The Impact of Trump's Tariffs One Year After 'Liberation Day'

Thursday marked the one-year point since President Donald Trump announced his new "Liberation Day" tariffs, which raised the average effective tariff rate to 22.5%.

Court Rulings: The Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose sweeping tariffs was illegal. On the same day, Trump announced a new 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The global tariffs can only last 150 days, meaning they are set to end on July 24 unless legislated by Congress to continue. Trump is also expected to raise these tariffs to 15% after a federal judge in March ruled that companies are owed refunds for the emergency tariffs that were struck down.

"On The Golf Course": Phillip Inman, writing opinion for The Guardian (Left bias), said that "Investors quickly understood that chaos was an essential tool in Trump's armoury" following "the wholesale slashing of government jobs under Doge" and "raising import tariffs on nearly every country the US did business with." The article said in the headline that "If he'd [Trump] stayed on the golf course, we'd be in a better place." Inman noted that "The economy has either gone sideways or declined, depending on the preferred measure." 

Liberation Day "Vindicated": According to opinion writer John Carney, writing for Breitbart (Right), "the results after one year show the tariffs are working." Carney asserted that "These tariffs arrested the long-running upward trend in the trade deficit, forced trading partners to negotiate, generated substantial revenue, and revealed underlying strength in manufacturing." 

Convulsing Markets: Writers for the Wall Street Journal Opinion (Lean Right) said that the tariffs "initiat[ed] the greatest peacetime trade diversion of the modern era," as US trading partners, instead of retaliating against the US, simply "pivoted toward other trading partners." The authors stated that while "a full-blown trade-war" never erupted, "our economy will nevertheless suffer." The writers explained that the tariffs have made "American goods less competitive globally and more expensive at home," adding that "if the economy was 'dead' in 2024" like Trump said it was, "there's no evidence Mr. Trump's tariffs have brought it back to life."    

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