Economist EJ Antoni, bucking the popular panic, is explaining that Donald Trump isn’t launching a business war, he’s exposing the exceedingly unstable trade war the U. S. has been losing for years.
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In a hard-hitting op-ed for Fox News, Antoni compared Trump to one of his Democratic political successors, U. S. Grant, for large grit and determination in spite of smear campaigns and prophesies of disappointment. The reality is that different states have been imposing harsh tariffs on American products while demanding no mutual tariffs for decades. Trump is only insisting that various states pay the same taxes they require us to pay. The trade war now existed, it’s just that Trump wants to win.
Antoni insisted,” Trump is being attacked for being anti-free business or for starting a business combat, but the opposite is true. For most of the last half century, the global economy has become entrenched in a pseudo-free trade that artificially disadvantages American exporters” . ,
He added,” In this sense, other nations declared a trade war on America decades ago, and our leaders never fought back” . , Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are meant to pressure other nations that do, in fact, rely on American trade and American consumers” to reduce , their trade barriers and end a trade war that already exists”.
Some of the tax rates to be announced Wednesday may be eye-opening to some people, since the degree to which other countries block our imports has been mostly hidden from view. Yet countries that are supposedly our companions, like Canada, impose taxes and non-tariff barriers that are almost the equivalent of a 300 percentage revenue in certain instances.
Astonishingly, some of our producers have better exposure to Russian industry than American ones!
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My dad remembers cheese farmers in upstate New York during his youth frustrated by the lack of access to American consumers a somewhat short drive away because of excessive tariffs on dairy goods. Trump has cited this situation in defending his tariffs. Why should we continue to punish Americans to keep foreign nations happy?  ,
🚨U. S. President Donald Trump puts a” tremendously high tariff” on Canadian dairy at 250 %
” They make it impossible for us to sell our lumber or dairy products”, he said, claiming Canada has been ripping off American producers for years. pic. twitter.com/A6fFt8COVo
— Rebel News ( @RebelNewsOnline ) March 7, 2025
Related:  , Tariff Liberation Day Has Arrived
And why are multiple Republican senators led by Chuck Grassley banding together with Democrats to stall tariffs that protect Americans and force Canada to be fairer? Which country’s citizens voted them into office?
🚨ALERT
REMEMBER THESE FOUR” REPUBLICANS”
In a devastating loss for Donald Trump, the Senate has just voted to CANCEL Trump’s tariffs on Canada by a vote of 51-48.
FOUR Republicans voted for the measure: Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Susan Collins. pic. twitter.com/1aFBxh5V75
— JOSH DUNLAP ( @JDunlap1974 ) April 3, 2025
Recommended:  , Our Media’s April Fools
Indeed, Trump, Antoni argued, is like Grant, who, after” countless disasters caused by a parade of lackluster Union generals”, proved himself precisely the man the cause needed.  ,
Amid vicious stalemates that sent other generals into retreat, Grant was resolute. In a famous May 1864 message to Secretary of War Stanton, Grant declared,” I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer”. He rallied his army, and they would not back down … Although Grant was given the pejorative moniker of” the butcher”, it was the strategies of most other Union generals that prolonged the war and the killing. Grant’s tenacity, though, ended the fighting.
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In fact, it is worth noting that at the time, even the spy the War Department sent specifically to dig up dirt on Grant became one of his most enthusiastic admirers because of the general’s genius and determination ( Trump isn’t the only Republican president to be secretively targeted by federal officials before taking office ). It is also interesting that, while president, one of Grant’s great and underreported achievements was stabilizing the U. S. economy by returning to the gold standard, in spite of backlash and criticism from friends and foes alike.  ,
Like Trump, Grant knew which economic policies would most benefit the American economy, despite propaganda to the contrary. The trade war already exists. But now American workers, as Antoni wrote, can hope that Trump’s Liberation Day will be the beginning of a new Golden Age in the USA.
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