HOW AMERICA STOPPED BEING A SUCKER AND PUT ON THE BRASS KNUCKLES OR
LET’S TALK PLAINLY AND RATIONALLY ABOUT TARIFFS
The End of an Illusion
Washington, for all its talk of free trade, has always been a merchant republic in disguise – arms draped over the shoulders of its partners in a gesture of friendship, while the other hand rummages through their pockets. The previously established consensus operated with America dominating the world financially and militarily while outsourcing physical production to jurisdictions with lighter regulations, cheaper labor, or both.
It was all well and good – until it wasn’t.
From the moment Trump took charge, the whispers of global commerce turned into a deafening chorus of panic. Tariffs. The very word sent diplomats scurrying, analysts chattering, and markets trembling. The old rules of trade – where Washington paid and others played – were being rewritten, and not with the delicate hand of a statesman, but with the blunt force of a businessmen who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The Ruins of Prosperity
In the heartland of America, the old order left behind something else: silence. The empty husks of steel mills, the boarded-up windows of manufacturing towns, the hollowed-out dreams of blue-collar workers who once built America’s wealth and were now left to rot.
These men were promised prosperity but given fentanyl. They were told to embrace a global economy, only to watch their jobs shipped overseas.
This outsourcing led to the depopulation of entire American cities, resulting in the declassification of vast masses of citizens – the ‘blue collars’ who once formed the backbone of the American middle class. Today, the working class stands utterly isolated from the process of wealth accumulation in America, creating a chasm between ordinary workers and the wealthy employees of financial capital concentrated in America’s metropolises.
Trump, whatever else he may be, understood this. He understood that a nation that produces nothing is a nation in decline. That without industry, power becomes an illusion, and sovereignty a word whispered by the weak. And so, he set out to reverse the tide – not with treaties, not with diplomatic overtures, but with tariffs. A weapon as old as trade itself.
THE RISE OF THE UPSTARTS
The collapse of this system isn’t occurring because ‘America has run out of money,’ as the haters might claim. Nothing of the sort. The system is finished due to few fundamental reasons.
For years, the game was simple: America consumed, while China, Mexico, India, and Canada produced. They were the hired hands, content to toil in the factories while Wall Street bankers and Washington strategists reaped the rewards. But hired hands, once they grow rich, begin to think they own the land.
China – once a poor agricultural backwater – transformed into an ultra-modern production hub that has accumulated such substantial wealth that it began to believe it could conduct global processes. It sits at America’s table and dreams of taking America’s chair.
On another level, this was also the behavior of Canada and Mexico. Canada exists because it exports goods to the United States while severely restricting imports from America – particularly agricultural products. The country grows rich on America’s back while America practically guards its borders. Mexico, meanwhile, produces all manner of goods for the States and accumulates wealth at its expense, while simultaneously permitting enormous imports of narcotics, allowing human trafficking, and generally worsening life in the United States while profiting from it.
The vassals forgot their place. They mistook America’s generosity for weakness, its patience for dependence.
THE DELUSION OF FREE COMPETITION
The free-market purists, those soft-handed believers in economic fairy tales, scoff. ‘Let the market decide!’ they cry, as if markets were gods and not weapons wielded by the strong.
Why, they might ask, instead of imposing tariffs on imports, doesn’t America undertake to improve its competitiveness and bring back production to home soil on a competitive basis? America, they argue, should simply become more competitive, as if a man with a broken leg should simply learn to run faster.
The answer is brutally simple. No matter how competitive America becomes, it will never achieve the low production costs of China or India. The developed world has made a civilizational choice to comply with environmental, labor, and energy requirements that are simply not factors in many developing nations.
A Chinese factory does not pause for OSHA regulations. An Indian textile mill does not care for minimum wage. To compete with this is not competition at all – it is surrender. Moreover, China intensively subsidizes certain loss-making productions with state money to monopolize particular sectors before raising prices later. How do you compete with such anti-market behavior?
Tariffs, then, are not an attack on free trade, but a return to realism. A reminder that nations do not trade – they war. The difference is only in the method. When they don’t comply with requirements and use dumping practices, the only answer is sharp entry with tariffs and customs sanctions – or, in street language, financial beating by the bucket.
THE NEW ORDER
What comes next is quite clear – an international order based on bilateral relations and reciprocity in customs regimes. No more multilateral fantasies where America carries the burden while others reap the benefits. No more one-sided ‘free trade’ where America opens its markets while others protect theirs through a thousand invisible barriers.
Currently, Trump is starting with Canada and Mexico. Let no one have any doubts – both countries will acquiesce to the demands of the USA and will do what Washington wants from them. Yes, they will grumble, yes, they will try to twist arms, they will try to protect their interests. That’s completely normal. But ultimately, what America has decided will happen.
THE INEVITABILITY OF CONCESSION
As the world panics, Canada grumbles, Mexico protests, China threatens. But what choice do they have?
The numbers tell the story with cold precision: Trade with the USA accounts for 73% of the Mexican economy and 67% of the Canadian economy. Meanwhile, America’s trade with Mexico, Canada, and China combined represents barely 24% of the US economy.
There is simply no way any of these countries can effectively resist Washington’s demands.
Trump is heating up the situation strategically – he will first deal with the obstructions of Canada and Mexico before tackling the dragon in the East. They will complain. They will negotiate. But they will yield. Because that is how power works.
THE NECESSARY PAIN
Yes, there will be pain!
Manufacturers will calculate that the non-market bonuses from some country will be insufficient to cover the tariffs and logistics costs. Unable to abandon the American market, they will have only one choice – return production to America.
This leads to short-term inflation until these productions return home. But once they return, the equation changes: local production increases GDP, puts more money in American pockets, and raises purchasing power.
Such is the objective situation with tariffs. These simple facts must be taken into account to discuss this policy with arguments. Anything else is not expert conversation, but ordinary chatter.
Trump’s tariffs are not just policy. They are a declaration that America will produce again. That it will no longer be the financier of other nations’ prosperity at the expense of its own. That the old order has collapsed, and a new one – merciless, pragmatic, unavoidable – has begun.