Tariff-stunned markets face another week of potential tariff turmoil, with fallout from President Donald Trump’s sweeping import levies keeping investors on edge after the worst week for U.S. stocks since the onset of the coronavirus crisis five years ago.

Investors will look for signs the stock market may be close to at least a short-term bottom after Trump’s tariffs rocked global asset prices this week. The benchmark S&P 500 lodged its biggest weekly drop since March 2020 and the Nasdaq Composite on Friday ended down more than 20% from its December record high, confirming the tech heavy index is in a bear market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the week down well over 10% from its December record high, marking a correction for the blue-chip index.

More volatility could be in store ahead of the April 9 deadline Trump set for his reciprocal global tariffs to take effect, after his Wednesday announcement of the levies sent markets into a tailspin, raising fears of a global recession.

“The playbook on this is very, very unclear for everybody,” said Jeffrey Palma, head of multi-asset solutions at Cohen & Steers. “There is all the questions about tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, where this ends and where it shakes out.”

With the steep slide at the end of the week, the S&P 500 was down over 17% from its February 19 all-time closing high. In the two days following Trump’s tariff announcement, S&P 500 companies lost about $5 trillion in market value, the largest amount ever in a two-day stretch, according to LSEG data.

“The markets could be their own worst enemy,” said Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. “This kind of drawdown … could shake confidence and it could actually lead to weaker economic activity.”

Trump’s tariffs would amount to the highest trade barriers in more than a century, including a 10% baseline tariff on all imports and higher targeted duties on dozens of countries.

The trade battle escalated on Friday when China hit back with additional tariffs of 34% on U.S. goods.

Investors downgraded their economic and earnings forecasts, with JPMorgan analysts raising the risk of a global recession this year to 60% from 40% before.

Some investors held out hope that Trump would negotiate deals in coming days with some countries that would roll back some of the tariffs. Others were dubious that Trump would make any concessions.

Despite Trump’s opportunity to pivot, “it is not lost on us that the window is shrinking and some damage to consumer and business confidence may have been done already regardless of the negotiated ending point to follow,” Citi strategist Scott Chronert said in a note on Friday.

One sign of gloom: The Cboe Volatility Index, an options-based measure of investor anxiety, registered its highest closing level since April 2020.

Bearish sentiment in the American Association of Individual Investors survey reached 61.9%, its highest reading since 2009 during the financial crisis.

With tariffs clouding the outlook, investors are wary of dour financial forecasts as U.S. companies kick off quarterly reports in earnest in the coming week. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have climbed 7.8% in the first quarter from the year ago period, according to LSEG IBES.

Companies set to report next week include major banks JPMorgan and Wells Fargo due on April 11.

“We see a lot of uncertainty in the earnings outlook at the moment,” said RBC Capital Markets strategists in a Friday note, in which they cut their 2025 earnings forecast for the S&P 500.

The market selloff and increasing pessimism could mean the bar is lower for news that would buoy stocks, said Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer with Truist Advisory Services.

“If you had anything that was even remotely positive right now, you could see a short-term spark because people are braced for the negative outcome,” Lerner said.

Also in the coming week, the monthly consumer price index report on Thursday could help set a baseline for U.S. inflation ahead of the impact from tariffs, which are widely expected to add to pricing pressures.

Investors have been factoring in more Federal Reserve interest rate cuts this year in the wake of the tariff announcement, with Fed fund futures accounting for 100 basis points of easing this year, according to LSEG data.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday that the tariffs are “larger than expected” and the economic fallout, including higher inflation and slower growth, likely will be as well.

Palma, of Cohen & Steers, said it was critical for markets to show some stability in the coming days.

“We’ve had two really, really big days in terms of sharp market moves,” Palma said. “What we really don’t want to see is that starts to create some vicious cycle that itself destabilizes the financial system.”

© 2025 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

Anyone who cares about election integrity should get behind the legislation. Those who don’t? Well, they have their reasons.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to secure elections, including requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote — mirroring a bill set to be voted on in the House. While noncitizen voting is already illegal, the current law is largely toothless. Trump’s order, along with the House legislation, would simply add some teeth.

But Democrats are terrified that Republicans are finally taking the needed steps to enforce the law and protect our elections from violations that have been long ignored.

“Trump and Congressional Republicans are escalating their assault on American democracy through the noxious SAVE Act,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “Congressional Republicans are pushing a proposal that would coerce states into instituting policies that would effectively prevent millions of American citizens from voting …”

But how does Schumer know these “millions” of people are American citizens? Is he just taking their word for it?

The truth is, Schumer doesn’t have proof — and neither does anyone else. Taking someone’s word for their citizenship status isn’t confirmation, and our elections should never hinge on the honor system when so much is at stake. That’s why Republicans introduced the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.

The act would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act to require prospective voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship in order to register. While noncitizen voting is already illegal, the only thing standing between a noncitizen and secure elections is a small square box on the federal registration form that requires applicants attest to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury.

It’s a system ripe for fraud.

Take, for example, that a Chinese college student cast an illegal vote this past election cycle despite being a noncitizen. His vote was ultimately counted because ballots are secret and once a vote is cast and run through a tabulator, it is impossible to identify who cast the ballot. In Iowa, Jorge Oscar Sanchez-Vasquez was charged for “registering to vote and illegally voting on the same day, July 16, 2024, in a special election of the Marshalltown City Council,” according to the state’s attorney general. An October Georgia audit found 20 noncitizens registered to vote, and nearly half of them reportedly previously voted in an election.

Oregon’s secretary of state similarly found nine noncitizens who had voted in past elections, as well as “more than 300 noncitizens [who] were erroneously registered to vote,” as The Federalist’s Logan Washburn explained. Meanwhile, six noncitizens were indicted in Ohio for allegedly voting in past elections.

The examples are endless — and dangerous. When elections are decided on razor-thin margins (Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won her 2020 election by just six votes) every vote matters — but not every vote should count. Votes cast by ineligible voters, like noncitizens, should not count. In fact, they shouldn’t even be cast in the first place. One way to prevent that from happening is by requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote — that way noncitizens are unable to even get on the voter rolls.

But Schumer has vowed to “make sure” the SAVE Act is blocked by Senate Democrats. His comments were echoed by Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., who said his party would “overwhelmingly” oppose the legislation.

Without requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, there’s no real way of knowing whether noncitizens are making it on voter rolls or casting a ballot. And, as reported by The Federalist’s Breccan Thies, data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows “the federal government decided to only go after 35 criminal cases of aliens voting in American elections from 2001-2021…”

Manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation Hans von Spakovsky told The Federalist that he spent four years at the DOJ and that the department is “filled with left-wing ideologues, and they just had no interest — they have no interest in going after aliens to prosecute them.”

The DOJ won’t do its job, which makes the SAVE Act and Trump’s order even more necessary.

Anyone who cares about election integrity should get behind the legislation. Those who don’t? Well, they have their reasons.

Brianna Lyman, The Federalist

Solution to the leftist judge problem: IGNORE THEM. If we don’t ignore them, America will go down. They are totalitarians.

*******

“I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on.”
Ayn Rand, Anthem

*******

The message of the second Trump administration is as follows:

“If you wish to take over America with your own horrific hybrid of 21st Century Communism, socialism, fascism and psychopathy, you will have to go Old School: Like Lenin, Hitler, Castro and Mao. You will have to be real life totalitarians, not the snowflake version. Brainwashing students with government funds and dominating the media will not be enough. Installing a demented goon and a cackling whore as puppet and copuppet will not fly, not in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Only 3 months into Trump 2.0, the message could not be more clear; “Bring it on, leftists. We are more than ready for you.”

*******

A meme asks if Soros and son should be investigated by DOGE.

Seriously? You have to ask? They are both enemy combatants, not just against the United States but against civilization itself. They should be arrested, tried, convicted and executed–yesterday.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Looking at Europe today, we can visualize what we will face in the next 2-5 years. Look no further than the immigrant penetration of major European cities like London, with 37% of its total population being recent immigrants, a majority in some area communities. 18% of the German population are recent immigrants. Madrid and Rome, each with approximately 1.6 million immigrants. Amsterdam doesn’t even want to know how many immigrants they host, though similar to other major European cities, city leaders state.

In America, Southern California already has a majority or near majority immigrant population. Jersey City stands out, with 41.2% of its population made up of recent immigrants, and New York’s 14th Congressional District, led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has close to a majority of immigrants.

These numbers are expected to grow yearly regardless of Trump’s desire to stop the invasion.

A curious thing has happened in lockstep with Western nations admitting ever more people who do not aspire to be culturally absorbed. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young people, have become the de facto advocates for these immigrants, with no thought to their ability to contribute to society or their desire to conduct themselves civilly and productively.

Couple this with Democrat’s hard left shift that sees no sign of abating, and what you can readily see is the three-legged stool composed of anti-American rhetoric, mass immigration of uneducated individuals, and strident internationalism. We can visualize a day when Europe, America, and the remaining capitalist countries will end if effective countermeasures are not employed.

Few comprehend how progressives have rapidly and effectively overcome the West’s history of pluralism, law and order, and individual rights, all while attacking America’s Constitution, diminishing its promise, infiltrating our court system, and sullying the reputation of our economic system quickly and effectively.

One example out of England, however, is a microcosm into how young people’s minds are brainwashed by false narratives reinforced through coordinated messaging online, much of it funded by leftist transnational entities.

According to the sympathetic Slate report, British police arrested 21-year-old Zoe Rogers for causing millions of dollars of property damage at a factory in Bristol that is not an arms manufacturer but is managed by an Israeli arms manufacturer.  

Young Zoe, says her mother, “has always had a ‘massive social justice streak,’” which took the form of going online and finding a radical anti-Israel protest organization:

Then Zoe found Palestine Action, a U.K.-based pro-Palestinian protest network, and began talking about direct action. “Zoe said, ‘Protesting is like asking the government to dig a well. Direct action is just digging the well, and daring the authorities to stop you,’ ” Clare recalled. “At that time, she clearly decided that she was not afraid to go to prison.” In August 2024, Zoe, alongside a group from Palestine Action, hired a repurposed prison van and rammed through the gates to break into a factory in Filton, Bristol, run by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer. The “Filton 18,” as they have become known, used sledgehammers and axes to cause over $1 million in damage. Seven of the protesters, including Zoe, were arrested on site. Since then, she has been in prison—and will be for the foreseeable future.

The war on the Elbit factory wasn’t Palestine Action’s only initiative. “One recent action saw a man scale Big Ben and fly a Palestinian flag for 16 hours. ‘Free the Filton 18,’ the protester screamed.”

Soros, Rockefeller, and Pritzker fund Palestine Action. Additionally, all three contributed to Susan Crawford’s recent win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. A hodgepodge of other Democratic organizations, including The Tides Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Soros-controlled Open Society Foundation, to name but a few, have been closely tied to other initiatives that take aim at the West.

Closely observing many protest groups here and in the U.K. reveals coordination at multiple financial and operational levels. Pick your protest, Palestine, climate change, anti-forestry, immigration, DOGE, healthcare, gender, and more, and you will find the same entities and people. Why?

Together, it would not be hard to claim that these organizations are working for the destruction of Western civilization. Their chosen vehicle is to turn the Zoes of the world into guided missiles that we are to pity as they destroy property, dreams, lives, and, at a fundamental level, the underpinnings that we as a society rely on.

We need you, those who stand to lose the most, to turn away from concentration on the oftentimes unimportant pursuits that dominate our lives and instead realize that we are all in a war that will determine our future freedom. All must pay due attention.

Allan Feifer

Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Now that we’ve seen, in the first eight weeks of the Trump administration, a 96% reduction in illegal entries across the southern border—and this was done, remember, without the supposed need for comprehensive “immigration reform”—it’s logical to ask what the last four years were about.

Why did we have a completely open border? Why did 12 million people come into the United States from all over the world under illegal auspices? What was the reason? Why would people do that?

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And remember, right now, the United States has somewhere between 50 and 60 million residents that were not born in the United States. Twenty-seven percent of the population of California is foreign-born, of all statuses—citizen, legal, illegal.

That’s an enormous challenge in assimilation, acculturation, integration. And we’re not doing that, of course. But why would we do that? Why would we have 16%, now, of the population of the United States as foreign-born? What was the rationale behind that, especially in the context of illegal entries?

Looking back, what were the Democrats, what was then-President Joe Biden, what were the handlers of Biden thinking? I suppose they thought that maybe people who were coming in without English, without high school diplomas—for the most part—without capital, and without skills would be dependent on federal largess.

I know you’re gonna say people who are not here legally cannot get Medicaid. Well, they can get Medicaid in an emergency. In California, anybody can get Medicaid, which we here call Medi-Cal.

So many people came in illegally and got on Medi-Cal that the system is broke. It’s $6.7 billion in the hole. Fifty percent of the population, of all births, are on Medi-Cal. And 40% of the California resident population are on Medi-Cal.

So, was the idea to get people dependent on the government? And then that would make government grow and more redistribution and more higher taxes. A way of, what? Having equity? Taking from the small, supposed, greedy elite and making them pay higher taxes to fund this social welfare?

Or was it utopianism, globalism, 21st century-ism, end of the worldism? In which you think that borders are a 19th-century construct. We’re all people of the same planet, as we see in Europe. So, let’s just get rid of borders. Let’s make it everything from Yucatan to the Arctic Circle, we can just go anywhere we want in this utopian dream. There’s no difference.

Why is somebody who was born in Chiapas or Oaxaca or Michoacan to dire poverty and cartels and corruption, why doesn’t he get the chance of somebody who’s born in Malibu? Well, as social architects, maybe the Left thought he should have the chance. So, we’ll just destroy the border.

Or a third reason why—was it more sinister? Did they think that after 2020, when the majority of states changed the balloting laws to such a degree that earlier mail-in and early voting had only constituted 30% of those who voted, 70% voted on Election Day—now 70% of all American voters do not vote on Election Day. They don’t go before somebody and show a driver’s license. Did they think, under this system, they could bring in 12 million people and, in some cases, they could vote?

Now, that’s a very controversial topic. The Left says that they never do vote. I’m not suggesting that they do in numbers, although, I will suggest that although it’s illegal at the state level, in most states, it’s absolutely illegal at the federal level.

Sixteen local jurisdictions allow illegal aliens to vote in city council, school board elections, local referendums. It’s a trend that the Left is trying to cultivate and mine. So, do they think that, eventually, the more people you bring in—so you have 50 or 60 million people who were not born in the United States—they’re going to be a constituency? And equity being what it is and parity being—they deserve to vote.

Was that the long-term goal? Or was it a fourth reason, just simple nihilism, chaos? People were angry at the Trump years. Or they were angry at traditional America. They think it’s racist and sexist. It doesn’t provide diversity or equity and inclusion. So, what we’re going to do is just flood the zone. Twelve million people. And we’ll see how you like it. We’re gonna put them in hotels in New York. We’re gonna send them to the inner city. And we’re not gonna send them to Malibu or Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket. But we’re just gonna flood the zone and just make so much chaos that you’ll have to deal with it, sort of like California. Deal with it.

I don’t have the answer. I don’t know what was behind it. But I do know that never in the history of the United States, within four years, did the government, by intent, destroy the border, welcome in 12 million people, during the first year of a COVID-19 lockdown, where all of us had to be very careful, wear masks, and have proof of vaccination, with no audit at all of the people who were not here.

It’s inexplicable. And it’s so inexplicable that I’m gonna end today with I don’t have any answers other than providing the possible choices and alternatives I outlined.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.

But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.

For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.

But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.

The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.

Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.

Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.

Thank you and God Bless,

JD Rucker

Like the Artful Dilettante, the Internet has made citizen-journalists out of millions of us around the world.

A/D

A tremor ripples through the world of numbers, a harbinger of a new era: The mercantilist pivot of the United States is shaking up the well-rehearsed choreography of global markets — a reordering of trade is taking shape.

Power politics is defensive politics. Dominant political entities retreat into its embrace when the going gets tough. The U.S. is the hegemon of our time, and it no longer hides from its problems behind the rhetorical fog of moral narratives — now, it’s rolling up its sleeves!

With his tariff offensive, President Donald Trump is tackling an issue the nation has been kicking down the road since the end of the gold standard in 1971 — the gaping chasm of fiscal disaster and trade deficits.

Since the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, the U.S. has shouldered responsibility for the world’s reserve currency — with all the perks and pitfalls that entails. In the engine room of the global economy, the dollar has been the lubricant ever since, with the U.S. supplying banks and debtors by tolerating a chronically growing trade imbalance — until April 2, 2025, declared “Liberation Day,” the turning point of a grand shift.

Tariff Policy as a Steamroller

The Trump administration didn’t just start waving the flag against this twin deficit a few days ago. Anyone following the Trump campaign since 2023 could see what’s coming: a new trade order, with the U.S. as the architect of international supply chains. And it’s happening with maximum radicalism.

Aggressive tariffs, a weaker dollar, falling interest rates, tax cuts, and deregulation are the vectors of the U.S. government’s battle against an enemy that has seeped into society like a creeping poison: debt.

It’s the expression of a high-time preference, the desire to have things without much effort. Holding the world’s reserve currency cheapens imported consumption, as demand for the dollar seems boundless.

This poison has politics and vast swathes of the private sector in a stranglehold. Yet behind the curtain of tariff steamrollers and fiery rhetoric, a deeper longing glimmers: a resurgent domestic industry, the return of national creativity, a shift from consumer frenzy to entrepreneurial spirit.

Nothing less than the revival of the American “Do it Yourself” ethos is at stake. That spirit was outsourced ever since Former President Richard Nixon’s hidden default in 1971 — the end of the dollar’s gold convertibility at a fixed rate — leaving behind industrial ruins and social crises. The Rust Belt, the region hit hardest by this policy regime, remains the embodied nightmare that just won’t fade.

Predictable Reactions Everywhere

But how well has the U.S. government anticipated its trading partners’ responses? How precisely has it calculated the second-order effects?

The tariff move, tailored precisely to the U.S. economy’s national trade deficits, will send shock waves through markets.

Stocks sold off at first but are stabilizing now that the “tariff” Damocles’ sword has finally dropped. How will the U.S. dollar and bond markets react to this massive upheaval of the status quo?

After turbulence and high volatility, things will likely settle into business as usual — while awareness of credit risks elsewhere, like the Eurozone, grows. There, the initial reaction was defiance: French President Emmanuel Macron urged European companies to freeze investments in the U.S., while early voices from Brussels hint at taking on American tech giants with (feeble) regulatory muscle. Elon Musk’s X is especially in their crosshairs.

Only a cynic would suspect this has anything to do with Europe’s censorship efforts, which have so far bounced off the platform without effect.

The U.S. Stays on the Offensive

Meanwhile, the Americans are charging ahead, announcing massive tax cuts. The goal is rapid reindustrialization, job growth in the private sector to absorb the tens of thousands laid off from bloated government bureaucracies — a problem the EU still refuses to tackle.

Alongside this, the energy sector is being deregulated, securing measurable cost advantages for American manufacturers over their European rivals. The aim is to wipe out the trade deficit, which ballooned to a staggering $794 billion last year.

Remarkably, markets didn’t see the tariff club coming, even though Trump never hid his intent to bludgeon it out of existence if need be. Time and again, he stressed that the U.S. would no longer be taken for a ride or bled dry — and more than once, he pointed toward Brussels. Key sectors like the auto industry (a tough blow for Germany), semiconductors, and AI data centers are set to stage a stunning comeback under the “Made in the USA” banner.

Collateral Damage: The Eurodollar Market

This policy is laser-focused on national interests, and it might just work. But it comes with collateral damage. It’s not just the tougher price competition foreign companies will face in the U.S. market.

A shrinking U.S. trade deficit will massively disrupt the international capital market. Since the end of World War II, a dollar-denominated credit market — the so-called “Eurodollar market” — has emerged. It’s the great unknown in the race for cheap dollar credit, which, as the world’s reserve currency with over 50% dominance, still rules the global credit mechanism.

Even China’s forced pivot or Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT amid sanctions couldn’t dent this supremacy. How will international banks cope with this slow drying up of liquidity? How will states refinance themselves when they need fresh dollar credit for debt servicing? We’re heading into a time of extreme stress in the credit framework.

One thing is clear: If the U.S. manages to shrink its trade deficit, dollar credit will get pricier. Fiscal room will melt away like ice in the sun, and the Federal Reserve will gain new pricing power over its product: dollar credit. Once this process is underway, we’ll witness what Trump aimed for with his “Liberation Day” — a reordering of the global economy.

Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss / Germany, has a degree in economics. He has been working as a freelance author and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations for over 25 years. As a freelance journalist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow the principles that focus on the individual and their rights to self-determination.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cautioned last month that Americans will likely experience “a detox period” after President Donald Trump implements his wide-ranging tariffs.

What are we detoxing from, exactly?

From an abundance of affordable goods and the world’s highest living standards? From consistent economic growth? From leading the world in nearly every possible innovation and quantifiable economic measurement? From being an evolving manufacturing powerhouse? From enjoying an unprecedented per capita GDP or the low unemployment rates?

The Trump administration suffers from Munchausen syndrome by tariff, prescribing toxic cures for mythical ailments to gain attention.

That’s something to remember as Trump celebrates “Liberation Day” this week, promising to free us from the tyranny of affordable car parts, oil, produce, computers, phones and furniture, among thousands of other products.

Trump’s flighty trade guru, Peter Navarro, contends that the United States is going to raise $6 trillion in revenue via tariffs on foreign goods over the next 10 years. He also says tariffs are a “tax cut,” which makes about as much sense as former President Joe Biden telling us that dumping trillions into the economy would do wonders in fighting inflation.

Biden-era Democrats believed “transitory” inflation was worth suffering through in order to “remake” the economy. Trump officials are now making the same terrible bet on transitory economic pain.

And it’s impossible for a voter to keep up with the MAGA reasoning for tariffs. One day, trade wars are merely a means of finding fairness. The next day, tariffs are going to replace the income tax and build a complete “self-sufficiency” utopia where people will once again be paid big bucks for assembling widgets in factories.

Trump did promise voters he would deal with the trade deficit and stop countries from “ripping us off,” which is like accusing your local supermarket cashier of robbing you when you buy groceries.

Are all international trade deals “fair”? Of course not. If things were fair in this world, we’d be in big trouble. Just look at a list of nations with high trade barriers and those without them. The ones that are low are virtually all wealthy, and vice versa.

According to protectionists like Vice President JD Vance, the public is the victim of stagnant wages and a lack of good jobs due to “deindustrialization.” Not only is manufacturing output at historic highs right now, but real annual family income has spiked $28,000 since NAFTA was enacted, while overall wealth rose close to 500%, outpacing inflation five times over that time.

The U.S. per capita income over the past 10 years is unrivaled. The middle class has only shrunk because of the growth of the upper middle class.

Tariffs are meant to prop up a small number of antiquated union jobs in the Rust Belt at the expense of millions of others. We’re not “bringing back” manufacturing jobs lost to automation, which is most of them. And we already have plenty of high-tech, high-paying jobs. For every Rust Belt town that struggles, a new wealthy suburb in Texas, Nevada or Florida continues to grow. Those voters may not be as accommodating to the administration if its technocratic adventures start tanking 401(k)s.

It should not be this way. Over many decades, Congress has incrementally handed over “emergency” and tariff power to the president. There’s simply no model of the constitutional order that foresaw the executive unilaterally installing economic policy or taxing citizens without legislation. Courts are constantly intervening when Trump acts in ways that fall under his executive purview. And yet, no one stops him from enacting tariffs, a clear violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

In a healthy republic, we would have a debate on how to implement economic policy. A federal legislature would represent the needs of its districts, states and the country. Our relative stability relies on checks on power. In this case, the entire economy hangs on the daily whims of one man.

One suspects that memories of a strong pre-COVID economy helped Trump win in 2024. That success was predicated on free market deregulation and tax cuts, not a statist remaking of the economy. Polls show about 60% of people are already concerned about how the president is handling tariffs. A recent Fox News poll found that 69% (correctly) believe that tariffs will make products more expensive. Protectionism isn’t as popular as MAGA believes.

And should the economy backslide into stagflation or a recession, it won’t be difficult to figure out who to blame.

Summary. This WIP document was created to help understand Jew-hatred (Antisemitism) – the world’s oldest form of racism. As well as provide essential resources and outline the following: — How Islamist propaganda goes hand in hand with leftist Marxism through the process of Soviet/Russian. — The connection between Islam and the Nazis (how Nazism transformed into Islamism). — How the “Palestinian Cause / Movement” is the pinnacle and forefront of Arab imperialism, Islamic Jihadi terrorism, invasion and colonialism. — How Israel isn’t fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran, Qatar, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis etc – it’s fighting Islam. — How we’re at the beginning of a 3rd world war between Islam(+) and the West, starring: Iran, Qatar, Russia, China and North Korea vs. Israel, Europe, UK, USA, Canada, Australia etc. (The West). Preface. The so-called “Palestinians” represent one of the greatest lies and deceptions in modern history. “Palestine” and the “Palestinian movement” stand as the ultimate embodiment of Arab imperialism, Islamic Jihadi terrorism, invasion, genocide, ethnic cleansing and colonialism. It is an intolerant force rooted in antisemitism, hostility toward the West, oppression of women, and a rejection of life and humanity itself. It is the pinnacle of Islamist terrorism propaganda; a perverted, cynical and sinister inversion of history, masquerading as a noble struggle for freedom and socialism. This toxic and destructive ideology is propelled by relentless Marxist brainwashing, twisting minds and distorting truths to serve a malevolent agenda. Far from a “grassroots liberation movement”, it’s a calculated assault on reality itself, hidden behind the fake, deceptive mask of “passionate revolution”. It is also modern Nazism; The ‘Muslim Brotherhood’, the ideological parent of groups like Hamas, was founded in collaboration with actual German Nazis in Egypt nearly a century ago.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made it clear in an interview with CNN that the era of trade imbalances is over, and under President Trump, the U.S. will no longer tolerate unfair treatment.

During a discussion with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Bessent confidently explained the administration’s position on tariffs and trade policy, signaling that Trump’s economic strategy is deliberate and well thought out.

When pressed on how the administration’s policies could impact the auto industry, particularly regarding vehicles made with foreign parts, Bessent was blunt.

“If half the cars coming into the United States are foreign-made, that’s hard to turn around overnight, as you know,” Collins said. “So what would you say to people in the auto industry who are worried about that timeline and how quickly that could shift?”

“Buy American,” Bessent said bluntly. He also clarified that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) exempts certain vehicles and parts from the new tariffs.

Collins attempted to raise concerns from U.S. allies, questioning what the administration would say to countries like South Korea and Japan, which are now facing increased tariffs. Bessent’s response was direct: “Well, I would say they’ve been doing it to us for a long time. And, if they don’t like tariffs, then why do they have them?” His answer underscored the administration’s stance that America has been on the losing end of trade deals for too long.

As for whether the tariffs should be considered permanent, Bessent took a wait-and-see approach. “I think we’re gonna wait and see how this plays out,” he explained, suggesting that adjustments could be made based on how the policy unfolds.

Collins also asked about the possibility of retaliation from other countries. Some foreign leaders have hinted at potential countermeasures, while others have opted to observe before making a move. Bessent urged patience.

“One of the messages that I’d like to get out tonight is everybody sit back, take a deep breath, don’t immediately retaliate, let’s see where this goes. Because if you retaliate, that’s how we get escalation.”

Related: Kevin O’Leary Slams Canada’s ‘Sheer Stupidity’ in Trade Standoff With Trump

When Collins pressed him on whether such escalation could turn into a full-fledged trade war, Bessent dismissed the idea. “Not a trade war. Depends on the country,” he said, before explaining that history favors the United States in such disputes.

“Remember that the history of trade is, we are the deficit country. The deficit country has an advantage,” he explained. “[The others] are the surplus countries. The surplus countries traditionally always lose any kind of a trade escalation.”

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His message to foreign governments was clear: Acting hastily would be a mistake. “As a student of economic history or a professor of economic history, I’d advise against it,” he said. When Collins sought further clarification, he reinforced the point: “I would say that doing anything rash would be unwise.”

Bessent’s remarks leave no doubt that Trump’s trade policies are rooted in historical precedent and strategic calculation. While globalists may panic, the Trump administration remains confident that America is in a stronger position than its trade partners. And history is on our side.

Bessent’s message is clear: Trump knows exactly what he’s doing.

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Matt Margolis is a conservative commentator and columnist. His work has been cited on Fox News and national conservative talk radio, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Mark Levin Show, and The Dan Bongino Show. Matt is the author of several books and has appeared on Newsmax, OANN, Real America’s Voice News, and even CNN.