Trump Bashed For Launching “Dumbest Trade War In History”

The Trump administration officially launched their trade war with Canada, Mexico, and China on Saturday, but even before the tariffs went into place, the stock market was already reeling from the announcement on Friday. Stocks took a steep dive that could continue for a long time. On top of that, Canada has already announced retaliatory tariffs, and Mexico is planning the same. All of this culminated in the conservative Wall Street Journal saying that Trump has launched the “dumbest trade war in history,” and for once, they aren’t wrong. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump's trade war with Canada, Mexico, and China officially kicked off on Saturday. And even before he officially put the tariffs in place, he had already basically wrecked the economy. Because what happened is that on Friday, his spokesperson, Caroline Levitt, did her little press conference. And she said that, yes, tomorrow we're putting the 25% tariffs on Canada, 25% on Mexico, and at least 10% on China. Donald Trump followed up on Saturday, of course, by announcing that Europe would be next. But back to Friday after Caroline Levitt announced that these tariffs were coming tomorrow, nothing we could do to stop 'em, even though it means higher prices for us. 'cause Trump still doesn't understand that. Um, the stock market tanked. The nasdaq, the s and p and Dow all went down significantly because of that announcement. Now, here's the thing I have talked about in the past, how, you know, these tariffs are going to immediately impact, uh, the, the lowest income people first.

But I said eventually they're gonna hit all of us. Well, I was right, but also, um, didn't expect it to be that quickly because now the, the wealthy people on Wall Street took a massive hit. But it's not just the wealthy people, of course, that have money in the stock market. It's average everyday working class people that have 4 0 1 Ks. So your 401k is now worth less today than it was Friday morning, and that is 100% because of a unilateral decision made by Donald Trump. So whether you own a MAGA hat or you voted for Harris, it doesn't matter if you have a 401k, you likely took a pretty significant hit on Friday, probably also today as well. And those hits are going to keep on coming. So your retirement fund is being drained because of a decision made by one human being and that human being is Donald Trump.

Let's also not forget the fact that, uh, after Donald Trump announced these tariffs, prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced that, all right, we're putting 25% tariffs on $155 billion worth of American goods coming into Canada. So we're about to get screwed there. Mexico has announced the same. China has said that they will defend their financial interests, so we can expect more from China as well. And again, as Trump promised on Saturday, Europe is next. So just a trade war with everybody for no reason. And by the way, when I say there's no reason for it, that's not necessarily coming from me, although I agree with it. It's also coming from the very conservative editorial

Board at the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. They published an op-ed on Sunday saying that this was the dumbest, dumbest trade war in history. Those were their words, the dumbest trade war in history, because there's no reason for it. There is no actual justification, right? We can listen to Donald Trump all we want. Tell us that. Well, it's because of the the drugs are coming across. Well, as the editorial board pointed out, pointed out, dude, drugs have been coming across borders for decades. A trade not gonna stop that. Like if we all knew how to stop it, we would. Let me read you some of their op-ed leaving China aside. Mr. Trump's justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense. White House press Secretary Caroline Levitt says they've enabled illegal drugs to pour into America, but drugs have flowed into the US for decades and will continue to do so as long as Americans keep using them.