With Reciprocal Tariffs, Trump Aims for Place in History

NEW YORK:
Beyond the trillions of dollars and the thousands of jobs that he expects from the reciprocal tariffs he declared, US President Donald Trump is aiming for a pedestal in history as the leader who reclaimed the nation’s “destiny.”

“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, waiting for a long time. April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed,” Trump said on Wednesday in his announcement that would reach into the far corners of the world.

The announcement at the Rose Garden in the White House — his first at the venue — had all the markings of a rally, the campaign events that packed drama for mass appeal and where his speeches mixed hope, bravado, and a big dose of grievances.

Trump spoke in terms of trillions- the trillions he said were pillaged from the US through tariffs by others, trillions in investments coming in, and “trillions and trillions of dollars” from tariffs that would be used to reduce taxes and pay down the national debt.

And, reaching for his campaign mantra, he said, “With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before.”

He gave a starring role to a contingent of auto workers, the likes of whom, he said, he wants to help through his tariffs by bringing back manufacturing.

Trump flung a red hat to the autoworkers, some wearing work helmets, joking his cabinet had too many hats.

He had one of the workers, Brian Pannebecker, the leader of a group called Auto Workers for Trump, up on the stage to give a testimonial to his tariff policy, saying he “understands this business a lot better than the economist.”

Questioning the claims of economists who doubt that manufacturing can return fast enough, Pannebecker said that he had seen plant after plant close and Trump’s “policies are going to bring production back into those underutilised plants.”

At his rallies, Trump hit out at two favourite targets, his predecessor, Joe Biden and the mainstream media.

“We were doing so well nobody was going to catch us, but so much of it slipped away over the last four years under Biden,” he asserted.

“Fake news will always complain” and never appreciate what he is doing, Trump said.

And in another dig at the media, he said that they didn’t want him to win but added, “What they don’t know is if I didn’t win, they would have really been in trouble because nobody wants to read them anyway” alluding to the burst in newspaper circulation during his first term.

But his biggest grievances on this day were, of course, against the rest of the world — the “foreign scavengers (who) have torn apart our once beautiful American dream.”

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” he complained.

“American steel workers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen,” he said, “watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs. Foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories.”

And his grievances against his predecessors stretched back to the early years of the last century when he said the US gave up its reliance on tariffs and introduced income tax — and to the leaders who let the nation deindustrialise.