It’s easy to dismiss Donald Trump’s haphazard tariff barrage as silly and self-defeating, especially after so many days of global market turmoil. But critics among liberal Democrats and Republican free traders still need to address the overriding goal behind the seeming madness. The key strategic objective of Trump’s approach is simple: restoring American industrial power. Opponents of the US president ignore this at their peril.
Trump is organizing a global embargo of China. To get the elites to comply, he did the equivalent of saying, "Nice stock market you got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it." That's what Americans will remember: Unlike in 2008, Trump put us ahead of Wall Street. pic.twitter.com/aUkIkooghL
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 10, 2025
