A year ago on April 2, President Trump charted a new course for US trade, calling it “Liberation Day.” The president said his idea was simple: the US would charge the same tariffs as our trading partners. With this new regime in place, Trump made a host of promises:
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These tariffs would mark the day “American industry was reborn.”
They would “make Americans wealthy.”
Reciprocal tariffs would “bring in trillions and trillions of dollars to pay down America’s debt.”
“Jobs and factories,” he claimed, “will come roaring back.”
The new production enabled by the tariffs would “lower prices for consumers.”