“Liberation Day”

And now, Wall Street titans begin to acknowledge that tariffs may have a role beyond the stock market.

WASHINGTON — “Don’t be a PANICAN,” President Donald Trump cautioned on social media. Critics have questioned the universal tariffs he unleashed last week, and Americans have had to steel themselves before checking the balance of their 401(k)s.

The Trump tariffs came fast and larger than expected. The markets responded.

Now Republicans and Wall Street big shots find themselves defending an economic approach that was anathema to them not long ago. But the world has changed.

Trump must ignore the lords of Martha’s Vineyard

For decades, the United States provided a market that was unlimited for most exporters, enabling countries large and small to transfer their populations from marginally productive farms in overcrowded villages to low-tech industries producing garments, footwear, simple hand-tools and such like. In that first stage of one-sided market opening, poor people worldwide became less poor, while working-class Americans started to lose their jobs — and the American ruling elite in both parties remained uncritically devoted to free trade.

This column isn’t what you probably expect it to be. I’m sure you read that headline and expected we’re going to be decrying the legacy corporate propaganda press and its ubiquitous fearmongering over the economic effects of the tariffs which went into place last week as President Trump seeks to rebalance the relationships between the United States and the rest of the world on trade.

I could do multiple columns on that subject. Instead, I’ll just throw in this X conversation…

China vowed to “fight to the end” after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent duty on imports if Beijing does not withdraw the retaliatory 34 percent tariff it imposed on American products last week.

China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement that it “resolutely opposes” the president’s escalating threat of tariffs and will not back down.

Runway of Tariffs

Made in a single day using:
Images – GPT-4o Image Gen
Video – @LumaLabsAI

Global trade has never looked this good. pic.twitter.com/BhlF3W0TBk

— InterdimensionalTV (@n_reruns) April 7, 2025

FULL REMARKS: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media – 4/8/25

Just announced: President Trump has just raised tariffs on China to 104%, effective tonight. Trump has already secured 3 trillion in new investment. #China #tariffs #TrumpTariffs pic.twitter.com/S4Npexjh1l

— AJ Huber (@Huberton) April 8, 2025

Unsourced claim that Donald Trump was considering 90-day pause on sweeping tariffs caused momentary chaos

Wall Street was braced for chaos when the US markets opened for trading on Monday, but no one could have anticipated the $4 trillion meltdown that ensued.

An unsourced claim that Donald Trump was mulling a 90-day pause on the sweeping tariffs he imposed on virtually all of America’s trading partners sent stocks flying upwards before plummeting back down at breakneck speed.

Trump’s tariff policy has the potential to solidify Republican dominance for decades.

Anyone foolish enough to take seriously the rhetoric of the Democrats concerning the reciprocal tariffs announced by President Trump on “Liberation Day” will experience two sensations — dread and confusion. This unpleasant combination was inevitable due to the strident denunciation of tariffs by a political party whose presidents have routinely deployed them in the recent past. President Obama, for example, imposed a 35 percent tariff on Chinese tires and President Biden deployed a 25 percent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum. Yet the voters are now expected to believe the Trump tariffs will somehow plunge us into a recession or something akin to the Great Depression.

The Democrats are enraged by the tariffs precisely because they understand Trump's goals. They know they long ago lost the guts to fight for the American working class. They now fight for Wall Street, which thinks it should control the agenda because for so long, it has. pic.twitter.com/7iol8eegub

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 6, 2025

As most of the media projected doom and gloom kvetching over their predicted negative aspects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, there was a rather contrarian view on this subject from a very surprising source: Nahal Toosi, Politico’s senior foreign affairs correspondent.

President Donald Trump’s tariff bomb blew up Wall Street like the 1987 Black Monday crash — but what if there’s a method to the madness?

I’m not talking 9-D Vulcan laser chess here, but maybe an escape hatch from a sinking ship. Even if the escape itself is on fire.

US President Donald Trump has defended sweeping tariffs on imports that sent shockwaves through global stock markets, saying “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One late on Sunday, he said jobs and investment would return to the US to make it “wealthy like never before”.

Trump’s top officials stressed that the tariffs – announced last week – would be implemented as planned, playing down recession fears.

I see the so-called stock market meltdown as nothing more than an orchestrated temper tantrum by our threatened elites.

German MEP Christine Anderson recently shared her perspective on the hidden forces shaping global governance. “I don’t know who’s truly behind it,” she admitted. “It’s not Ursula von der Leyen—she isn’t making decisions. It’s not Bill Gates, nor even Klaus Schwab. They’re not the… pic.twitter.com/9DISYSqkhY

— Camus (@newstart_2024) April 6, 2025

h/t Hermes