Economist EJ Antoni, bucking the mainstream hysteria, is explaining that Donald Trump isn’t launching a trade war; he’s exposing the extremely unbalanced trade war the U.S. has been losing for decades.
In a hard-hitting op-ed for Fox News, Antoni compared Trump to one of his Republican presidential predecessors, U.S. Grant, for sheer grit and determination in spite of smear campaigns and prophecies of failure. The reality is that other countries have been imposing unfair tariffs on American goods while demanding no reciprocal tariffs for years. Trump is just insisting that other countries pay the same tariffs they require us to pay. The trade war already existed; it’s just that Trump wants to win.
Antoni insisted, “Trump is being attacked for being anti-free trade or for starting a trade war, but the opposite is true. For most of the last half century, the global economy has become entrenched in a pseudo-free trade that artificially disadvantages American exporters.”
He added, “In this sense, other nations declared a trade war on America decades ago, and our leaders never fought back.“ Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are meant to pressure other nations that do, in fact, rely on American trade and American consumers “to reduce their trade barriers and end a trade war that already exists.”
Some of the tariff rates to be announced Wednesday will be eye-opening to many folks, since the extent to which other nations block our exports has been largely hidden from view. Even nations that are supposedly our friends, like Canada, impose tariffs and non-tariff barriers that are nearly the equivalent of a 300 percent tax in certain instances.
Shockingly, some of our exporters have better access to Russian markets than Canadian ones!
My father remembers dairy farmers in upstate New York during his childhood frustrated by the lack of access to Canadian consumers a relatively short drive away because of extortionate tariffs on dairy goods. Trump has cited this situation in defending his tariffs. Why should we continue to punish Americans to keep foreign nations happy?
🚨U.S. President Donald Trump puts a “tremendously high tariff” on Canadian dairy at 250%
“They make it impossible for us to sell our lumber or dairy products,” he said, claiming Canada has been ripping off American producers for years. pic.twitter.com/A6fFt8COVo
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) March 7, 2025
Related: Tariff Liberation Day Has Arrived
And why are multiple Republican senators led by Chuck Grassley banding together with Democrats to stall tariffs that protect Americans and force Canada to be fairer? Which country’s citizens voted them into office?
🚨ALERT
REMEMBER THESE FOUR “REPUBLICANS”
In a devastating loss for Donald Trump, the Senate has just voted to CANCEL Trump’s tariffs on Canada by a vote of 51-48.
FOUR Republicans voted for the measure: Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Susan Collins. pic.twitter.com/1aFBxh5V75
— JOSH DUNLAP (@JDunlap1974) April 3, 2025
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Indeed, Trump, Antoni argued, is like Grant, who, after “countless disasters caused by a parade of lackluster Union generals,” proved himself precisely the man the cause needed.
Amid vicious stalemates that sent other generals into retreat, Grant was resolute. In a famous May 1864 message to Secretary of War Stanton, Grant declared, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” He rallied his army, and they would not back down… Although Grant was given the pejorative moniker of “the butcher,” it was the strategies of most other Union generals that prolonged the war and the killing. Grant’s tenacity, though, ended the fighting.
In fact, it is worth noting that at the time, even the spy the War Department sent specifically to dig up dirt on Grant became one of his most enthusiastic admirers because of the general’s genius and determination (Trump isn’t the only Republican president to be secretively targeted by federal officials before taking office). It is also interesting that, while president, one of Grant‘s great and underreported achievements was stabilizing the U.S. economy by returning to the gold standard, in spite of backlash and criticism from friends and foes alike.
Like Trump, Grant knew which economic policies would most benefit the American economy, despite propaganda to the contrary. The trade war already exists. But now American workers, as Antoni wrote, can hope that Trump’s Liberation Day will be the beginning of a new Golden Age in the USA.
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