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America’s Trade Surrender: From Tough Tariffs to Shocking U-Turns

Quietly since last month, the US government has been eliminating tariffs on hundreds of imports!

Some of them are quite logical and should have never been imposed โ€“ such as tariffs on coffee, cocoa and other agricultural products that cannot be grown in America.

๐Ÿญ But others have revealed the difference between fantasy and reality. These are exemptions for minerals that will not be mined in the US and several other products such as auto parts and aircraft-related machinery that have not found any willing companies to manufacture.

๐Ÿ“ฑ Of course, since the beginning, smartphones and several electronic products have been exempted. This is because, despite the brave talks from social media influencers, nobody will ever assemble them in the US.

Tariffs and trade wars are wrecking the US economy.

While the standard talking point of the administration is โ€œexporters pay tariffs,โ€ the reality is that more than 80% of tariffs โ€“ which are import taxes โ€“ are paid by American businesses and consumers.

๐Ÿ˜– No wonder that 54% of Americans say that the cost of groceries is a โ€œmajor source of stressโ€ in their lives; and 68% say that the economy is doing poorly. (AP-NORC poll, Oct 2025).

Thankfully, the US has backed off the original shock-and-awe plans announced on the โ€œLiberation Dayโ€ in April. However, the tariffs have gone up and are the highest since the 1930s.

๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ As the US administration itself admitted, the tariffs against China โ€“ the biggest supplier of household goods in America โ€“ is โ€œnot sustainable.โ€

While the idea of rebuilding US manufacturing is a worthy goal, there are daunting challenges, which make this endeavor โ€œMission Impossible.โ€

Reason #1: The rich people – who control America – do not want manufacturing, which is a low-margin sector. These bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall Street creatures prefer software, services and, more importantly, financial engineering.

Just look at how corporate America has been directing money towards manufacturing versus stock buybacks.

๐Ÿ’ธ This is why the US stock market is worth $60 trillion. Fake money.

๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธAmericans, especially the younger generation, do not want to work in manufacturing. Thatโ€™s Reason #2.

๐Ÿ‘ทโ€โ™‚๏ธ Guess how many Americans work in total in automobile, steel and aluminum manufacturing? About 1.2 million. Thatโ€™s less than 1% of all American workers!

Theoretically, about 8% of Americans work in manufacturing. However, that includes many white-collar jobs such as accountants, program managers etc. And it also includes fake manufacturing such as food/beverage processing.

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Thus, very few Americans โ€“ about 3% — work in hardcore manufacturing.

The US will have as much luck making rural life great again.

Part 2 coming later today