As of the beginning of April, President Donald Trump has just unveiled his newest series of far-sweeping tariffs to be placed on many of the countries that the US trades with. Around 183 nations had tariffs placed on them in his newly announced plan, including many of the US’s strongest allies, such as the European Union. These “reciprocal” tariffs, Trump claims, will help bring back American manufacturing and will help the US economy in the long run by bringing in billions of dollars in revenue, even though many price hikes on household goods will be expected. Everything about these tariffs seemed extremely strange and seemed to only do more harm than good for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, how will these tariffs affect the average American? Although just that topic of
conversation alone can start a heated debate depending on where in the political spectrum you ask, both conservative and liberal economists generally agree that the addition of all these tariffs will severely cripple the spending power of the American consumer. Because the tariffs will make companies have to pay a tax on any imported goods from the tariffed countries, and the companies will more than likely increase prices to pass the costs down to the consumer, leading to the average American getting more hurt than the actual tariffed country.

Secondly, the choice that Trump had picked on what countries got tariffs is very bizarre. Many of our closest trading allies had been given tariffs of varying amounts, such as the European Union, Japan, Korea, and many others. This comes despite very friendly economic and political relations between these nations prior to Trump’s presidency, and despite being named “reciprocal tariffs,” they are mostly based off our trade deficits with these other countries rather than tariffs they have placed on us. He also placed 10% tariffs on Heard and McDonald Islands, despite the islands not having a single human being living on them. Also, despite historically being at odds with them, and having been sanctioning them since the beginning of the War in Ukraine, Russia was not included in the list of tariffed countries at all. This, and other strangely friendly interactions the Trump administration has been having with Russia, as well as beginning to draw support away from Ukraine, it seems like a lot more is happening between Trump and Putin behind the scenes.

This is unacceptable and will only help ruin the economy even further. With the stock market crashing across the board, these tariffs will serve to make investors even more scared, causing stock prices to plummet even more. Tariffs like this have not been seen since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which caused a global trade war and is credited with greatly exacerbating and worsening The Great Depression. And if history is due to repeat itself, we are on track for yet another recession, one our economy may not be able to easily bounce back from. The only thing you can do now is contact your local congress or senate representative and tell them how you and your fellow Americans do not approve of this flagrant waste of our international standing to our allies. Our representatives have the power to block these tariffs,
and they already have partially with Canada. But it is not enough until President Trump backs down from these tariffs entirely, as it may be the only chance our economy has to recover without bankrupting millions of Americans in the process. And if worse comes to worse, it could mean financial ruin for millions of working-class Americans, all while Trump, Elon, and the rest of the administration barely notice the difference.