This week, President Donald Trump ushered in a new era of American renewal—Liberation Day—by imposing a comprehensive suite of tariffs on foreign imports. This is not merely a policy change. It is a historic pivot, a national recommitment to the American worker, the American community, and the American future. It is the end of one failed economic consensus and the rebirth of another—one grounded in strength, security, and broad-based prosperity.
Liberation Day is about investment—not in financial derivatives or foreign production chains—but in our own people. It is about ending the 40-year experiment in free trade globalism that hollowed out the heart of American industry in exchange for short-term consumption and long-term decline. And it is about returning to a vision held by our founders and our greatest presidents: an America that makes things.
For decades, Wall Street globalists and coastal elites told us that “free trade” was an unquestioned good. But in reality, the U.S. became the importer of last resort—the dumping ground for the world’s overproduction. China, Vietnam, and the EU—these are surplus nations whose strategy is to overproduce, under-consume, and rely on American demand to drive their growth. And they often launder their goods through countries like Mexico and Canada to skirt responsibility.
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This is not “trade” as Adam Smith imagined it. This is mercantilism with a smiling face—a system in which foreign governments pour unimaginable resources into building dominant industrial sectors, while the U.S. lets its factories rust. This is not efficiency, it is exploitation. This is multinational arbitrage, trading away our labor standards, our environmental safeguards, and our industrial base for goods that are just a few dollars cheaper.
We are told by our economists that the invisible hand will take care of us. But they ignore what is right in front of them. Manufacturing remains the most productive sector of the American economy. It drives innovation, research and development, and national strength. Meanwhile, finance has bloated our economy beyond recognition, and services, while essential, cannot replace the wealth creation of industrial production.
Trade deficits are not benign. They are corrosive. They drive inequality, hollow out communities, and concentrate wealth among the Davos class. For every benefit claimed by the free-trade consensus, the losses have been deeper and broader—the loss of high-wage jobs, the erosion of productive capacity, and the slow collapse of the American middle class.
This isn’t just true in the United States. Globalization has torn apart societies from Mexico to Malaysia. Wherever multinationals gain market share, local industries collapse. As in Mexico, economic development is stunted by predatory trade practices, not enhanced by them. Around the world, trade liberalization has enriched oligarchs and deepened inequality.
HOW WE GOT TO LIBERATION DAY: A LOOK AT TRUMP’S PAST COMMENTS ON TARIFFS
The ideology of free trade is not science. It is dogma—promoted by Anglo-American economists who reject any strategy that dares to prioritize national development. But history tells a different story. George Washington’s first message to Congress called for tariffs. The second bill, ever, passed in the United States was the Tariff Act of 1789. Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, and Calvin Coolidge all built American greatness on a foundation of national industry protected by tariffs.
Even John Maynard Keynes, in 1930, broke with his colleagues and called for a 15% tariff on all goods to combat global imbalances and protect domestic economies from the ruinous effects of foreign surpluses. He recognized what we have forgotten: that no well-run nation can depend on others to feed, clothe, and equip its people.
To those who fear inflation, look to countries that invested in production instead of relying on imports. Their inflation has been lower or equal to ours. Protecting workers is not the cause of inflation—it is the solution to stagnation. Real wage gains, driven by productivity and a revived industrial base, are the path to prosperity.
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The U.S. does not have to accept decline. We do not have to outsource our strength, our security, or our sovereignty. We do not have to hear lectures about “cutting government jobs” while millions of private-sector workers were thrown to the wolves in the name of “progress.”
Liberation Day marks the return of national self-respect. It means producing our own medicines and military equipment, building our own technology, forging our own steel. It means less dependence on fragile supply chains and more resilience in the face of crisis. It means stronger families, safer communities, and a middle class that can once again feed its children and retire with dignity.
Diplomatic niceties and photo-ops do not define global leadership. Strength does. And strength begins with the industrial capacity to defend your nation, your values, and your way of life.
To our allies: we welcome partnership, but not at the cost of our workers. Friendship is not built on trade deficits. To our competitors: the era of American self-sacrifice is over. The U.S. will no longer serve as a stepping stone to your development at the expense of our own.
Liberation Day is not the end of trade. It is the beginning of strategic national development —on our terms, in our interest, for our future. It is the day America reclaims its destiny.
