s going to push the entire world into a recession.
Willing to bet there’s more than one misspelling on that chart.
A commenter on another site said these ‘tariffs’ being ‘charged’ be other nations is literally that nation’s trade deficit divided by is GDP. Or some similar mislabelled, made up math.
It is indeed the resp. country’s trade surplus with the US, as a percentage, but considering only goods. Services are ignored, and the US has a massive trade surplus in services, almost $300 billion in 2024.
Mad King Donald is holding us all hostage to his deranged whims. Even if he reversed course, the uncertainty is destroying what was, just three months ago, a very healthy economy. “The Envy of the World” was The Economist headline about the American economy as Joe Biden’s presidency ended. And American voters in their infinite wisdom said, ” We can’t have that!” and gave us Mad King Donald. Just because, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Because DT followers can’t see past the end of their own noses. They believe things like the election was rigged for Biden to win and that the pandemic was a fake that the rest of the world went along with to bring down Trump. They actually think other countries shut down and impacted their own economies with some conspiracy.
The problem with our economy is income and wealth inequality.
Which the Mad King is about to make worse. Much worse.
There is a possibility that today he is just waiting to hear back from his cronies that they’ve scooped up all the crashed stocks that they want and then he can say he had tremendous phone calls with the penguins on Heard & Macdonald Islands so now the tariffs are no longer necessary and everybody can just rebound now, okay? P.S. Biden’s fault!
That is the first thought I had. He is manipulating the stock market for personal gain because he can. He controls just about everything now so the government has become his personal piggy bank.
The contention that this will help things that are made in the US is false. Most US products use sources from outside the US for some raw materials and parts. Even if, say a car, were completely US made who doesn’t believe that they would bring up their prices to near any imports to make more money just because they could?
All of this and to your last point, it’s also a fundamental misunderstanding of the American consumer to think that we’re all gonna buy Teslas instead of Audis or whatever. We want what we want. Consumers will just wait to buy and domestic markets will take a hit as a result.
And US car companies cannot manufacture enough cars to fill that void anyway.
The tariffs are an idiotic, self-inflicted gunshot wound. If he was doing this in conjunction with an infrastructure bill that mandated the building of XX amount of factories, it would make more sense–but even then, we’re not gonna bring t-shirt manufacturing back to the US in the next 4 years or ever, really. Americans just don’t want those jobs.
And that’s how inflation works as a cover for a lot of companies to hike up their prices ABOVE inflation to make more profit.
It’s like the baggage fees on airlines. Remember how they used to not have those? At least for most airlines? and then during one of the oil shortages/criseses – maybe 10 years ago? They started charging baggage fees to offset the increase in fuel costs. They said it would be temporary.
And yet here we are……because they realized people will pay those fees. Once they realize people will pay the higher prices, they’ll keep charging them.
Yep. Unfortunately true. Maybe people will seriously boycott. I already keep things until they have to be replaced and not just replace because something new came along. Of course, they can always make people have to replace things like phones by changing the networks.
Not to mention it takes years to build up a manufacturing industry. And what business is going to take the risk of expansion during such economic turmoil? Especially knowing Trump has just evaporated the relationships with all their international trade partners? And people can’t afford to buy things anyway?
Felon47 has seemed determined since his inauguration to tank our economy. Why would he do this on purpose? One theory I read was that he wants the US to be an oligarchy, like Putin’s Russia. Distressed businesses & properties will have to be sold, & very very rich people will be the only ones able to buy them. The country’s wealth–and power–will become even more concentrated in far fewer people under that scenario.
He is too weak to survive this. If he thinks he will stay in power like putin, he is wrong. Putin is a psychopath, donald is a clown. Everyone can see that. His oligarchs will eat him alive in the battle for power.
But does Trump have the muscle to throw people out of windows? He’s surrounded by fools but are they killers? His Proud Boys and Klansmen are street bunglers–they aren’t poisoners or operatives. And Americans don’t have a culture of fearful tyrants like Russia–we have never feared our leaders the way Russians feared the crazy murderous tsars like Ivan the Terrible and then despots like Stalin and Putin. We’re a nation of “I want to speak to the manager!” whiners who complain about any mild inconvenience.
I would say that sending an innocent man to certain death in a prison in El Salvador and then shrugging and saying “oh well” when you realize it’s a clerical error is not different. It’s just keeping your hands theoretically tidier. I absolutely think the man who took out full page ads, demanding the deaths of innocent men in New York several decades ago, and suggesting that protesters should be shot and getting upset when he didn’t have the authority to do that is absolutely someone that would probably have people thrown out of windows. I think we are all missing the point that there are no Republicans who actually think there will be 2026 midterms. Trump will declare a state of emergency and votes won’t happen. None of them are acting like they have to keep voters on their side. He hasn’t taken pictures with every day people since he’s been elected. He stays on his private courses or the White House. That’s because he has no use for his own voters anymore. He couldn’t care less what happens to them. I think Russia and Turkey and all of these other countries said to him, “ why are you trying so hard? Just be a dictator and take power and you don’t have to worry about pleasing anyone.” And I think he was delighted with that idea. Anyone thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.
Maybe that fool Stephen Miller could also be a killer. He’s got the dead eyes for it, & rose to power by caging kids.
But I agree with you. Trump may want more of an oligarchy, and he may want Kash Patel’s FBI to be more like the KGB, but he won’t be pushing people out windows. He’ll be causing deaths indirectly by El Salvadorean incarceration, and stopping Medicaid and SS check delivery, and withdrawing kids’ vaccines, and killing USAID, and . . .
“He’s imposing tariffs on a bunch of Antarctic islands which are only inhabited by penguins.”
This is some straight up Caligula making his horse a senator shit.
I love this comment.
We can only hope that he meets the same fate as Caligula. Even his praetorian guards (equivalent to the secret service) eventually had enough.
His oligarch pals will buy up every asset they can get their grubby little hands on. Are we great again yet?
Take this with a grain of salt (where did that phrase even come from) but I was looking at a psychic predictions for 2025 and they predicted a stock market crash in June that had potential to be another black Monday. I told my husband to take our investments out in May and he’s been teasing me with “ ooooh a psychic “…today he sold 2 of the biggest bulk of our investments and has admitted I wasn’t totally wrong feeling that was coming)
With the massive layoffs/firing of government employees you will have a huge amount of people cutting back with expenses not going out and buying big ticket items cause they’re American made.
Any rational person even with limited financial knowledge could see Trumps claims are just dont make sense.
Watch your investments folks. I fear a lot of people who are too blindly trusting are going to have their financial futures devastated
Authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat says this tanking of the economy is standard procedure for authoritarian leaders, who want other countries and companies to cave to them.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy has a good explainer thread on Bluesky about how tariffs “are a tool to collapse our economy,” a “means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.”
In addition to loyalty pledges, Trump could extract public “shows of support from executives for all his economic policy. Contributions to his political efforts. Promises to police employees’ support for his political opposition.”
As Trump “adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.”
https://bsky.app/profile/chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3lluxkmx7wc2m
Trump is too dumb to do this on his own, so he’s using a playbook that’s been written for him.
I don’t doubt it but the market is it’s own animal, ya know? Markets respond not only to corporations but various other factors like job reports, GDP, market sentiment etc. Even within the global economy, what happens in one country can affect the other.
And again, not doubting Murphy’s point that this is the authoritarianism playbook, just doubting Trump’s ability to implement it (at least not in this specific way) in an economy as complex, large and dynamic as ours. But I guess it’s always best to just expect the worst with this asshole and hope that he’s just too incompetent to implement his plan.
I think he’s underestimating the retaliation he’ll be getting from global leaders, and how easily they can readjust trade partnerships to exclude the USA.
Hoping this won’t last more than a day or two, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking…