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[We’ll be] making a lot more stuff in America, high-tech manufacturing, security goods, autos, a lot more stuff across the industrial spectrum. If you create good jobs for people, they have an easier time forming a family, getting married, having kids, finding housing, affording the costs of raising children – Stephen Miran, Chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors (quoted in The Wall Street Journal, “President Looks To Past To Remake Economy” Friday 4/4 A1 [SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED])

President Trump has a nostalgic vision of what “Make America Great Again” consists of. On Wednesday afternoon he tried to recreate it one fell swoop. The problem is that you can’t wipe away 40 years of history on a whim. While I am sympathetic to his vision, the means he is choosing will almost certainly cause a global recession – or worse (see “Shades of 1929”, Top Gun Financial, April 2, 2025).

Over the last 40 years, America’s manufacturing base has been hollowed out as manufacturing and jobs have been outsourced – primarily to China. Many Americans are suffering as a result – and not just financially. Vice President Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy beautifully articulates the tragedy that has swept over the heartland.

Hence, Trump’s 54% tariff on imported Chinese goods. The problem is that the factories and jobs are already there. They can’t be instantaneously transported back to America. And building factories in America would likewise take years.

Corporate executives faced with decisions about their supply chains in the wake of these new prohibitive tariffs are in an extremely difficult situation due to uncertainty about if the tariffs will even be in existence by the time overseas factories are shut down and new ones in America built. That uncertainty means that it many cases it makes more sense to do nothing for now and wait and see how things play out – which does nothing to bring about Trump’s vision. In the meantime, the tariffs will bring global trade to a standstill, throwing the global economy into a recession.

In his long fight back to the Presidency, President Trump rightly accrued tremendous political capital. He beat spurious lawsuits intended to eliminate him from contention, survived assassination attempts, etc… When he beat Biden in November, the momentum at his back made him seem unstoppable. But he is risking everything, his entire agenda, with these tariffs. All the other good things he is trying to do – streamlining government, striking back at Wokeism, deporting criminals here illegally – will be impeded if the tariffs backfire as I believe they will.

This is a historic overreach that will set America back even further and destroy his legacy. One can only hope that he will come to his senses.

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