The Tariff Trap and America's Broken Economic System

Tariffs won’t bring back good jobs. Globalization isn’t the enemy. The real problem is a system that cuts American workers out of the prosperity they helped create.

Here we go again.

It’s 2025, and Trump is back in the White House—and back to playing with fire. His new wave of tariffs has already rattled the global economy, triggered market volatility, and carved a fresh hole in the side of America’s already fragile supply chains. The stock market lost over $10 trillion in value within weeks. GDP shrank last quarter for the first time in over two years. Trade partners are retaliating, prices are rising, and the working class is, once again, caught in the blast radius of elite economic gamesmanship.

And for what?

We’re told it’s all about bringing jobs home. About rebuilding American manufacturing. About restoring pride and prosperity to the heartland. But that’s a lie—one both parties have been repeating for decades. A lie that hides the deeper truth:

Globalization is not the problem. Automation is not the enemy. The real betrayal is this: we built a global, hyper-efficient economic system and deliberately excluded the American worker from its benefits.

Tariffs are not a solution to that betrayal. They're just another misdirection—a blunt, politically convenient tool used to distract from the fact that we’ve spent the last 50 years rewriting the economic rules to benefit capital at the expense of labor.

This isn’t just about Trump. Democrats have gone along with this status quo since Clinton, embracing globalization while doing next to nothing to build safeguards for American workers. And on the other side, Republicans have spent decades pushing deregulation and trickle-down nonsense, gutting every structural check that might have forced corporations to share their gains.

So now, in 2025, grifters are peddling the lie that tariffs can fix what a rigged system broke. Still pretending that reshoring factories will rebuild the middle class—without asking what kind of jobs will actually come back, who will get them, and what they’ll pay.

The truth is simple: we don’t need to undo globalization—we need to finish the job. We need to build a system where the people who fuel the economy actually share in its rewards.

What Globalization Actually Did

Let’s strip away the political spin for a moment and look at globalization for what it actually is.

At its core, globalization is a neutral tool. It allows companies to source goods, labor, and materials from anywhere in the world. That’s it. On paper, it’s just about efficiency—about building supply chains that stretch across borders in search of lower costs and higher profits. And for companies and investors, it worked brilliantly.

Globalization gave American corporations a simple cheat code: move production overseas, cut labor costs, and rake in the margin. No need to negotiate with unions. No need to pay decent wages. No need to worry about American workers at all.

The benefits? They were massive. Cheaper goods. Soaring stock prices. Record-breaking corporate profits.

But here's the catch: those benefits weren’t shared.

Yes, the American worker got cheaper products. But in exchange, they sacrificed the ability to build wealth—or even maintain dignity through work, instead being forced to depend on government assistance. Instead of thriving, they got the Walmart effect: outsourced, laid off, or pushed into precarious, low-paying jobs.

Entire communities were hollowed out. Entire industries gutted. And nothing was put in place to bridge the gap. No real retraining programs. No dividend tied to national productivity. No mechanism to reinvest the gains. Just slogans.

It wasn’t globalization that failed the American worker—it was the deliberate refusal to include them in the rewards.

Then came automation—turbocharging the process. While globalization shipped jobs overseas, automation deleted them entirely. Why pay a human when a robot or algorithm can work faster, cheaper, and without a lunch break?

Again, it was called “progress.” Again, the profits soared—while the people who used to power the economy were cut out of the picture.

So here we are, in a perverse equilibrium: more wealth is being created than ever before, but fewer people are needed to create it—and those who are still needed are paid less, offered less security, and charged more for everything.

And we’re still pretending that slapping tariffs on imported steel will solve any of this.

The Illusion of Tariffs as a Solution

So if globalization and automation left millions behind, why are tariffs still being sold as the answer?

Because they’re politically convenient. They offer the illusion of strength. They look like action. They feed nationalist fantasies of “bringing jobs back”—without forcing politicians or CEOs to actually change anything about how the system works.

But let’s be clear: even if tariffs succeed in bringing some manufacturing back to U.S. soil, they do nothing to guarantee that the jobs created will be good ones. There is no clause in a tariff that forces a company to pay a living wage. There is no requirement that those jobs be accessible to human workers instead of automated machines. There is no mechanism that says those profits need to be shared with the communities they once abandoned.

Because nothing in our system requires corporations to do anything but maximize shareholder value.

So what happens in reality? We get a few flashy ribbon-cutting ceremonies for new “Made in America” facilities that:

• Pay wages barely above retail,

• Use lean staffing models powered by machines and software,

• And exist primarily to capture tax breaks and political headlines.

It’s just another version of the scam: the profits go up, the jobs stay down.

Even worse, tariffs act as a stealth tax on ordinary people. They raise prices on imported goods across the board—clothes, electronics, cars—hitting lower- and middle-income households the hardest. They provoke retaliation from trade partners, which hurts exporters and farmers. And they create supply chain chaos that ends up punishing workers and consumers far more than executives.

Remember the one benefit that globalization offered to the American Worker? Cheaper goods. And yet, the tariffs will increase the price floor for virtually everything, stripping away from the American worker the one benefit they ever got out of globalization, without giving them anything in return. In other words, tariffs create the appearance of helping the working class while mostly hurting them. They’re a bad trade made in the name of economic patriotism—one that leaves the fundamental dynamics untouched.

And yet, here we are in 2025, repeating the same cycle. More tariffs. More chaos. More empty promises that this time, things will be different.

But they won’t. Because unless we build a system that actually includes workers in the value they help create—nothing changes.

The Real Threat Isn’t Globalization—It’s the System That Erases Workers

Let’s stop pretending the real debate is tariffs versus free trade. Or protectionism versus innovation. The real threat we’re facing is structural: we’ve built an economy that no longer needs most of us to function—and offers no plan for what to do with us once we’re gone.

Globalization and automation didn’t just move jobs or make them more efficient—they’ve allowed corporations to cut people out of the value chain entirely. The more efficient the system becomes, the fewer workers it needs. That’s not theory—it’s reality. And it’s accelerating.

In this new model, human labor is a cost center to be reduced or eliminated. Profits no longer require wages. Machines build the products. Algorithms make the decisions. Offshored labor smooths out the rest. And what’s left for most people? Low-paid, unstable, service-sector jobs—or government assistance, until we do away with that too, which many seem inclined to.

So we’re left with two familiar answers—both wrong:

1. Retreat into a nationalist fantasy, where we block imports, rebuild old industries, and try to freeze time to protect jobs that automation will destroy anyway.

2. Surrender to the market, pretending we can endlessly “retrain” people for jobs that don’t exist or don’t pay enough to live.

And then there’s the supposed compromise: find the balance. Be “smart” about globalization. Implement “targeted tariffs.” Incentivize “responsible automation.” Support “upskilling” with tax credits.

Sounds reasonable—until you realize this balance is built on the same foundation: a system that lets companies profit from excluding people, while offering nothing concrete to those who’ve been excluded.

You can’t balance on a rigged playing field. You’re still playing their game—and workers are still losing.

Because unless we change the rules—unless we create a structure that shares the gains of globalization and automation rather than hoarding them at the top—it doesn’t matter how efficient or balanced the system gets.

The outcome will be the same: more wealth created with fewer people—and a growing class of Americans treated as economically obsolete.

A Smarter Path: The American Efficiency Dividend

Corporate efficiency doesn’t have to be the enemy of the American worker.
It doesn’t have to be a double-edged sword that decapitates the American Dream.

What if there were a way to return dividends from the gains of globalization and automation directly to American workers?
What if the rise of efficiency didn’t mean workers get left behind—but actually gave them a stake in the future?

What if, instead of treating people as obsolete, we treated them like shareholders?

That’s the core idea: when companies profit specifically by removing American labor from the equation—whether through automation or offshoring—we tax the windfall. Not the innovation itself. Not the growth. Just the excess profit generated by cutting workers out.

Then we redistribute that tax as dividends—earned, not given.

Just like Social Security tracks your lifetime contributions, this system would track your participation in the American economy. The more you work—across time, in any job—the more “work credits” you accumulate. Those credits entitle you to a share of the dividend pool created by the efficiency tax. You’re not collecting a handout. You’re claiming your share of the wealth that your labor made possible—even if that labor has since been automated away.

In effect, you’d be issued something like American economic stock—earned over a lifetime of contribution. But unlike traditional stock, it can’t be bought, sold, or inherited. It’s non-transferable. It exists solely to represent your participation in the American economy.

When you work, you accumulate shares. When you’re no longer here, those shares disappear. No dilution. No generational transfer. Just a clean, fair system that ties your economic rewards to the work you’ve contributed.

That keeps the system stable, self-correcting, and focused on living contribution—not dynastic accumulation. It’s a way to ensure that as fewer jobs are needed, those who still contribute—in any form—continue to share in the value created by the entire system.

This turns globalization and automation from threats into aligned incentives:

• Companies still innovate and cut costs.

• Workers still contribute—regardless of where the economy shifts.

• And everyone shares in the upside, because everyone remains part of the equation.

It’s not welfare. It’s not redistribution for redistribution’s sake. It’s a structural fix to a structural problem. A way to anchor dignity, participation, and fairness in a world where machines and markets no longer need all of us—but can still benefit all of us, if we build the right mechanism.

If You Believe in This Fight, Help Keep It Alive

There’s still more below, I just need a moment of your time.

The American Manifesto isn’t backed by corporations. There are no ads, no paywalls, no billionaires funding it.

It’s just one person, fighting like hell to expose the truth and give you the weapons to push back.

If you value this work—if you want this movement to keep growing, keep calling out fascism without fear, and keep fighting for the future we deserve—then I need your support.

Join the fight. Become a supporter. Every contribution keeps this mission alive.

Because silence is surrender. We do not surrender. We are #TheRelentless.

The Broader Benefits: A Stronger, Fairer Capitalism

This isn’t just about plugging a hole in the system. It’s about building a better one—a version of capitalism that works again for the people who keep it alive.

A system like this wouldn’t just reduce suffering. It would spark opportunity. It would restore dignity to work—any work—by ensuring that no matter how low your wage or how advanced the technology around you, your contribution still earns you a stake.

Here’s what this approach would deliver:

• It preserves the dignity of work.
  This isn’t a handout. People still have to work to earn shares in the system. It rewards effort, not need, and keeps personal agency at the center of economic life.

• It reduces reliance on the safety net.
  With dividends flowing from efficiency gains, many people would earn enough to rise above poverty—even if their day job doesn’t pay much. That lowers pressure on welfare systems without abandoning anyone.

• It doesn’t distort labor markets.
  Wages can still float naturally based on demand, but no one is completely cut out of the prosperity loop. Employers don’t face wage mandates; workers just have another way to share in the value they help create.

• It fuels capitalism, instead of undermining it.
  When more people have income, more people spend. When more people spend, businesses grow. This is the feedback loop that made the American economy so powerful in the first place—and this system restores it.

• It promotes entrepreneurship.
  With a more stable income floor, more people can take risks. Start businesses. Go back to school. Step outside of survival mode and into the driver’s seat of their own lives.

• It restores competition by adding pressure at the top.
  This tax only applies to the efficiency gains harvested by large-scale globalization and automation—tools mostly accessible to large corporations. Small businesses, which rarely benefit from those tools directly, are spared. That creates a system where giants finally feel friction again—and smaller players get breathing room.

• It makes the system feel fair again.
  No more watching billionaires extract record profits by firing half their workforce. No more wondering what “progress” even means if it leaves half the country behind. This makes the future feel like it belongs to everyone.

• It expands what counts as valuable work.
  In a system like this, work doesn’t have to be tied to units produced or hours logged on an assembly line. As the need for human labor in production declines, more people can contribute in ways that are cultural, educational, or civic—ways that enrich society even if they aren’t tied to traditional metrics of productivity. This model creates room for human flourishing, not just economic efficiency.

Progress Doesn’t Have to Mean Exclusion

We don’t need to fear globalization. We don’t need to reject automation.
And we sure as hell don’t need to slap desperate tariffs on over trade partner and pretend that’s a plan.

The problem was never the tools—it was the system we built around them.
A system that let profits soar while workers were cut out.
A system that treats labor as disposable, humans as inefficient, and dignity as optional.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We can design an economy that grows and includes. That rewards work and progress. That lets companies innovate while still anchoring every American to the value they helped create.

The solution is simple—and overdue:
Tax the windfall of efficiency. Return it to the people who earned the right to share in it. Make progress something we all have a stake in.

This isn’t a utopian dream. It’s a moral correction. A logical update.
A way to preserve capitalism by finally forcing it to live up to its promise:
That if you work, if you contribute, you deserve a future.

We can keep innovating. We can keep growing. But it’s time we stopped treating half the country like collateral damage—and started treating them like partners again.

Because if progress only serves the few, it’s not progress at all.
It’s a con.

Join the Fight, Amplify the Truth

Because silence is surrender. We never surrender. We are #TheRelentless.