Most of us have heard the phrase, “the end justifies the means.” For some people, the phrase is a moral loophole, a way to rationalize tough decisions in pursuit of a bigger goal. President Donald Trump has taken this idea to the global stage, using it to defend one of his most controversial economic strategies: tariffs. By slapping tariffs on imports from China and other countries, Trump claims to be protecting American industries and jobs. But as prices rise and trade tensions escalate, the question remains: Do the ends really justify the means? Or better question yet, is there any end to these means, and what will that look like in a few years?
Tariffs haven’t been a large part of trade policy in decades. With their main intent to protect specific industries or to get other countries to change their behavior, the strategy consists of imposing a tax on a specific product that is imported into the United States. The company importing to the U.S. then pays a tariff to the U.S. government, which consequently raises the price of the product sold to the consumer to cover the cost of the tariff.
“Some might say it’s economic nationalism … I call it common sense. I call it America first,” Trump said.
On April 2, a day Trump declared “Liberation Day,” he announced the quarrelsome resurrection of tariff policy in the U.S. The administration’s plans originally consisted of implementing a “reciprocal” 10% tariff on countries that have “taken advantage” of the U.S., which, according to the White House Liberation Day fact sheet, includes “all countries” — beginning on April 5. This sweeping policy even targets imports from some of the U.S.’s closest allies, including Canada and Australia.
Taxing imports from long-standing partners not only disrupts trade but also damages critical diplomatic relationships. It signals that the U.S. is willing to penalize its most loyal allies, making future cooperation harder and painting the country as unpredictable and untrustworthy on the world stage. In the long run, this kind of economic aggression risks isolating the U.S., weakening alliances and undermining the global stability that those partnerships help maintain.
On April 9, as the second part of their plan, the administration announced they would impose an additional individualized tariff on countries with which the U.S. has the largest trade deficits, to “strengthen the international economic position of the United States and protect American workers.” It has been historically observed that tariffs are a ridiculously expensive way to minimally help reduce unemployment, aside from the fact that they can damage the economy. Tariffs can be useful when applied with focus and strategy to protect workers. But Trump’s approach lacks both.
Economists’ main dilemmas with tariff policies are the myths that shape it, the main one being: If we impose tariffs, domestic producers won’t raise their prices. If, after a tariff has been imposed, consumers decide to purchase goods from domestic producers, a new demand is created for those local companies and the price for those products goes up.
Trump’s goal is not to create jobs for the American people, but rather to use economic policy as a vehicle for nationalistic posturing and a way to assert dominance over the global stage, even if it comes at the cost of the citizens he claims to serve. This excludes his best friends from the wealthiest top 5% of the population, who comfortably ride the rollercoaster of economic uncertainty with their seatbelts tight, always protected from the chaos with an endorsed massive tax cut. Instead of rebuilding an economy that uplifts workers, Trump is hurting small businesses, deterring investments and making life more expensive for working families.
Due to the aggressiveness of the program and its catastrophic effects on the economy, Trump authorized a 90-day pause on the tariffs on April 9, with the exception of China, whose tariffs he raised to 145%. In a statement, Trump said, “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”
Throughout Trump’s unstable visions of the U.S. economy’s future, we can observe that his motivation comes from the use of tariffs as a bargaining tool. To Trump, this is a way to not only change the behavior of the American consumer and producer, but of the nations that he claims have long exploited the U.S. through its role as a passive consumer.
To the administration, economic warfare has a nationalistic purpose: to reset the trading rules and reclaim power as the world’s largest consumer. Yet, as the worker and consumer on the other side physically paying for this hostile reform, how can we believe in nationalism as a priority when the hard workers of the baby boomer generation are losing retirement savings? When Generation X and millennials struggle to keep their small businesses alive and wrestle with increasing interest rates when looking to purchase new properties? Is launching an aggressive economic assault truly the mark of strong leadership? Must setting boundaries mean burning bridges? One must wonder, is it so difficult to even consider a world where leaders meet at a table — not with threats, but with vision — to negotiate for the common good?
Regardless of whether Trump pulls off his plan to manipulate the rest of the world to his favor, or if — although very statistically unlikely — he manages to create new jobs for his people and start a reindustrialization process in America, in the end, there will be no true winners. There will only be deeper losses. As a nation still recovering from the economic scars of a global pandemic, we now find ourselves entangled in a new kind of conflict: an indirect war waged through tariffs and trade. And with that, the path forward not only becomes one of intensely long and expensive recovery, but of prologued uncertainty.
Victor Rivera • Apr 24, 2025 at 2:12 pm
I congratulate Miss Mia Cordero Rivera for such an excellent communication about the sad reality that Americans and allies are experiencing and the long process they will go through to recover, all based on the fateful concept that the end justifies the means.