“The size, speed and breadth of U.S. tariff hike announcements since January is staggering,” Brian Coulton, chief economist with Fitch Ratings, said in an email. The CBS News article further details, “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development downgraded its forecast for U.S. and global growth, citing the risk of escalating trade disputes. Over the first three months of 2025, the country’s gross domestic product is growing at a rate of 1.2%, S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates. That is markedly slower than the 2.3% recorded in the final quarter of last year. For all of 2024, the economy grew 2.8% on the strength of healthy corporate earnings, frisky job growth and resilient consumer spending.” Following the official implementation of the blanket tariffs on April 2, which Trump termed “Liberation Day,” the markets have reacted as expected, with brutally sharp declines. According to a recent CNN article, “The S&P 500 has lost over 15% of its value since Inauguration Day, and two-thirds of the fall have been since Liberation Day.” The losses in the financial markets due to blanket tariffs have surpassed even those during the 2008 financial crisis and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The key difference in this instance is that these losses are self-imposed by President Trump, as according to the same CNN article, “He inherited a bull market, as the S&P 500 gained 23% in 2024.” Also, Trump is bringing into question manipulation of the financial markets and insider trading. Over the course of his second term, he has already implemented and rescinded blanket tariffs multiple times, causing enormous shocks to the financial markets. On a local level, Trump’s tariffs will have potentially devastating impacts on New Mexico. According to a recent study by the Senate Finance Committee, “New Mexico is ranked second most vulnerable to tariffs and second most at risk for retaliatory tariffs. The state imported $2.5 billion from Mexico in 2023, alongside $3.61 billion of imports from China, Canada and India. New Mexico also exported $4.9 billion in goods globally in 2023, with $3.4 billion (70%) going to Mexico. Federal tariffs could reduce New Mexico GDP growth by up to 1.5%, according to the Tax Policy Center.” It is simply a fact that nearly every New Mexican’s economic situation will be tangibly worse due to these tariffs, and poverty and all of its consequences will be massively exacerbated. So, given this information, what are Trump’s motivations for issuing blanket tariffs? The more charitable reading would be the president sincerely, if foolishly, believes that it’s an effective tool to spur long-term domestic manufacturing and investment through short-term pain. However, there’s little evidence that the tariffs are being deployed for these ends, as the Trump administration has laid out zero plans to implement wide-scale domestic manufacturing across vast swaths of industry. Importantly, that would require massive government investment. The second reading would be that the Trump administration is attempting to intentionally destroy the American economy. Frankly, there is far more evidence pointing to the second reading than the first, and that should frighten virtually every American. What is particularly remarkable about Trump’s seemingly intentional destruction of financial markets, which have lost trillions in value since his inauguration, is that his first term was largely centered around the success of the same financial markets. Many of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 expecting strong economic gains were likely harkening back to his first term, where the president consistently boasted of a 14
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