What’s at Stake Isn’t the Dow

I keep thinking about that moment a few weeks ago when Trump abruptly reversed course on tariffs—mid-hearing, with no warning. His team was still testifying in defense of the policy when the pivot occurred. The market responded as markets do. Headlines rolled in, and memes rolled out.

It was absurd. But also revealing.

Because, for all the chaos, something important had returned to the conversation: leverage.

Tariffs are easy to mock, especially when packaged in erratic speeches and late-night tweets. However, it’s important to separate the messenger from the message. Beneath the noise lies a fundamental question—perhaps the most important one in economic policy today:

What do we owe the people who live inside the system, not just the ones who profit from it?

Free trade, in theory, is elegant. In practice, it assumes mutual good faith in a world driven by strategic advantage. It’s a nice idea, but it's outdated. What we’ve called free trade has primarily been a game of open doors on one side and stacked tariffs on the other. We continued playing long after the scoreboard stopped favoring us.

This isn’t about isolationism. It’s about boundaries.

We can’t keep spending two trillion dollars more than we earn yearly and pretend it’s growth. We can’t expect a $28 trillion economy to rest on ad impressions, IPOs, and vibes. At some point, a nation has to make things—real things, not just content.

The last decade was a bull market in illusions. Zero interest rates propped up weak fundamentals, and stock buybacks substituted for actual innovation. We got used to confusing momentum with progress.

Meanwhile, entire regions of the country were hollowed out—not by automation, not by policy, nor by a worldview that suggested cheaper goods for consumers mattered more than stable jobs for citizens.

That’s what tariffs counter. Not globalization as a whole, but the idealized notion of it. The notion where our supply chains operate abroad, yet our sense of security remains unscathed. The idea that GDP growth translates into national well-being. The concept where we can’t produce semiconductors but still regard ourselves as a superpower.

China, India, and the EU all use tariffs. They defend their industries as a matter of national interest. But when the U.S. does it, we act like it’s the death of capitalism. Maybe what’s actually dying is a convenient delusion.

Biden didn’t roll back Trump’s first wave of tariffs; he kept them. Not because he agreed with the man, but because the data indicated they were effective. What’s emerged since isn’t a clear doctrine, but rather something akin to a line in the sand: match our openness, or pay a price.

That’s not tantrum economics. That’s a late attempt at repair.

Some will say this hurts the markets. And they’re right. But what markets are we talking about?

The top 1% of Americans own over half the stock market. The bottom 50% owns almost none.

Tariffs don’t threaten the average American investor. They threaten a system that rewards asset holders while gutting the middle class. The same system that turned manufacturing towns into museum pieces and gig work into a lifestyle brand.

This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about dignity.

Predictable taxes. Reasonable regulation. A return to production. These aren’t anti-market ideas. They’re foundations. And maybe the market needs a few months in rehab to remember that.

The old consensus said we could borrow forever, outsource everything, and still call it prosperity. What’s emerging now is messy and mismanaged. But it’s at least trying to build something real.

Something lasting. Something American.