Liberation Day: Trump Imposes Largest Tax Hike in World History

The Performance: What Trump Claimed

“This is Liberation Day. April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.”

— President Donald J. Trump, Rose Garden Address

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1907779051911270796

“That’s what the President of the United States said—standing in the White House Rose Garden, framed by early spring blossoms—as he declared April 2nd ‘Liberation Day.'”

But what, exactly, is being liberated?

Not the American people.
Not the working class.
Not struggling families crushed under inflation.
Not small businesses trying to survive.
Not farmers in Iowa or retirees on fixed incomes.

No. What’s being liberated is money—from America’s wallet into his.

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The Scheme: Rent-Seeking in Plain Sight

“Liberation Day” is a lie.
A branding exercise.
A front for one of the most shameless wealth transfer schemes ever enacted by an American president.

This isn’t economic policy.
It’s legalized extortion.

Here’s the play: Trump is imposing sweeping tariffs on nearly every trading partner in the world. A 10% baseline tariff applies to all imports. But if you’re from a so-called “bad actor” country, the penalties are even steeper: 34% for China, 26% for India, 24% for Japan, and 20% for the European Union.

This isn’t reciprocity.
It’s economic vandalism.

And it’s not just foreign governments who pay.
You do. Tariffs are taxes. They’re inflationary. They shrink your paycheck. They raise the cost of living. And they punish the most vulnerable.

Groceries. Medicine. Car parts. Electronics. Shoes. Your heating bill.
It’s all going up.

That’s the point.

Because if everyone feels pain, then people with power and money will come crawling for relief.

And that’s where the grift begins.

If you’re wealthy, well-connected, or generous with campaign contributions—there’s an escape hatch. An exemption. A waiver. A backdoor.

And that backdoor has a price.

This is textbook rent-seeking: the exploitation of government policy to extract wealth without creating value.

And Trump has turned it into a business model.

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The Proof: Early Signs of Corruption

As if on cue, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes called out the scam the moment it launched. Just hours after the tariffs were announced, oil and natural gas were carved out. The American Petroleum Institute issued a public thank-you: “We welcome President Trump’s decision to exclude oil and natural gas.”

Hayes responded with a laugh: “Hahahah. Look who already got their little side deal.”

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1907572273990537625

The shakedown had already begun.

This isn’t about trade.
It’s about tribute.

Rent-seeking at a national scale—designed not to protect American workers, but to funnel desperation upward into campaign coffers, PACs, and family-owned shell companies.

And this isn’t a conspiracy theory.
This is what Bob Woodward is saying.

Yes, that Bob Woodward. The journalist whose reporting helped bring the truth about Watergate to light. Who has interviewed every president since. Who doesn’t speculate—he verifies.

In a recent interview with Colby Itkowitz at The Washington Post, Woodward recalled a note Trump once scrawled in his own hand: “Trade is bad.”

That wasn’t an offhand remark.

It was a worldview.

Woodward didn’t editorialize. He didn’t speculate. He simply told the truth:

“His end goal is—it looks like—he wants to destroy the economy.”

Let that sit.

This is the man who’s spent 50 years parsing presidential motives.

And he believes Trump’s goal is sabotage.

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The Fallout: Economic, Political, and Global

According to The Economist, Trump’s tariffs have pushed America’s effective tariff rate beyond Depression-era levels—back into the 19th century.

In October 2024, that same magazine called the U.S. economy “the envy of the world.”

By April 2025, their cover showed Trump carving a hole beneath America’s feet with a saw.

https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1907724008100917338

Two covers.
Six months apart.
What changed?

Trump.

And the sabotage is already rippling outward.

Senator Chris Murphy put it bluntly:

“This is about breaking institutions. Making Americans poorer. More desperate. More dependent.”

https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1907630514493681847

CNN’s Abby Phillip didn’t mince words either:

“Liberation Day is just Buy Another Yacht Day for the swamp.”

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1907634621602484659

According to The Telegraph, this is the largest tax increase in modern global history—potentially $600 billion a year, mostly falling on consumers.

J.P. Morgan forecasts a 0.5 percentage point drag on U.S. and global GDP.

And former RNC Chair Michael Steele put it bluntly: “Now we know how this fool bankrupted a casino.”

https://twitter.com/MichaelSteele/status/1906720137593639343

Even Trump’s own party is panicking.

Senator Chuck Grassley, a stalwart Republican, just introduced legislation to rein in Trump’s tariff power, fearing what this could do to Iowa’s farmers.

Globally, the reaction has been just as severe.

Singapore’s defense minister likened America to “a landlord seeking rent.”

https://twitter.com/Diplomat_APAC/status/1900468697413599588

Germany’s economics minister rebranded the day as “Inflation Day.”

https://twitter.com/GermanyDiplo/status/1907834731242082436

Yaroslav Trofimov of The Wall Street Journal reported that alliances are collapsing, partners are defecting, and the U.S. is no longer seen as a reliable power.

The unpredictability of America for the foreseeable future is more serious than the tariffs themselves. Companies can’t make long-term decisions if policy is made and changed on a whim. Much of the rest of the world will respond by creating U.S.-free supply chains.

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) April 3, 2025

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The Truth: A Shakedown in Patriotic Clothing

It’s not just the economy that’s breaking.
It’s trust.

And Trump isn’t hiding it.
He’s flaunting it.

Political loyalty buys tax breaks. Opposition gets punished.
This is policy as payback—and profit.

Andrew Stuttaford at National Review called it exactly what it is:

“Tariffs will become instruments of state power at home as well as abroad. They will be used by those in government to reward, to punish, and to pressure.”

"Tariffs will become instruments of state power at home as well as abroad. They will be used by those in government to reward, to punish, and to pressure."https://t.co/Hmst34MCs2

— Andrew Stuttaford (@AStuttaford) April 3, 2025

It’s not a strategy.
It’s a scam.

The same con that gave us Trump Vodka.
Trump Steaks.
Trump University.

Only this time, the consequences are global.

Tariffs don’t build prosperity. They raise prices. Slash productivity. Kill jobs.
They reward insiders and crush competition.
And over time, they corrupt the entire system—turning government into a tollbooth for the powerful.

Liberation Day is not a new dawn.
It’s a false sunrise.
A glow that signals the fire, not the light.

And America isn’t the hero of this story.

It’s the vault.