What’s happening in global trade right now reminds me of middle school. There were bullies who felt they could harass and intimidate the smaller, smarter students. And for a while, their aggressive tactics worked: the victims coughed up some homework or lunch money.
But years down the road, what became of these two groups of students? Many of the bullies became criminals and lonely deadbeat parents, while their bookish victims are more likely to have happy families and good jobs.
On the world stage, Trump’s America is the uneducated bully. He has unilaterally threatened to raise tariffs on our allies and competitors alike, wrongly believing this will “force” other countries to the negotiating table. He’s done this based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what a “trade deficit” is.
The tl;dr is this: The US has been awash in cheap goods from around the world because 1) we have more money to spend on shit than a lot of other countries , and 2) we have an insatiable consumer culture. For a long time, our trading partners built industries to feed the “American Dream”—and we, in turn, got access to abundant, affordable stuff.
That era may be coming to an end. If we, the bully, continue down this road of trying to strong-arm smaller countries with tariffs, we’ll end up a weak, isolated loser. Other world leaders such as Xi Jinping, Mark Carney, and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo know better than to capitulate to American aggression.
Would tanking the US economy finally break the cult leader’s spell?
Throughout the Trump era, reasonable people on the left and right have assured themselves that the fan-fever would break with each colossal misstep:
- In 2016: There’s no way Americans will vote for a misogynist who bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy.”
- In 2020: There’s no way Americans will support an anti-science moron whose failed Covid-19 leadership contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
- In 2021: There’s no way Americans will continue supporting the traitor who fomented a violent insurrection on our Capitol.
- In 2024: There’s no way Americans will re-elect a criminal who was convicted of 34 felony counts.
- In 2025: There’s no way Americans will continue supporting a racist who is detaining and deporting non-white legal US residents (in defiance of the courts) while welcoming white Afrikaner “refugees.”
Misogynist, moron, traitor, convicted criminal, and racist.
And yet, here we are. None of these failures dented his popularity the way we’d assumed—but his biggest challenge is yet to come. These tariffs are threatening our addiction to material goods.
If we continue on this course, in the next few weeks, Americans will see the prices of nearly everything start to rise. Container ships, normally filled to the brim with all of the shit we’re used to getting on the cheap, have been arriving at our shores empty. We cruised on inventory for a while, but that’s drying up.
When Trump’s boneheaded tariff policies make everything more expensive and difficult, will he still have support? It’s not the first, second, or eighteenth time we’ve asked ourselves this question. But maybe—just maybe—MAGA will wake up when their wallets are empty and they only have Trump to blame.
Given Trump’s recent waffling and tariff pauses, he may actually recognize the fragility of his fan base. In America, he can be a misogynist, moron, traitor, convicted criminal, and racist—but rising prices on everyday goods are a bridge too far. It’s the economy, stupid.