🤷‍♂️ Tariffs, Inflation, and the Delusion of Empire Economics

Peter Schiff is sounding the alarm again: Trump’s tariffs will “send the cost of living through the roof.” Cue the usual fearmongering: tariffs = taxes, prices will soar, shelves will empty, grandma can’t afford eggs.

But here’s the twist: Schiff isn’t wrong, he’s just stuck playing checkers while the real game is more complex. 

The inflation boogeyman isn’t about tariffs, (too neoclassical and over simplifies) it’s about monopolies, financial parasitism, and an empire addicted to outsourcing everything but debt. The U.S. doesn’t have a “spending” problem, as much as  it has a Wall Street extraction problem. Housing, health care, student debt, all engineered price spirals.

And yet, tariffs can backfire… if they’re not paired with industrial revival. If all Trump does is slap duties on China without rebuilding factories or breaking up monopolies, it’s just an expensive grift.

But here’s the kicker: the sanctions-tarrifs blowback against Russia and China already exposed the West’s fragile supply chains. The multipolar world is already moving. The dollar’s magic wand is cracking. And the rest of the world? They’re lining up to renegotiate terms, not reinforce empire.

So what happens to the average American?

Short term: yes, prices may rise. Especially if logistics don’t adapt fast enough. This isn’t “inflation”, it’s the death rattle of a consumption economy that forgot how to produce.

Medium term: expect realignment. More domestic production. Friend-shoring at "fairer terms". Painful transition? Yes. But the old game of cheap imports, hollowed industry, and financial speculation should be over.

Long term: if the U.S. gets serious about supply chains, sovereignty, and reindustrialization, if... then this tariff war could spark the first steps out of the neoliberal death spiral.

Otherwise? Boom… and not the kind Trump tweets about.

@TheIslanderNews 

Adding, from @realDonaldTrump on TruthSocial

CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED - THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!

Trump's first comment after China imposed additional tariffs of 34% on all US goods from April 10.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114279915827492021 

Adding: 

JP Morgan expects US economic recession in 2025

After factoring in the impact of Trump's tariffs, the chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said the US economy will face a recession as early as this year.

"We now look for real GDP growth of -0.3%, down from 1.3% previously," Bloomberg reported Michael Feroli's note to the clients as saying.