Trump's Tariffs and the Resurrection of Common Sense

I had planned to release this later in the week, but frankly, I am tired of watching people who can barely balance a checkbook lecture the rest of us on trade policy they cannot define, let alone defend—parroting anti-tariff talking points as if force-fed like ducks in a foie gras line, all while knowing next to nothing about this country’s long and deliberate use of tariffs to build its industrial strength.

There is a tendency among modern critics—especially those who live comfortably within the cosmopolitan elite—to mistake complexity for wisdom and blunt-force correction for incoherence. When Donald Trump resurrected tariffs as a key economic tool of American policy, the response from the political class was not thoughtful debate but reflexive scorn. And yet, those who mock tariff policy expose far more about their own historical ignorance than they do about the policy itself.

Let’s begin where their understanding ends: with history.

For the first 150 years of the American experiment, tariffs—not income taxes—were the primary engine of federal revenue. From the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 until 1913, customs duties funded over 90% of the federal government’s budget in many years. As the U.S. Treasury Department notes:

“Until the early 20th century, nearly all federal revenue came from customs duties.” (U.S. Treasury Historical Fact Sheet)

This was not an accident. It was a deliberate design, chosen by the Founders and sustained by statesmen from Washington and Hamilton to Lincoln and McKinley. In his 1791 Report on Manufactures, Alexander Hamilton laid out an enduring economic philosophy: that a strong, sovereign republic must be anchored by domestic industry. Protective tariffs, he argued, would nurture that foundation while avoiding the societal burden of direct taxation.

Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution and the rise of America as a global power. Under presidents like Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley, tariffs protected emerging industries, encouraged innovation, and funded infrastructure. These were not the policies of isolationists, but of nation-builders. By 1900, the United States had overtaken Great Britain as the world’s largest economy—powered not by free trade, but by strategic tariffs and the deliberate cultivation of self-reliance.

Only after the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913—allowing the federal government to levy income taxes—did the balance begin to shift. And following World War II, that shift accelerated, not out of economic necessity, but geopolitical calculus.

In the ashes of global conflict, the United States chose to prop up allies and contain communism by subsidizing the rebuilding of Europe and Japan. The Marshall Plan injected billions into war-torn economies. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), signed in 1947, dismantled protectionist barriers worldwide in the name of liberalized trade. Washington elites accepted short-term domestic industrial decline in exchange for Cold War unity.

This was a deliberate tradeoff. And it worked—for a time. But the long tail of that decision became a slow bleed. As other nations protected their industries with surgical precision, the United States became the only superpower unwilling to play hardball.

The most glaring rupture came in 2001, when China entered the World Trade Organization. The result? From 2001 to 2017, America lost nearly 3.4 million manufacturing jobs, with more than 2 million directly linked to trade with China, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Whole regions were gutted. Towns died. Addiction and despair filled the vacuum.

This is the context most critics refuse to confront.

Donald Trump’s tariff policy was not the tantrum of a strongman. It was the counterpunch of a sovereign republic reclaiming its footing after seven decades of erosion. The notion that tariffs are inherently irrational or economically suicidal is historically ignorant and empirically false.

To those who say: “But the factory jobs are not coming back!”—you are partly correct. Automation, global supply chains, and technological advancement mean that many of the exact jobs lost will never return in their original form. But this objection misses the point.

Tariffs do far more than attempt to rewind the clock on manufacturing. They are:

• A source of leverage in trade negotiations, ensuring that the U.S. is not permanently on the receiving end of bad deals.

• A tool to reduce reliance on hostile nations for critical goods—from rare earth minerals to semiconductors to medical supplies.

• A national security mechanism that protects industries vital to wartime resilience and domestic stability.

• A means of debt restructuring, reducing fiscal dependence on income tax alone by reintroducing customs revenue—just as the Founders intended.

Even if automation reduces the labor headcount in manufacturing, reshoring production still fuels capital investment, innovation, wage growth, and regional development. Every advanced chip fabricated in Arizona, every pharmaceutical synthesized in Ohio, every machine tool cut in Michigan—those are jobs in design, engineering, logistics, and beyond.

Consider this: from 2016 to 2019, U.S. manufacturing jobs increased by nearly 500,000, reversing a decades-long decline. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) That did not happen by accident. It happened because trade policy shifted from capitulation to confrontation.

And the ripple effects were undeniable:

• Median household income rose to a record $68,703 in 2019. (U.S. Census Bureau)

• Black and Hispanic unemployment fell to historic lows.

• Energy independence was achieved, severing the geopolitical umbilical cord that kept America entangled in endless foreign conflicts.

Critics will sneer: “But tariffs are taxes on the American people.” Technically, yes. But let us not confuse a half-truth for a full argument. Foreign subsidies, currency manipulation, and artificially cheap imports are hidden taxes—paid in layoffs, depressed wages, shuttered towns, and lost sovereignty. The only thing more expensive than protecting American industry is not protecting it at all.

The same critics will claim the tariffs “did not work.” But the facts betray them. From 2018 to 2020:

• U.S. investment into China fell by nearly 40%. (Rhodium Group)

• China’s trade surplus with the U.S. dropped by over $60 billion. (U.S. Census Bureau)

• Companies began reshoring and diversifying supply chains, pulling production away from a regime increasingly hostile to the West.

These are not anecdotes. These are inflection points.

And here is what will happen next.

When the gains become undeniable—when wages rise, when domestic production rebounds, when critical industries are no longer held hostage by Beijing or Brussels—the very people who mocked Trump’s tariff strategy will suddenly develop a curious amnesia. They will claim they were always for “smart tariffs.” They will celebrate “economic nationalism” as if they authored it. They will insist Biden’s late-to-the-game CHIPS Act was the real pivot.

Do not believe them.

It was Trump who made “tariff” a household word again. It was Trump who had the spine to challenge the orthodoxy of Davos. It was Trump who realigned American economic identity—not back to isolationism, but forward to sovereignty.

He was mocked for going first. He will be imitated once proven right.

So let the critics keep talking. Let them wax poetic about “market efficiencies” while entire regions rot. Let them quote think tanks while China builds aircraft carriers with our dollars. The American people are finished being lectured by those who profited from their decline.

Because tariffs are not simply economic tools. They are acts of national self-respect. And in the hands of a leader who understands their purpose, they do not just shield industries—they awaken nations.