Liberation Day

Plus: JAQ x Batya Ungar-Sargon, Amazon's bid to purchase TikTok, and more...

You've been liberated from feeling good about your stock portfolio and meeting your household budget! It's Liberation Day, can't you feel it?

Or at least that's what President Donald Trump wants you to believe. In reality, today is going to be a terrible bloodbath. Globally, markets have tumbled. Domestically, they will probably tank. I hope you didn't have any big purchases you wanted to make—like, ever—because shopping is over for now.

Yesterday evening, the president imposed universal tariffs that he calls reciprocal, supposedly based on the amount each country tariffs our imports. Vietnamese imports will now be hit with a 46 percent tariff. E.U. goods face a 20 percent one, Japanese goods a 24 percent one, and Chinese imports a 34 percent one—but it's looking like that's on top of the previous 20 percent tariff, so it's 54 percent total. (The White House press secretary has confirmed this.) The baseline 10 percent tariffs go into effect Saturday, and all higher tariffs go into effect April 9. Trump has so far made exceptions for a few categories of product—semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and lumber—but that's not because he wants them to remain exempt; it's because he's still in the process of drafting up his plan for how those goods ought to be taxed. Full list here.

There are roughly 60 countries on this list distributed by the White House that are being hit with reciprocal tariffs. (The others have a 10% baseline tariff.) pic.twitter.com/MxFusLaBF1

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 2, 2025

"If you want your tariff rate to be zero, then you build your product right here in America," said Trump. If he actually wants American manufacturing to be revitalized, it will take a very long time for such factories to be operational. And supply chains are global and interconnected; even American-made cars (previously the target of tariffs) source tons of parts from elsewhere. It will be very hard to fully produce every product right here in America, and it will be very costly, and it will be very painful.

Perhaps the most wild thing about all this is that these rates do not appear to have been grabbed out of thin air. The administration has claimed that they're discounted versions, proportional to the taxes levied on our imports to each country. But some Twitter sleuths have discovered that…those countries aren't in fact levying such high rates on us. The first column is not "tariffs charged to the U.S.A."; it's the trade deficit divided by imports. A White House official rebuts this…but offers a formula that corroborates this theory. See for yourself.

Holy crap.

Appears the left column isn't tariff rates at all. It's simply the trade deficit/imports. It has literally 0 to do with tariff rates of those countries.

So why are they listing it as "tariffs charged"???? https://t.co/v79anX58cd

— AG (@AGHamilton29) April 2, 2025

So for example for South Korea:

Listed tariff rate: 50%
Actual tariff rate 0.79%

Imports: 131.5 Billion
Exports: 65.5 Billion

Trade Deficit: 66 billion

So what they want isn't reciprocal tariffs, but exactly equal trade values.

— AG (@AGHamilton29) April 2, 2025

It's a shockingly stupid approach.

WH has now confirmed: this is insane https://t.co/Ozj8O4r7jY pic.twitter.com/JTJxC8L6rO

— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) April 3, 2025

Trump, in his address announcing these tariffs, called it our "declaration of economic independence." Oren Cass, an anti-free trade policy wonk, said these policies "confirm the end of the disastrous [World Trade Organization] era and lay the groundwork for a new set of arrangements in the international economy that prioritize the national interest and the flourishing of the nation's working families."

Yeah, well my working family doesn't feel so great about how to make ends meet, contra Cass. This will make it harder for all of us to afford food, clothing, cars, and household goods.

That said, it's possible that they're essentially stunt tariffs, that they're made to be temporary, and that the economic pain will be more short-term than we fear. A good point by journalist Tim Carney:

This is key. The tariffs cannot cultivate domestic manufacturing, because they were made to be contingent, temporary, negotiable—because for our Quid Pro Quo President, everything is always on the table. https://t.co/RG6rUoLFlt

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) April 3, 2025

 

Some of the administration's logic appears to be rooted in the president's personal disdain for trade deficits. "Trump's idea about using tariffs to reduce America's trade deficit with other countries" is terribly misguided, writes Reason's Eric Boehm. "To understand why, think about the transactions that occur between your household and your favorite grocery store. You buy lots of goods from the grocery store, but it never purchases anything from you—therefore, you're running a sizable trade deficit. Tariffs are nothing more than a tax on those transactions. Trump's logic says that you could be wealthy if you mailed $25 to the U.S. Treasury for every $100 in groceries that you purchase. That's ridiculous. You'd be poorer, and the trade deficit with the store would still exist."

More Boehm on how American exporters will also be affected: "America exports a lot of orange juice to Canada—because we have an obvious comparative advantage when it comes to growing citrus fruit. In 2023, Canada bought $281 million worth of fruit juice from the United States. In Trump's flawed way of looking at trade, that would mean America is somehow ripping Canada off, but this is actually a great deal for everyone involved. Canadians get orange juice that they can't produce on their own.…The impact of tariffs on exports is less direct than on imports, but no less serious. It happens in multiple ways. American industries—like orange farmers, to continue that metaphor—will face higher prices for inputs, such as farm equipment and fertilizer (much of which comes from Canada). Those same industries will have to deal with smaller export markets and less demand for their goods. Higher costs on the front end, lower prices on the back end." (The fact that American exporters will have a harder time makes "correcting" the trade deficit—the one that so bothers Trump—even tougher.)

This is all just very, very, very bad. I don't know any other way to say it. Here's something to cleanse your palate:

How it feels to have bought my PC two days ago pic.twitter.com/sAFqc1oIs4

— santos-inistas (@JDabknee) April 2, 2025

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Scenes from New York: I've never heard of a politician more obsequious than New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

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QUICK HITS

• Watch this explosive, highly contentious episode of Just Asking Questions—featuring Batya Ungar-Sargon, who describes herself as a "MAGA leftist"—on tariffs, deportations, and whether the Trump administration is actually a gift to the working class. There was a lot of conflict. Here's Ungar-Sargon on Piers Morgan, for a sampling of the pro-tariff view:

 

• I really enjoyed this New York Times interview with Megyn Kelly, in which the conservative media star really appears to complicate the interviewer's worldview and view of journalism.
• "President Donald Trump committed during a closed-door meeting Wednesday to publicly support Senate Republicans in their efforts to massively reduce the deficit—and directly engage with them in a legislative process for clawing back federal funds," reports Politico. This is very welcome news.
• Amazon has submitted a bid to purchase TikTok from its Chinese parent company, Byte Dance. "The company sent its proposal in a letter to Vice President JD Vance, who's heading efforts to help facilitate a sale of the US operations of the video platform ahead of a deadline later this week, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick," a source told The New York Times, as reported by Bloomberg. The administration is not seriously considering the offer, though, for reasons unclear.