Today, Trump has the world in a chokehold, and no other slogan is more hyped than the so-called “Liberation Day”. In real terms, it was a ‘destruction day’. April 2 was the beginning of a destruction, and it lacked the ingredients of liberation and freedom. Economic gurus told this columnist that it’s all Trump’s cockamamie idea and flawed economics.
In fact, the concepts of “free market”, “free trade” and “economic freedom” were fundamentally modern American in character, and the current “dull” Trump model of “reciprocal tariff” (‘discounted or undiscounted’) will cause chaos, and the whole world is in utter confusion. Trump forgot the ‘very real’ truth: Post-World War II, lowered tariffs led the world to free trade and economic freedom. Yes, indeed, there is poverty and inequality in the land of plenty.
Trump’s tariff move is more or less like economic vandalism. The US economy has been flourishing since 1950. Over the years, the country recorded incredible economic growth, added trillions and trillions to its GDP, all from free trade, and now, its 47 th CEO (Mr. Trump) is trying to destroy the whole script. As one of my close Hollywood movie associates said, “The new director and hero Trump is spoiling the whole screenplay and plays the roles of hero and villain at the same time.
President Trump in his April 2 (Washington DC), speech said, “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today, they really suffered gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once- beautiful American dream.”
Will these words make America great again? Will there be a “golden age’ for America? We’ll have to wait and see.
At the moment, the world is calling for a free America once again, and achieving the American freedom dream. Let’s recall the beautiful words of President Abraham Lincoln (November 19, 1863), “That these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’, shall not perish from the earth”.
The whole world seems to commend one goal, “we must bell the cat”, but no one wants to step forward and lead it, except the brave China.
