As the world reels from Trump’s tariffs unleashed on “liberation day” — the question is liberation from what and for whom?
By Arun Kumar
Seventy-two days after the dawn of “the golden age of America,” King Donald stood in the Rose Garden of his big beautiful White Palace on the Potomac to herald the “Liberation Day” to “Make America Rich Again!”
Watched by a full court of his ministers — and some union members in hard hats too — he unleashed an army of color-coded terrific tariffs on friends and foes alike who had “looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered” America “ripping off” its honest taxpayers.
“But it is not going to happen anymore,” he declared as he announced a series of sweeping tit for tat tariffs — 10% across the board plus “half of what they charge us” for the bad actors because “the president is lenient and kind to the world.”
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No one was spared, not adversaries nor allies nor a “great friend of mine” like India’s Narendra Modi — and even penguins, seals, and birds living on a set of remote, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica.
“Nowhere on earth is safe,” retorted an exasperated Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling it “ not the act of a friend” while vowing not to “join a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth.”
“April 2nd 2025 will be forever remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed,” the POTUS declared pompously as he signed an executive order invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
It was a historic day indeed with a bloodbath on stock markets around the world with S&P 500 companies wiping out $5 trillion in two days as the terrific tariffs on the blue, white, and yellow chart designed to end the tyranny of an old economic order — or liberation from common sense, as the carping critics would have it — unfolded.
“THE OPERATION IS OVER! THE PATIENT LIVED, AND IS HEALING,” wrote an unfazed Doctor Trump on Truth Social. “THE PROGNOSIS IS THAT THE PATIENT WILL BE FAR STRONGER, BIGGER, BETTER, AND MORE RESILIENT THAN EVER BEFORE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Trump also shared a TikTok video making wild claims about his economic policy without making clear whether it reflected his thinking.
READ: 2008 redux: Market meltdown evokes Great Recession comparison (April 4, 2025)
“Trump is crashing the stock market by 20% this month, but he’s doing it on purpose,” the video suggested calling it “a wild chess move” and a genius play.” As 94% of all stocks are owned by 8% of Americans, “Trump is taking from the rich, short term, and handing it to the middle class via lower prices,” it claimed, a la Robin Hood.
A day after liberation day, Trump liberated Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, director of America’s primary cyber espionage and electronic eavesdropping agency, the National Security Agency. Besides one of the few holdovers from the Biden administration, Haugh’s civilian deputy, Wendy Noble, and at least three White House National Security Council staffers were also let go.
According to a fly on the wall account by the Washington Post, firings of six spooks came after Laura Loomer, the far-right conspiracy theory floater that the Sep. 11 attacks were an “in-side job,” came calling with a list of people she believed were disloyal to the president.
Meanwhile, continuing his freedom movement from institutional constraints— or remarkable revenge campaign as critics would have it, Trump forced a parade of the wealthiest and most elite institutions in American life to bend to his will.
READ: Trumpiana: A big fat nothingburger with secret sauce! (March 29, 2025)
Describing what it called “The Great Grovel,” Politico noted how one after another, these establishment pillars have met Trump’s unprecedented demands with the same response: capitulation and compliance.
From prestigious law firms to storied news outlets like ABC News, The Washington Post and the LA Times, to educational institutions like Columbia University appear to have made deals to stay on the president’s good side, Politico said.
Amid his firing spree — oops freeing — across federal offices, Trump has also insisted employees come to office to ensure they are working while hoping some would quit on their own as returning workers find no privacy and no toilet paper.
For some it has meant an expansion of their duties to include cleaning toilets and taking out the trash, according to the New York Times. For others, it has been commuting to a federal building only to continue doing their work through videoconferencing, according to the Times. Some showed up at the office just to be sent home. Others showed up early and had nowhere to sit.
READ: Recession warning signs are flashing (March 30, 2025)
Meanwhile, more than 1,100 “Hands Off!” — Hands off our Social Security. Hands off our public schools. Hands off our jobs” — protests are planned across all 50 states and in DC on Saturday.
The protests are in response to the dramatic cuts to the federal workforce by Trump and First buddy Elon Musk, who according to organizsers are “taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them.”
God worked for six days to create the world and then rested on the seventh day. Not Donald Trump — he has a lot more to make and even more to unmake. For that two constitutionally mandated terms may not be enough especially if Musk makes good on his promise to make Mars too a part of America.
Hinting at a third term shot, Trump told NBC News that he was “not joking” when he first talked about it and that there were methods for doing so, coyly saying ‘no’ to sharing them. Serious or just messing with them, he took the flight of fantasy a little further telling reporters he would relish a campaign showdown with former President Barack Obama if he did.
“I’d love that, boy, I’d love that,” Trump said before demurring — “I never looked into it ” — leaving unvoiced his heart’s desire as expressed in Pepsi’s hugely popular 1998 tagline in India — “Yeh Dil Maange More!”