Democrats were so stunned that President Trump was serious about reciprocal tariffs that they couldn’t even come up with a standard talking point. We’ve heard Liberation Day—the day when the president announced the list of reciprocal tariffs—referred to as “Inflation Day,” “Chaos Day,” and “Tax Hike Day.” None of those are accurate or true.
If you’ve paid attention to the MSM for any information on tariffs, you might be feeling nervous about what happens next. You shouldn’t. President Trump and his economic team know what they’re doing.
Here’s a question that none of the tariff naysayers can answer:
If tariffs are truly horrible for a nation’s economy, then why does every single one of America’s trade partners impose tariffs on goods from the US?
On Liberation Day (Wednesday), President Trump announced a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods. He also unveiled reciprocal tariffs that will be imposed on nations that hammer US exports with tariffs or hidden taxes, like the VAT tax that Europe hits American-made goods with. Dozens of countries are now expected to pay up if they expect to access the American consumer market.
If these tariffs are going to be so bad for us, why are Europe and China freaking out right now?
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyden announced that European automakers will no longer be able to compete with American auto companies with reciprocal tariffs in place. She says the EU will have to “deploy countermeasures” to force manufacturing companies to stay in Europe, rather than flooding into the US and creating jobs here.
Von der Leyden also warns that China is going to start dumping all its cheap crap in the EU now that Trump has ended duty-free de minimus treatment for all Chinese goods.
One thing that no one is talking about in this tariff discussion is that President Trump just ended China’s ability to ship cheap garbage to the US through the de minimus loophole.
The de minimus loophole was created for the benefit of American tourists back in the 1930s. The reasoning was that if you travel to a foreign country, you shouldn’t have to pay duties and taxes if you buy any little souvenirs for friends and family and bring them back to the US.
When China realized that loophole existed a few years ago, companies started shipping cheap Made in China crap directly to American consumers through Amazon—and paying no duties or tariffs on those goods. That’s the entire business model of Chinese companies like Temu and Shein. De minimus was never intended to be used for foreign retailers to scam the system.
President Trump exclusively eliminated the de minimus rule for China and only China. That’s why Ursula von der Leyden is so worried about China dumping its cheap garbage in Europe. Trump just put Temu and other similar Chinese companies out of business in the US.
A lot of people noticed that Mexico and Canada were not on the list of countries that President Trump is imposing reciprocal tariffs against. That’s because Mexico and Canada have already surrendered.
Mexico’s president has said she won’t impose “tit for tat” tariffs against US goods and Canada announced that they’ll eliminate their tariffs on US imports. This is exactly what we predicted would happen. Trump has completely reset trade relations with our two closest trading partners. American companies now have a level playing field with Mexican and Canadian producers. We can ship anything we want to Mexico or Canada and it suddenly won’t be hit with crippling tariffs.
This will have an immediate effect on American farmers and ranchers. They can start overproducing again because there’s a market for their products in Canada and Mexico now. They no longer have to restrict supply to break even by artificially keeping food prices high in the grocery store. Grocery prices will come crashing down this fall—as we also predicted!
Will there be a little bit of short-term pain for Americans because of the tariffs? Yes, there probably will. But most politicians only look at economics on a two-year cycle, so they can’t even comprehend a plan that will reset the world order and make America prosperous again for multiple generations.
Don’t get nervous about all the nonsense that the pundits are spewing. What President Trump has done will benefit Americans for many years to come. This is what we voted for!
