Worst Case Scenarios if Tariff Trade Wars Escalate Due to the Trump Administration
March 3, 2025•855 words
"History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse." ~ Eric Alterman
"I expect to see trade wars, foreign policy disasters, a few race riots, a decrease in personal liberty, higher taxes, higher inflation and probably, economic collapse. The silver lining is, secession will probably become more feasible." ~ Charley Reese
"At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses." ~ Karl Liebknecht
Power is a strategy, a deceit, a control. You watch as countries put up tariffs, economic weapons disguised as policy. At first, they are small strokes, meant to protect industries and discipline competitors. But as in all wars, pride and retaliation fuel skirmishes into war. The world you have grown to know, of stable economies, free commerce, and wealth creation, begins to unravel under pressure. You are seeing the onset of collapse, and only the people who comprehend power will endure what is coming.
Tariffs are trade taxes, and like all taxes, they have a cost. Initially, companies internalize the costs, passing them along to you, the buyer. Prices increase, inflation begins, and your dollars buy less. Your employers, pinched by expenses, begin laying off workers. The markets, feeling uncertainty, crash. Fear erupts. Something that seemed like a brilliant Trump Administration idea now becomes economic suicide.
History is replete with examples of such foolishness. In the 1930s, American politicians believed they could safeguard their industries by shielding them with tariffs using the Smoot-Hawley Act. Rather, their trade partners retaliated, trade collapsed, and the Great Depression intensified. Unemployment skyrocketed, and nations suffered. The politicians had exaggerated their capabilities, and people paid the price.
Now, imagine this taking place today on a much grander scale. A world so interconnected instantly through social media, encrypted instant messages, instant video messages, cryptocurrencies, and supply chain integration humming along.
The world economy survives on integrated supply chains. An automobile produced in Detroit relies upon components from Canada, steel from Mexico, and semiconductors from Taiwan. The onboard computer computer in North American vehicles manufactured in China has African minerals, chips from the U.S., and screens from South Korea. Tariffs don't just tax the product; tariffs cause havoc and chaos on these precarious supply chain systems and logistics.
What happens when China closes down exportation of rare earth elements, so crucial to technology and military capability? What if Mexico forbids selling energy to America, or the EU strikes back and takes control of access to lithium? The factories fall silent, and unemployment skyrockets. The equipment comes to a halt. Your globalized, just-in-time Amazon Inc world locks up. The impact is catastrophic and causes some countries to near socio-political and economically collapse.
When a power emerges, others respond. The game of tariffs turns into blockades, embargoes, and economic warfare. Resource-hungry nations build up their stockpiles, shutting off supplies to enemies. Food becomes more expensive as grain shipments dwindle. Energy emergencies erupt as oil-producing countries clamp down harder. The black market thrives, smugglers rule, and nations once bound by trade blocs begin to fragment.
Mexico, one of America's biggest buyers of corn, bans U.S. imports. What happens to the farmers in Iowa and Nebraska? Their crops rot, their loans pile up, and their companies go out of business. China, America's biggest buyer of soybeans, meanwhile, turns to Brazil, leaving U.S. agriculture in ruins.
When economies fail, nations are desperate. Political instability ensues, and politicians, desperate to deflect criticism of their incompetence, turn to nationalism. Trade blocs reconfigure, China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico unite, leaving the United States alone. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is now irrelevant.
Economic wars have a way of escalating into real wars. When nations no longer are able to obtain resources through economics, they take them by military force. Trade routes on oceans and seas become battlegrounds. Economic competition becomes war. The American Cold War with China intensifies, but this time the world is more divided, more volatile.
If this chain reaction is not stopped, the result is the worst depression since the 1930s. Thriving industries like auto, electronics, and agriculture are devastated. The middle class is eliminated. The poor become desperate and disillusioned. Governments, having exhausted their solutions, resort to last-ditch efforts of price controls, rationing, nationalization of the economy. Hyperinflation or deflation captures economies.
As nations hoard what they have left, wars break out over oil deposits, valuable minerals, and food chains. Economic war has turned into real war, and all because those in power got the nature of it wrong.
To control the economy is to control the world. Tariffs, if used wisely, are instruments of power. But when misused, they consume the very fuel that fuels domination. Mass populations start to realize tariffs and trade wars are the tools that brought economies to collapse.