Two Crises, One Cause

And How We Rebuild

The heist wasn’t an accident.
And it wasn’t isolated.

It wasn’t just Toys R Us.
It wasn’t just JoAnn Fabrics.
It wasn’t just one hospital, one town, one lost job, one empty mall.

It was — and is — a system.
A machine designed to strip-mine value out of the real economy while protecting and enriching the people already at the top.

Private equity didn’t invent this machine.
They simply became its most efficient operators.

The Two Crises Are One Crisis

This week, in False Promises, we mapped how political corruption, short-term thinking, and false solutions are actively weakening America’s global standing.

Here, in The Private Equity Heist, we mapped how financial predation and corporate looting are hollowing out America’s internal strength — its businesses, its workers, its communities.

They are not separate problems.
They are symptoms of the same disease.

A country led by liars and grifters, serving liars and grifters, at the expense of everyone else.

• Where the debts are never really paid — because the people who caused them are never the ones paying.

• Where success is measured not by what you build, but how much you can grab before the roof caves in.

• Where the public is left clinging to slogans and scapegoats while the real looters slip away smiling.

What We Lost — and What We Could Still Save

We lost businesses that were part of the fabric of American life.
We lost good jobs, stable careers, pensions, community institutions.

But more than anything, we lost trust.

Trust that the system would reward honest work.
Trust that building something real would be safer than looting something fragile.
Trust that if you played by the rules, you wouldn’t be thrown away when someone else wanted a bigger bonus.

Rebuilding that trust will be harder than passing any single law.

But it’s not impossible.

How We Rebuild

Expose the Heist

Make the system visible.
Call out the looting for what it is — not “bad management,” not “market forces,” but deliberate extraction.

Rein in Predators

Regulate leveraged buyouts.
Ban dividend recapitalizations.
Force real accountability onto private equity owners.

Strengthen Labor

Unions, worker co-ops, and employee ownership aren’t side issues — they’re bulwarks against looters.

Reclaim Public Investment

Stop handing public money to predatory firms through pension funds, subsidies, and tax breaks.
Invest in businesses that invest in people.

Refuse the False Choices

We don’t have to choose between corruption and collapse.
We can demand an economy — and a government — that rewards building, not looting.

The heist isn’t over.

But neither is the story.

If enough of us are willing to look clearly at what happened, name the culprits, and fight for something better, we don’t just stop the next heist.

We start rebuilding something that was stolen from us long ago:
an economy, a democracy, and a future worth trusting again.

Choosing Our Future

Why We Must Reject the False Promises of Trump’s Second Term

After six posts, the pattern is undeniable: the policies Donald Trump promises for his second term aren’t bold new ideas. They are recycled failures — tested in states like Kansas and Texas, seen abroad in places like El Salvador and Britain, and proven to hurt the very people they claim to help.

Behind the slogans about “making America great” is a grim reality:

• Economic nationalism has raised prices, hurt farmers, and cost manufacturing jobs.

• Immigration crackdowns have crippled industries and driven up consumer costs.

• Authoritarian law-and-order tactics have undermined civil rights and judicial independence.

• Deregulation and privatization have left Americans more vulnerable to disaster and inequality.

• Environmental rollbacks have made our communities less safe and forfeited leadership in the industries of the future.

• Empty debt-cutting promises have only grown the national debt, leaving taxpayers holding the bill.

Each of these failures springs from the same deeper problem:

A fundamental misunderstanding of what truly makes a nation strong.

Strength doesn’t come from isolating ourselves, deporting our neighbors, cutting vital services, or gutting our institutions.

Strength comes from building — trust, infrastructure, education, innovation, opportunity.

Strength comes from investing — in people, communities, and the resilience needed for the challenges of tomorrow.

The High Stakes of 2025 and Beyond

The global order that helped ensure American prosperity for generations — Pax Americana — was built on trust, stability, and the rule of law. Trump’s second-term agenda threatens to tear that down:

• By destabilizing trade and pushing allies away.

• By undermining the judiciary and punishing dissent.

• By allowing infrastructure, public health, and education to wither.

America’s strength has never come from walls or tariffs. It has come from being a beacon of opportunity, freedom, and reliability — at home and abroad.

If we abandon that in favor of fear, cruelty, and short-term political wins, the damage may be irreparable.

The Choice Ahead

This is not just a choice about Donald Trump.

It’s a choice about the kind of country we want to live in — and the kind of future we want to leave to our children.

Do we cling to failed ideas that have already cost us so much?

Or do we move forward, with honest leadership, smarter policy, and a renewed commitment to what made America strong in the first place?

The next chapter isn’t written yet.

But it will be — by the choices we make today.

The Debt Delusion

How Trump’s “Waste and Fraud” Promises Will Make Things Worse

Donald Trump has a simple-sounding solution to America’s rising debt: cut “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

It’s a line that plays well on campaign stages. Who wouldn’t want to eliminate waste? Who supports fraud?

But in reality, this promise is pure political theater — and a dangerous distraction from the real drivers of America’s fiscal challenges. Worse, Trump’s actual policies have already shown that cutting “waste” isn’t enough — and that his fiscal plans are more likely to grow the national debt, not shrink it.

The Myth of Easy Savings

Every politician talks about rooting out government inefficiency. But experts across the political spectrum agree:

• “Waste, fraud, and abuse” account for only a tiny fraction of federal spending.

• Even aggressive anti-fraud efforts would barely move the needle on the $34+ trillion national debt.

• The vast majority of the federal budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense spending, and interest on the debt — not duplicative office supplies or misfiled paperwork.

You can’t fix the federal budget with the equivalent of finding pennies in the couch cushions.

Hard choices — about taxes, healthcare costs, defense spending, and entitlement reform — are where the real math happens. And those are the choices Trump and his allies continue to dodge.

Trump’s First-Term Record: Bigger Deficits, Higher Debt

In 2016, Trump vowed not only to eliminate the deficit but to wipe out the national debt entirely within eight years.

Instead:

• By the end of his first three years (pre-COVID), the national debt had increased by 16%.

• The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — Trump’s signature legislation — added $1.9 trillion to the debt over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

• Even during strong economic growth, the annual federal deficit ballooned to nearly $1 trillion by 2019 — a dangerous sign, since deficits are supposed to shrink during good times.

The Trump tax cuts were sold as self-financing through higher growth. That growth bump never materialized. Instead, tax revenue fell, and the government borrowed more.

Trump didn’t tame the debt. He accelerated it.

The Real Impact of “Cutting Waste”

When politicians do get serious about budget cuts, it’s rarely actual waste that gets slashed. It’s programs that help working Americans:

• Medicaid oversight programs that detect billing fraud? Cut.

• IRS enforcement that catches wealthy tax cheats? Cut.

• Education, housing, and food security programs? Cut.

Meanwhile, defense spending (which accounts for more than half of discretionary spending) often increases — and Trump’s 2025 budget proposals reportedly plan major hikes【source: Axios】.

In short:

• “Cutting waste” often means hurting the most vulnerable, while leaving massive expenditures untouched.

• It doesn’t address the structural imbalance caused by tax cuts and rising healthcare and retirement costs.

• It risks hollowing out public services that millions of Americans depend on.

And it won’t balance the budget — not even close.

A Future of Higher Debt and Less Security

If Trump follows the same path in a second term — more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, combined with vague promises of efficiency — the debt will almost certainly continue to climb.

And as debt grows:

• Interest payments will consume a larger share of the budget.

• Pressure to cut Social Security and Medicare will increase.

• Economic growth could slow under the weight of rising borrowing costs.

In other words: the people Trump promises to protect — working-class Americans, retirees, veterans — are the ones who will pay the price.

The Hard Truth: Fiscal Responsibility Requires Real Choices

The U.S. can stabilize its finances — but not with magical thinking.

Real solutions involve:

• Fairer tax policy that ensures corporations and billionaires pay their share.

• Smart investments in healthcare and education to grow the economy long-term.

• Careful reforms to major entitlement programs, balancing sustainability with protection.

Empty slogans about “waste and fraud” won’t save America from a future of rising debt and diminished prosperity.

Only honest leadership and serious policy will.

Up Next

The pattern is clear: false promises, real harm.

Finally, we’ll step back and look at the bigger picture — the choice America faces in the critical years ahead.

The High Price of Pollution

How Environmental Deregulation Endangers America’s Future

Donald Trump has made it clear: if returned to power, he will push even harder to dismantle environmental regulations, prioritize fossil fuel expansion, and block the growth of clean energy.

It’s a familiar playbook—and it’s one that has already failed spectacularly.

From the deadly collapse of Texas’s energy grid to worsening climate-driven disasters, the evidence is overwhelming: gutting environmental protections doesn’t make America freer or richer. It makes America weaker, more vulnerable, and more expensive to live in.

The Texas Blackout: Deregulation’s Deadly Costs

In February 2021, a brutal winter storm swept across Texas, plunging temperatures below freezing. The state’s uniquely deregulated energy grid collapsed under the pressure:

• 4.5 million customers lost power.

• Hundreds died from hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning, and lack of access to medical care.

• Economic losses topped $100 billion.

Why did the grid fail?

Not because of wind turbines, as some politicians falsely claimed, but because natural gas infrastructure and power plants froze.

Texas had been warned about these vulnerabilities after a similar storm in 2011—but chose not to require weatherization, trusting market forces to handle it.

Energy companies had no financial incentive to spend money preparing for rare cold snaps. So they didn’t.

The result was a humanitarian and economic catastrophe—the direct consequence of decades of deregulation and short-term profit chasing.

Environmental Rollbacks Leave Americans Unprepared

Under Trump’s first term, the federal government rolled back over 100 environmental regulations, including:

• Cutting requirements for power plant emissions.

• Weakening clean water protections.

• Slashing fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.

These rollbacks didn’t make the economy meaningfully stronger. But they increased air and water pollution and reduced resilience to extreme weather events.

At the same time, climate disasters worsened:

• Wildfires torched record acreage in California and Oregon.

• Hurricanes intensified, causing massive floods from Louisiana to New York.

• Droughts devastated farms across the Midwest.

Ignoring climate risks and weakening protections doesn’t shield Americans from hardship. It amplifies it, leaving communities poorer, sicker, and more dependent on costly disaster aid.

Attacking Renewable Energy Progress

Ironically, even as Trump and other Republican leaders attacked clean energy as “unreliable,” states like Texas quietly became national leaders in wind and solar power.

In 2023, about 40% of Texas’s electricity came from carbon-free sources like wind, solar, and nuclear.

Renewables helped keep the lights on when gas plants failed. They created jobs. They lowered electricity prices.

Yet the Trump movement continues to demonize renewable energy, pushing legislation that would penalize or discourage clean energy projects, while funneling subsidies to fossil fuels.

This isn’t just bad environmental policy. It’s bad economics—and it risks ceding the clean energy race to countries like China and Germany, who are investing aggressively in the industries of the future.

The Dangerous Future Trump Offers

If Trump follows through on his second-term environmental agenda, Americans can expect:

• More grid failures in extreme weather.

• Higher health costs from pollution.

• More taxpayer bailouts for fossil fuel disasters.

• Lost jobs and missed economic opportunities in the global clean energy boom.

Environmental deregulation isn’t a path to prosperity. It’s a path to fragility, suffering, and decline.

A truly strong America invests in resilience, innovation, and public health—not in the short-term profits of the fossil fuel lobby.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The next storm, fire, or flood will not wait for political convenience. The costs are coming—and we can choose to prepare, or to pay dearly.

Up Next

The costs of deregulation are rising — and so is the national debt.

Our next post will reveal how promises to cut “waste and fraud” won’t fix the debt, and could make it even worse.

The Cost of “Small Government”

How Deregulation and Privatization Fail American Communities

For decades, “small government” has been a rallying cry of American conservatives. Donald Trump’s second-term agenda promises even deeper cuts to government services, more privatization of public goods, and looser regulations in the name of “freedom” and “efficiency.”

But real-world experiments with these ideas—from Kansas to Texas to the United Kingdom—tell a very different story.

Instead of prosperity, they have delivered crumbling infrastructure, weakened public services, higher costs for consumers, and growing inequality.

Trump’s plans to double down on deregulation and privatization will not make America stronger. They will leave ordinary Americans—especially his own supporters—more vulnerable and less secure.

Kansas: The Tax Cut Catastrophe

In 2012, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback launched what he called a “real live experiment” in conservative economics: massive income tax cuts, including eliminating taxes on many businesses.

The promised outcome? Explosive job growth and a booming economy.

The reality?

• State revenues collapsed by 22%.

• Public services were slashed. Schools cut programs and shortened their weeks to four days.

• The state’s bond rating was downgraded, increasing borrowing costs.

• Job growth lagged behind neighboring states that kept taxes higher.

After five years of mounting deficits and public outrage, a bipartisan coalition finally reversed most of the tax cuts to save the state from financial ruin.

Kansas showed that radical tax cuts and shrinking government don’t unleash prosperity—they cripple essential services and hurt working families the most.

Texas: Deregulation and Disaster

Texas has long prided itself on a low-regulation, pro-market model. But the February 2021 winter storm exposed the dangerous limits of that ideology.

The state’s heavily deregulated and isolated electricity grid collapsed under freezing temperatures, leaving millions without power for days.

Investigations revealed that Texas had repeatedly ignored calls to weatherize its energy infrastructure, trusting that market forces would provide resilience. They didn’t.

The cost of deregulation:

• Hundreds of lives lost.

• Tens of billions in economic damages.

• Skyrocketing electric bills for some customers who faced variable “market rates.”

Freedom from regulation didn’t deliver better service. It delivered a deadly blackout—and made it painfully clear that basic public infrastructure needs public accountability.

The UK’s Austerity Disaster

Across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom embarked on a similar path during the 2010s: cutting public services in the name of fiscal responsibility.

The result was a decade of stagnation:

• Public health outcomes worsened. A study linked over 130,000 “preventable” deaths to austerity.

• Local governments went bankrupt.

• Public transportation deteriorated, and housing shortages worsened.

• Economic growth slowed, leaving Britain worse off than major peers.

Instead of shrinking debt, austerity policies exacerbated social and economic inequality—and arguably left the country more fragile in the face of crises like COVID-19.

The lesson: you cannot cut your way to prosperity, especially by hollowing out the very systems people rely on every day.

What Privatization Really Means

When politicians talk about “shrinking government,” what they often mean is shifting essential services into private, for-profit hands:

• Public schools replaced with voucher-funded private academies.

• Public water systems privatized and then poorly maintained.

• Public health agencies defunded, leaving gaps that for-profit hospitals don’t fill.

Privatization doesn’t eliminate costs. It often increases them, adding layers of profit-seeking middlemen between taxpayers and the services they need.

And crucially: private companies are not accountable to voters. When things go wrong, there’s no election to fix it.

The Dangerous Road Ahead

If Trump’s second term follows the same playbook—tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of critical industries, privatization of public services—the result will be predictable:

• Higher inequality.

• More fragile infrastructure.

• Greater costs for working families.

This isn’t theory. It’s recent history.

True national strength doesn’t come from gutting the public sector. It comes from investing in it—building systems that serve everyone, not just the wealthy few.

Trump’s vision of “freedom” is a freedom for corporations and billionaires. For everyone else, it’s the freedom to fend for yourself.

Up Next

Broken public systems lead to even bigger risks.

Next, we’ll expose how environmental rollbacks and energy failures are leaving Americans dangerously vulnerable.

The Authoritarian Playbook

How Trump’s Second Term Targets Justice and Civil Rights

In recent months, a chilling pattern has emerged—one that reveals far more than isolated incidents of overreach. Taken together, Donald Trump’s actions show a deliberate move toward authoritarian control, undermining core American institutions like the judiciary and due process.

This isn’t speculation. It’s already happening.

From the shocking arrest of a sitting judge to threats of sending U.S. citizens to a foreign mega-prison, the Trump administration’s moves are sending a clear message: dissent and independence will not be tolerated.

The Arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan

On April 25, 2025, FBI agents arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, accusing her of obstructing immigration enforcement by allegedly assisting an undocumented immigrant in evading ICE at a courthouse.

Legal scholars immediately raised alarms: this was an unprecedented breach of judicial independence. Arresting a judge for decisions made in the course of her duties shatters the traditional separation of powers that has safeguarded American democracy for over two centuries.

The intended effect is clear: intimidate judges, chill independent decision-making, and concentrate more power in the executive branch.

The Deportation to El Salvador’s CECOT Prison

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has taken an even darker turn abroad.

Earlier this year, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a work-authorized immigrant and union apprentice, was wrongfully deported to El Salvador due to a bureaucratic “mistake.” But instead of correcting the error, U.S. officials refused to bring him home—later accusing him of gang affiliations without evidence to justify keeping him imprisoned abroad.

He wasn’t sent just anywhere: he was locked up in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison, a dystopian facility designed for mass incarceration under harsh, authoritarian conditions.

This wasn’t just an accident. It was a test case.

Threats Against U.S. Citizens

Donald Trump has gone even further—publicly suggesting that “violent criminals” born in the United States should be sent to CECOT as well.

Think about that: U.S. citizens, stripped of their constitutional rights, exiled to a foreign authoritarian prison without due process.

This would be an unprecedented assault on American citizenship itself—turning punishment into a tool of political spectacle and fear, outside the bounds of U.S. law.

Even floating such an idea is profoundly dangerous. It normalizes the idea that rights can be selectively revoked, and that loyalty to Trump—not the Constitution—will determine who is protected and who is expendable.

Connecting the Dots: A Dangerous Pattern

These incidents are not isolated:

• Judges are arrested for standing up to federal overreach.

• Immigrants are wrongfully deported and left to rot in authoritarian prisons.

• Citizens are threatened with exile to brutal foreign facilities.

This is the authoritarian playbook in action:

• Discredit and neutralize independent courts.

• Use immigration enforcement as a political weapon.

• Erode the concept of citizenship and due process.

• Instill fear and normalize state-sponsored retaliation.

This is how democracies die—not all at once, but through steady, calculated blows against the institutions meant to protect freedom.

Why It Matters Now

If Trump follows through on these threats and precedents, the damage to American democracy could be permanent. Judicial independence, the right to due process, and even the meaning of citizenship itself are at stake.

These aren’t theoretical risks. They are happening right now. The only question is whether enough Americans will recognize the pattern—and resist—before it’s too late.

Up Next

Undermining the courts is just the beginning.

In our next post, we’ll examine how deregulation and privatization hollow out the public services communities depend on.

The Labor Shortage They Created

How Anti-Immigrant Policies Backfire on the Economy

For years, Donald Trump has framed immigration as a threat: to jobs, to public safety, to American identity. He promises in his second term to double down on deportations, restrict legal immigration even further, and crack down on undocumented workers with harsher penalties.

But reality paints a different picture.

The truth is that immigrants—documented and undocumented—form the backbone of key sectors of the U.S. economy. From agriculture and construction to hospitality and elder care, immigrant labor isn’t displacing American workers—it’s filling essential jobs Americans are unwilling or unable to take.

Aggressive anti-immigrant policies don’t solve economic problems. They create them.

Florida’s Immigration Crackdown: A Cautionary Tale

In 2023, Florida enacted one of the harshest immigration laws in the country (SB1718), championed by Governor Ron DeSantis and praised by Trump allies. It included steep fines for businesses hiring undocumented workers, invalidation of out-of-state driver’s licenses for immigrants, and mandatory use of E-Verify.

The results were swift—and disastrous:

• Labor shortages hit agriculture, construction, and hospitality industries almost immediately.

• Crops were left rotting in the fields as migrant workers fled the state, fearful of arrest or harassment.

• Farmers and contractors scrambled to find replacements—and couldn’t.

A Florida strawberry farm owner put it bluntly: “A lot of people went north and never came back.”

This wasn’t a surprise. Economists and business leaders had warned for months that the bill would gut Florida’s economy. A 2023 report from the American Business Immigration Coalition estimated that the law could cost Florida’s economy over $12 billion in losses【source: ABIC】.

Georgia’s Self-Inflicted Harvest Crisis

Florida’s experience echoed what happened in Georgia more than a decade earlier. In 2011, Georgia passed strict anti-immigration legislation aimed at forcing undocumented workers out of the state.

It worked—and crippled the agricultural sector. Farmers couldn’t find enough legal workers to replace the lost labor force. One estimate from the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association found that crops worth hundreds of millions of dollars were left unharvested.

The state briefly tried to solve the crisis by encouraging unemployed U.S. citizens to take the jobs. Few showed up—and those who did often quit after a single day, finding the grueling farm labor too physically demanding for low pay.

The Bigger Problem: America’s Demographic Reality

Trump and his allies talk about immigration as if the U.S. labor market has an endless supply of willing workers. It doesn’t.

The reality is:

• Birth rates are falling. The U.S. is not replacing its population fast enough.

• Native-born workers are aging out. More Americans are retiring every year.

• Hard labor jobs—harvesting crops, roofing houses, cleaning hotel rooms—are ones many Americans don’t want.

Without immigrant workers, industries from food production to construction grind to a halt. Prices rise. Economic growth slows. And rural economies, in particular, suffer.

Anti-immigrant crackdowns don’t bring back jobs for American citizens. They leave critical jobs unfilled, driving up costs for everyone and hollowing out key sectors of the economy.

The Dangerous Path Ahead

If Trump follows through on his mass-deportation agenda in a second term, the economic damage will spread far beyond farms and hotels. It will ripple across supply chains, into grocery stores, housing markets, and small businesses across the country.

America doesn’t need fewer immigrants. It needs immigration reform that recognizes the economic reality—and builds a system that supports workers, employers, and families alike.

Punitive crackdowns won’t make America stronger. They’ll make it weaker, poorer, and less able to compete in a global economy.

Up Next

Labor shortages are just one symptom.

Tomorrow, let’s look at how authoritarian overreach threatens justice, civil rights, and the rule of law in America.

The False Promise of Tariffs

How Economic Nationalism Hurts American Workers

In his second term, Donald Trump is once again promising to revive American industry through aggressive tariffs and economic nationalism. He claims that higher taxes on imports will bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil, creating a new golden age of prosperity for American workers.

But we’ve seen this movie before—and it doesn’t end the way he says it will.

Tariffs aren’t a new idea. Trump’s first term already tested this approach, and the results were clear: rather than reviving American manufacturing, tariffs raised costs for U.S. businesses, triggered retaliatory trade wars, and ultimately hurt the very workers they were supposed to help.

Tariffs That Hurt the Heartland

One of the most striking examples came from Missouri. In 2018, Trump’s 25% tariff on imported steel was supposed to boost U.S. steel production. Instead, it nearly destroyed Mid Continent Nail Corporation, the largest nail manufacturer in the United States.

The company’s costs skyrocketed, forcing them to raise prices—leading customers to flee to cheaper, foreign alternatives. Within weeks, Mid Continent’s sales plunged by 50%. The company laid off over 100 workers and warned it might shut down entirely.

This was not an isolated case. Across the manufacturing sector, companies dependent on imported materials faced a cruel choice: eat the cost and risk going under, or raise prices and lose business. Neither outcome was good for workers.

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the steel and aluminum tariffs may have saved 8,700 jobs in those industries—but they cost around 75,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

Farmers Became Collateral Damage

Meanwhile, American farmers—many of them loyal Trump supporters—were caught in the crossfire of retaliatory tariffs. China, Europe, and other trading partners responded by slapping tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports like soybeans, pork, and dairy. Exports collapsed. Entire harvests were left unsold.

To stop rural anger from boiling over, the Trump administration authorized over $28 billion in emergency aid to farmers—essentially using taxpayer dollars to pay farmers for losses caused by the trade war.

In the end, the tariffs didn’t just fail to bring back lost jobs—they increased government spending, raised prices for consumers, and destabilized key sectors of the economy.

Why Economic Nationalism Backfires

Tariffs are sold as a way to “protect” American workers, but in a global economy, they often do the opposite:

• Higher input costs make U.S. manufacturing less competitive, not more.

• Retaliatory tariffs close off foreign markets for American exports.

• Uncertainty discourages businesses from investing in long-term growth.

Manufacturing is already evolving. Automation, global supply chains, and shifting consumer demand mean that simply slapping tariffs on foreign goods cannot turn back the clock to a 1950s-style industrial economy.

Instead of a resurgence, tariffs often lead to layoffs, factory closures, and bailouts.

A Future of Isolation and Decline

If Trump’s second term repeats these mistakes—on an even larger scale, with blanket tariffs of 10% or higher—the outcome will be worse. Businesses may accelerate offshoring to avoid tariffs. Inflation will rise. Jobs will be lost, not gained.

And once again, the communities that place their trust in promises of economic revival will be left behind—betrayed not by foreign competition, but by bad policies that misunderstand how today’s economy really works.

The reality is clear: true support for American workers requires investment, innovation, and partnership—not isolation and tariff walls.

Up Next

The harm from economic nationalism doesn’t end with lost jobs.

Next, we’ll explore how anti-immigrant crackdowns are creating labor shortages and hurting key industries.

Unraveling Pax Americana

How Tariff Chaos and Economic Nationalism Undermine U.S. Power

For nearly eight decades, American global leadership has rested on a fragile but powerful promise: stability. The Pax Americana wasn’t built solely on military might or cultural influence—it was rooted in the idea that the United States was a predictable partner, a safe haven for capital, and a steady hand guiding global trade and diplomacy.

That foundation is starting to crack.

Donald Trump’s return to power threatens to accelerate the erosion of this global trust. His erratic approach to trade, particularly his obsession with tariffs, may play well at rallies—but abroad, it signals volatility, nationalism, and unreliability. And in a global economy that depends on long-term confidence, that unpredictability could shake the very pillars of American dominance.

The Tariff Whiplash

In his first term, Trump launched a wave of tariffs against China and even traditional allies like the European Union and Canada. The justification was “fair trade,” but the execution was chaotic: tariffs announced via tweet, exceptions carved out inconsistently, and retaliatory measures following swiftly.

Now, in his second term, Trump is floating even more sweeping actions: universal tariffs of 10% on all imports, and 60% or more on Chinese goods. These are not targeted economic tools—they are blunt-force instruments of economic nationalism.

The immediate consequences for American consumers and manufacturers are real: higher prices, strained supply chains, and uncertainty for businesses trying to plan for the future. But the long-term consequences are even more dangerous: the erosion of trust in the United States as a trading partner.

Trade Partners Look Elsewhere

Global trade relies not just on comparative advantage, but on predictability. When America becomes erratic—lurching between free trade and protectionism with each administration—other nations seek stability elsewhere.

• The EU and China have accelerated trade talks, including strengthening the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.

• Latin American and Southeast Asian nations are deepening regional pacts to reduce reliance on the U.S. market.

• Countries are diversifying currency reserves and entering non-dollar trade agreements (such as BRICS cross-border payment systems or China’s yuan-based oil contracts).

In essence, the U.S. is no longer the reliable engine of global capitalism—it’s becoming the wild card.

The Treasury Time Bomb

Perhaps the most overlooked risk is what happens if China and other large holders of U.S. Treasuries begin to divest.

China currently holds nearly $800 billion in U.S. debt—a number that has been shrinking steadily since Trump’s first term. While a full sell-off is unlikely (as it would hurt China, too), continued drawdown and diversification could still raise U.S. borrowing costs, especially if paired with domestic fiscal instability.

If countries no longer see U.S. Treasuries as the ultimate safe asset—because U.S. politics are increasingly erratic, or because they fear being targeted by economic sanctions—they will slowly shift to alternatives: gold, euro-denominated bonds, or regional reserve assets.

That shift threatens America’s ability to borrow cheaply, fund social programs, or maintain its military edge. In other words, economic nationalism at home could undermine national strength abroad.

The Bigger Picture: Trust Is Power

Pax Americana didn’t just happen—it was earned. Through decades of (mostly) consistent trade policy, strong institutions, and leadership in global crises, the U.S. convinced the world to bet on its system. That trust made the dollar the world’s currency, made U.S. markets the world’s investment safe haven, and gave America enormous geopolitical leverage.

Trump’s second-term plans threaten to squander that trust.

Tariffs don’t just disrupt trade—they send a message: the rules can change at any moment, depending on who holds power in Washington. Allies are watching. Rivals are taking notes. And the global order is already shifting.

If Pax Americana ends, it won’t be with a bang—it will be with a shrug. A quiet turning away. One trade deal here. One currency swap there. And eventually, the world will stop waiting to see what America does next.

Coming This Week: False Promises

The end of Pax Americana isn’t inevitable.

But if we ignore the patterns — economic chaos, authoritarian overreach, hollow promises — we risk losing more than global leadership.

In our next series — False Promises — we’ll expose how Trump’s second-term policies have already failed elsewhere — and what a smarter, stronger path forward could look like.

The truth is clear. The future is still ours to shape.