You have to take MSM commentary on the tariffs with a very large pinch of salt given that TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is so widespread. Meanwhile, the MSM ignores the elephant in the room that the West is committing slow-motion economic hara-kiri in the name of “climate change”, especially the UK with electricity prices the highest in the world and deindustrialisation in full swing.
On the broader front, the global financial system chaos caused by the unsustainable levels of fiat money debt racked up over decades by our irresponsible politicians is almost certainly the main motivation for the oppressions we have been subjected to over recent years.
The prime example is Covid-19 which was a coldly-premeditated, globally-coordinated “plandemic”. Reiner Fuellmich (now locked up in prison on trumped-up charges) was spot on in his 2022 Covid-19 Crimes Against Humanity model trial. Listen to his closing arguments and read the evidence of his many expert witnesses in https://metatron.substack.com/p/reiner-fuellmichs-grand-jury-court.
They will probably try again via some different pretext, e.g. CBDCs linked to digital ids or maybe digital ration cards for energy or food (a kind of climate lockdown). Hopefully the Trump administration will successfully spike their guns.
Thanks Douglas and those are very well made points with very well selected links. Those are useful to me as well as to anyone else reading this. So cheers for adding them here.
And the globalist parties are showing their true colors. Reported in Epoch Times;
“Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill that aims to reassert Congress’s authority over tariffs. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) cosponsored the measure, which would limit Trump’s ability to impose tariffs and give Congress the authority to cancel any tariff at any time.”
Yes, between that and the lawfare they want to make the presidency less powerful than any governorship or judicial post. And certainly much less powerful than it is intended to be in the Constitution. It’s clear previous Presidents were accepting a purely ceremonial role on a wide range of key pre determined policies.
It doesn’t need a genius to work this tariff on trade out. I am a mentally retarded old fart, and when Britain joined that pile of crap known as the EU, the writing was on the wall. A country such as Britain does not throw away trade relations with Australia, NZ, Canada, India, Bangladesh, and most of Africa and others, for foolish nonsense. Britain never needed the EU. As usual brainless politicians, shit for brains.
Very true Ivor. We shackled ourselves to a moribund Europe, and closed off trade with the rest of the world. And the EU never intended to protect anything British, quite the opposite.
De Gaulle was right. The UK faces out West to the Atlantic, not East to Continental Europe. Our real allies are the USA and the Anglosphere. Not a bunch of besuited bureaucrats who have never done a proper day's work, in Brussels. Mot that long ago Von der Leyen was in charge of the German military.
Such a good job did she, they had to parade using broomsticks. What once was a ferocious fighting nation with steel in their blood.
Excellent analysis. Even Bloomberg predicted a month or so ago that the debt burden of the US was totally unsustainable. Then, as you point out, the idea of relying on a potential adversary to supply essential goods and services seems to me to be the product of an insane ideology - the one that thinks a stranger is just a friend we haven't met yet and that nation states are the root cause of all evil. I heard Trump say at some point that the EU was set up to destroy America and if you believe that the EU was the globalist project 1.0, as I do, then he is correct. The cost of an American car in Europe is massively higher than in the US and conversely the cost of a Mercedes in the US is very much lower than in Europe due to added VAT and the very low level of US import tariffs - until now. The whole world has been ripping off the US but the US can no longer afford to be ripped off and, as they say, 'there is a new Sheriff in town'
Thanks Patricia. Yes it’s ripped off the US and the UK. We pay very inflated prices on everything and none of the protection the EU devotes to French agriculture and German manufacturing was ever extended to UK interests. As you say, the EU aren’t allies.
Excellent and you told the truth. The only thing I would add is the answer to the why the “right” is not telling the truth is that they were also the beneficiary of the false economy, just like the corrupt “left”.
Big fan of sowell but the interview I saw was minimum 10 years old. (Peter Robinson does not seem to age). He might have a different opinion but I doubt he favors tariffs. My big gripe with tariffs is they are used to protect uncompetitive industries. This is not the case here.
Re the economy. It is strong, for the right people. The laptop class, which more or less I belong to, has done quite well and is insulated from inflation. A lot of that has to do with interest rate manipulation and financialization. The working middle class got screwed. Things who voted for this
The shifts trump is making will cause a lot of disruption. An economy fueled by interest rate manipulation and deficit spending is bound to go splat but the policy has been to ignore and let the good times roll for the elite and hope it lasts until they are gone Fixing is going to cause some real pain in to short term.
I’m a big fan of Sowell as well. Apparently this response is from a few days ago, he’s very elderly now (94) but still has his wits about him. He said similar things in 2022 about Trump’s desire for tariffs. On this, I think Trump will be proven right over time and Sowell wrong, partly for the things you cite. I agree, rip off the band aid.
I love your definition of a good economy. Free Trade, in my mind, is a utopian illusion. The same people who want it always say that "we have to negotiate free trade agreements". What is there to "negotiate" about Free Trade? It either is, or it isn't. This is why Free Trade doesn't exist. In the real world, beneficial reciprocity is as close as is possible to a workable vision of Free Trade.
Global free trade is simply shafting people to enable shareholders to make more money. Companies simply move production down the ladder to find the cheapest workers (women and children) in countries with poor protection laws and using shoddier materials to ensure consumers have to keep replacing the tat they are buying. Those consumers no longer have any idea how much anything should cost and no idea how to make anything themselves any more. It's going to be interesting to see how Trump does and whether he can actually get any industry to open up in the USA - he's going to need more than tariffs on Scottish salmon, he's going to need industrialists, apprentices, willing consumers, many decades of determination and the rest of the western world to follow suit.
Correct on Sowell. Remember coming across him some years ago, and wondering why I had not heard of him before - then thought, he's American, black and Conservative. That's why.
I'm a member of a large Library consortium. Libraries West, comprising all of Somerset, Dorset, South Gloucs., Bristol and Bath. Huge stock, and indeed, for a voracious bibliophile, a good selection.
Not ONE Sowell book on the shelves anywhere.
They changed their system a year back; have to go to public tender every five years, even if whatever system us in place is just fine. As the old one was.
New one? Terrible (ps, I worked on the software side of library systems for 25 years, ending up writing special software to enable the OU, Trinity College, Dublin and the National Library of Wales handle their huge bookstacks.
I know library systems inside out. Our new one is missing things we had forty years back, such as - yup - paying your charges online. 9 months on and no sign of it.
Worse for me, there is no ILL (Inter Library Loan) facility, enabling you to order books from outside the system. I used it all the time, as I read a lot of academic material which I would not expect a public system to hold. And it worked well.
Still no such subsystem in our new system. I now have over SEVENTY books waiting to be requested (the function serves also as a "request to purchase" system, as in some cases, the consortium will order the book.
I've long been in touch with the senior systems man for Somerset, we chat all the time and he passes on suggestions for me for improvements to the supplier. When I asked him how the tender worked, he said - they buy the cheapest, regardless... and it shows. Chatting with the staff out or local library, they are still, months on, tearing their hair out...
This today on the website..
"Important News
3rd April 2025
We're sorry for the ongoing issues with the LibrariesWest website. We're working closely with our supplier to fix the problems. High usage, especially in the evenings, has been causing disruptions.
Our supplier has invested in new servers and an upgraded network, and they plan to improve the website over the next few months. You should start to see better service soon. As part of these improvements, email notifications should become more reliable and timely.
We'll do our best to ensure a smooth transition with minimal disruption to the live service. You should notice improvements in the coming weeks and months.
We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. "
Superb article, Daniel. Quite how you managed to be so articulate despite your clear rage at the fact that TDS has now gone into complete overdrive. One day, the puppets will recognise that the Puppetmaster has been playing them along for a long time...
Excellent post and well written. You have encapsulated, I believe, the entire case for being opposed to globalism and in favour of nationalism. Tariffs are not the only form of barriers to the exports of other countries in the West. There are many countries that employ non-tariff barriers which are probably even more negative towards free trade than tariffs. The Trump administration has identified these, quantified them and added them to the tariffs imposed. China and the EU, and other countries, like India, are extremely protectionist. No doubt the globalists will respond, and I hope that President Trump has antiicipated their reaction.
Great essay!
You have to take MSM commentary on the tariffs with a very large pinch of salt given that TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is so widespread. Meanwhile, the MSM ignores the elephant in the room that the West is committing slow-motion economic hara-kiri in the name of “climate change”, especially the UK with electricity prices the highest in the world and deindustrialisation in full swing.
Here’s a great 3-minute explanation of the benefits of the Trump initiative from Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff on Policy: https://x.com/BehizyTweets/status/1907580248163557568.
Here’s a simple explanation from US attorney Geoff Childers of how the tariffs could work without causing the US inflation predicted by the MSM’s simplistic analysis: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/morning-in-america-thursday-april.
On the broader front, the global financial system chaos caused by the unsustainable levels of fiat money debt racked up over decades by our irresponsible politicians is almost certainly the main motivation for the oppressions we have been subjected to over recent years.
The prime example is Covid-19 which was a coldly-premeditated, globally-coordinated “plandemic”. Reiner Fuellmich (now locked up in prison on trumped-up charges) was spot on in his 2022 Covid-19 Crimes Against Humanity model trial. Listen to his closing arguments and read the evidence of his many expert witnesses in https://metatron.substack.com/p/reiner-fuellmichs-grand-jury-court.
The global establishment clearly wanted to digitally shackle the populace in advance of a potential global financial meltdown: https://x.com/DowdEdward/status/1819474011262537839?t=Esi9bEyuJBVTmq7a-_vVUw&s=19.
They will probably try again via some different pretext, e.g. CBDCs linked to digital ids or maybe digital ration cards for energy or food (a kind of climate lockdown). Hopefully the Trump administration will successfully spike their guns.
Thanks Douglas and those are very well made points with very well selected links. Those are useful to me as well as to anyone else reading this. So cheers for adding them here.
And the globalist parties are showing their true colors. Reported in Epoch Times;
“Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill that aims to reassert Congress’s authority over tariffs. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) cosponsored the measure, which would limit Trump’s ability to impose tariffs and give Congress the authority to cancel any tariff at any time.”
Yes, between that and the lawfare they want to make the presidency less powerful than any governorship or judicial post. And certainly much less powerful than it is intended to be in the Constitution. It’s clear previous Presidents were accepting a purely ceremonial role on a wide range of key pre determined policies.
Well said!
It doesn’t need a genius to work this tariff on trade out. I am a mentally retarded old fart, and when Britain joined that pile of crap known as the EU, the writing was on the wall. A country such as Britain does not throw away trade relations with Australia, NZ, Canada, India, Bangladesh, and most of Africa and others, for foolish nonsense. Britain never needed the EU. As usual brainless politicians, shit for brains.
Very true Ivor. We shackled ourselves to a moribund Europe, and closed off trade with the rest of the world. And the EU never intended to protect anything British, quite the opposite.
De Gaulle was right. The UK faces out West to the Atlantic, not East to Continental Europe. Our real allies are the USA and the Anglosphere. Not a bunch of besuited bureaucrats who have never done a proper day's work, in Brussels. Mot that long ago Von der Leyen was in charge of the German military.
Such a good job did she, they had to parade using broomsticks. What once was a ferocious fighting nation with steel in their blood.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/19/germanys-army-is-so-under-equipped-that-it-used-broomsticks-instead-of-machine-guns/
Excellent analysis. Even Bloomberg predicted a month or so ago that the debt burden of the US was totally unsustainable. Then, as you point out, the idea of relying on a potential adversary to supply essential goods and services seems to me to be the product of an insane ideology - the one that thinks a stranger is just a friend we haven't met yet and that nation states are the root cause of all evil. I heard Trump say at some point that the EU was set up to destroy America and if you believe that the EU was the globalist project 1.0, as I do, then he is correct. The cost of an American car in Europe is massively higher than in the US and conversely the cost of a Mercedes in the US is very much lower than in Europe due to added VAT and the very low level of US import tariffs - until now. The whole world has been ripping off the US but the US can no longer afford to be ripped off and, as they say, 'there is a new Sheriff in town'
Thanks Patricia. Yes it’s ripped off the US and the UK. We pay very inflated prices on everything and none of the protection the EU devotes to French agriculture and German manufacturing was ever extended to UK interests. As you say, the EU aren’t allies.
Excellent and you told the truth. The only thing I would add is the answer to the why the “right” is not telling the truth is that they were also the beneficiary of the false economy, just like the corrupt “left”.
Thanks Barry. Yes many of them are. Some perhaps are ideologically wedded to the appearance of free trade, but many of them are just corrupt.
Brilliant! Thank you! This article is just what I needed! X
Thanks Caroline 😀
Ps not sure you should use the term “savages” though…
Big fan of sowell but the interview I saw was minimum 10 years old. (Peter Robinson does not seem to age). He might have a different opinion but I doubt he favors tariffs. My big gripe with tariffs is they are used to protect uncompetitive industries. This is not the case here.
Re the economy. It is strong, for the right people. The laptop class, which more or less I belong to, has done quite well and is insulated from inflation. A lot of that has to do with interest rate manipulation and financialization. The working middle class got screwed. Things who voted for this
The shifts trump is making will cause a lot of disruption. An economy fueled by interest rate manipulation and deficit spending is bound to go splat but the policy has been to ignore and let the good times roll for the elite and hope it lasts until they are gone Fixing is going to cause some real pain in to short term.
Rip off
The band aid
I’m a big fan of Sowell as well. Apparently this response is from a few days ago, he’s very elderly now (94) but still has his wits about him. He said similar things in 2022 about Trump’s desire for tariffs. On this, I think Trump will be proven right over time and Sowell wrong, partly for the things you cite. I agree, rip off the band aid.
The point that Thomas would concede I beleive regards regulation. Too much here, not enough there.
Very interesting, thank you.
I love your definition of a good economy. Free Trade, in my mind, is a utopian illusion. The same people who want it always say that "we have to negotiate free trade agreements". What is there to "negotiate" about Free Trade? It either is, or it isn't. This is why Free Trade doesn't exist. In the real world, beneficial reciprocity is as close as is possible to a workable vision of Free Trade.
Once again - well said!
Global free trade is simply shafting people to enable shareholders to make more money. Companies simply move production down the ladder to find the cheapest workers (women and children) in countries with poor protection laws and using shoddier materials to ensure consumers have to keep replacing the tat they are buying. Those consumers no longer have any idea how much anything should cost and no idea how to make anything themselves any more. It's going to be interesting to see how Trump does and whether he can actually get any industry to open up in the USA - he's going to need more than tariffs on Scottish salmon, he's going to need industrialists, apprentices, willing consumers, many decades of determination and the rest of the western world to follow suit.
Correct on Sowell. Remember coming across him some years ago, and wondering why I had not heard of him before - then thought, he's American, black and Conservative. That's why.
I'm a member of a large Library consortium. Libraries West, comprising all of Somerset, Dorset, South Gloucs., Bristol and Bath. Huge stock, and indeed, for a voracious bibliophile, a good selection.
Not ONE Sowell book on the shelves anywhere.
They changed their system a year back; have to go to public tender every five years, even if whatever system us in place is just fine. As the old one was.
New one? Terrible (ps, I worked on the software side of library systems for 25 years, ending up writing special software to enable the OU, Trinity College, Dublin and the National Library of Wales handle their huge bookstacks.
I know library systems inside out. Our new one is missing things we had forty years back, such as - yup - paying your charges online. 9 months on and no sign of it.
Worse for me, there is no ILL (Inter Library Loan) facility, enabling you to order books from outside the system. I used it all the time, as I read a lot of academic material which I would not expect a public system to hold. And it worked well.
Still no such subsystem in our new system. I now have over SEVENTY books waiting to be requested (the function serves also as a "request to purchase" system, as in some cases, the consortium will order the book.
I've long been in touch with the senior systems man for Somerset, we chat all the time and he passes on suggestions for me for improvements to the supplier. When I asked him how the tender worked, he said - they buy the cheapest, regardless... and it shows. Chatting with the staff out or local library, they are still, months on, tearing their hair out...
This today on the website..
"Important News
3rd April 2025
We're sorry for the ongoing issues with the LibrariesWest website. We're working closely with our supplier to fix the problems. High usage, especially in the evenings, has been causing disruptions.
Our supplier has invested in new servers and an upgraded network, and they plan to improve the website over the next few months. You should start to see better service soon. As part of these improvements, email notifications should become more reliable and timely.
We'll do our best to ensure a smooth transition with minimal disruption to the live service. You should notice improvements in the coming weeks and months.
We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. "
This entire article and in-depth analysis puts clarity on the tariff issue in America. Reality!
Superb article, Daniel. Quite how you managed to be so articulate despite your clear rage at the fact that TDS has now gone into complete overdrive. One day, the puppets will recognise that the Puppetmaster has been playing them along for a long time...
Excellent post and well written. You have encapsulated, I believe, the entire case for being opposed to globalism and in favour of nationalism. Tariffs are not the only form of barriers to the exports of other countries in the West. There are many countries that employ non-tariff barriers which are probably even more negative towards free trade than tariffs. The Trump administration has identified these, quantified them and added them to the tariffs imposed. China and the EU, and other countries, like India, are extremely protectionist. No doubt the globalists will respond, and I hope that President Trump has antiicipated their reaction.
Excellent essay.
BRAVO, Daniel. This is the essay that will be most prominent in my social media threads. Thank you.
Most excellent!!