The subject of tariffs has come up again. It happened the other day when Mr. Green came in after watching the news, threw up his hands, and said: “Why is Trump doing this? Who would wreck the stock market for no apparent reason?”
“I can give you a reason,” I told him.
When he asked what, I mentioned what I wrote in my recent column, though updated and with a somewhat different slant.
I told him how, since the deregulation of the financial sector in the early ’80s, household median income has been stagnant, and how, despite massive economic growth since then, the money has flowed mostly to CEOs, shareholders, and foreign workers, with our country’s own labor force left behind. Ross Perot talked about this during his campaign against Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush in 1992, criticizing NAFTA and claiming there would be a “giant sucking sound” of jobs and factories fleeing the U.S. for Mexico.
“Back then, many Democrats were for tariffs,” I told Mr. Green. Recent video footage from the ’90s of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer speaking on the House and Senate floors in support of American workers backs this up.
“It’s the reason there are virtually no factories in our town to speak of, unlike how it was in previous decades, because politicians, CEOs, and stockholders have decided to chase huge profits at the expense of the American worker,” I continued.
Mr. Green held a finger up. “I don’t like how our small towns have become run down,” he said in earnest.
Finally, I told him what Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in an interview with Tucker Carlson recently, namely, that the top 10% of Americans own 88% of equities, while the next 40% own the other 12%, leaving the middle class with nothing. “The bottom 50 has debt,” Bessent told Carlson.
Green sat back in his chair, thinking. “Isn’t there another way, though?” he asked. “It seems counterproductive. Why does he have to wreck the market?”
“The market isn’t being wrecked, it’s being redirected,” I said.
I told him that the market downturns were a result of growth being priced into equities, growth whose profits in part depend on the cheap labor of foreign countries, but that all this would even back out once the tariff debate is over with and new deals are done, deals that would almost certainly be structured more to the U.S.’s benefit.
“It will take some time,” I said. “But under the administration’s plan, all will be set back to normal, to the way it was before all the foreign trade deals that caused our factories to close were enacted. And our workers, many of whom are on drugs and welfare now ... well, they’ll have other options. Now, isn’t that a good thing?”
Green drummed his fingers on the desk. He picked up a pencil and started to write something on the back of a piece of mail, then set it back down.
“But those tariffs,” he said again, looking up. “Those tariffs.”
“Think of it this way,” I told him finally. “When the tariff war is over, all the high tariffs being charged to us by our foreign trade partners will be set back, either to zero, or a number reciprocal to our own tariffs, which, because they’d cancel each other out, would for all practical purposes equal zero. We could become a net producer again, rather than a net borrower.”
Suddenly, he grew confused. His jaw dropped, and he seemed as though the world had fallen in on him.
“What did you just say?”
“That everything will be evened out in the end,” I told him. “Just wait and see.”
“Not that,” he said. “About the tariffs. About the tariffs and other countries. I’m going to ask you something, and you have to tell me the truth.”
“Certainly,” I told him.
He leaned forward. “Do they have tariffs on us?”
“Of course they do,” I told him. “Huge tariffs in many cases. Especially China. Why do you think Trump is doing all this? It’s to combat what they’re doing to us. He wouldn’t have any if they hadn’t done it to us already.”
Green sat back in his chair, exhausted. I couldn’t believe he didn’t know this, but, in truth, if all a person watched was the mainstream media, they would think it was only the U.S. that engaged in tariffs. I started to explain this to him, but he’d had enough for one day.
He shook his head. “Just when I thought I understood it all,” he said.
Along with his father, Allen Keller runs a lumber business in Stevenson, Alabama. He has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MBA from University of Virginia. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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