A lot of people are worried about tariffs. I get that, because they drive up prices, which makes manufacturers and consumers very sad. However, I’m not worried (I’ll explain why) and Michael Lind is even less worried (and he does a great job of explaining why).

I won’t rehash all of Trump’s tariff actions here. I’ll just make three points that are why I’m sanguine about what he’s doing:

First, Trump’s focus in pushing tariffs isn’t to benefit specific industries at home, although he certainly hopes they will benefit. That’s been the traditional approach to tariffs. Trump, instead, is using tariffs as a non-military cudgel against foreign nations that are harming America. Whether it’s desperately unfair trade practices, fentanyl trafficking, or national security concerns, Trump is trying to force nations dependent on the American market to get their acts together.

China image by Fotor AI.

In other words, while it looks economic, Trump’s policies have much broader implications for America’s national security. That’s new and important in the world of tariffs.

Second, although people are panicking and the stock market is in shock, I don’t believe the hit will be that bad. That’s because, while Trump is driving prices up in discrete regions of the economy, his policies generally will drop inflation. (Indeed, inflation has already dropped.)

As has been apparent since DOGE began, Trump is cutting rampant government spending, which always drives inflation. However, the most important thing is that Trump is unchaining America’s energy sector.

I’m not an economist and don’t pretend to be. I haven’t studied charts, looked at data going back decades or centuries, or read learned treatises. I have, however, figured out one thing: Fuel prices underlie everything.

There is nothing in the economy that isn’t touched by fuel prices. With Trump taking steps to bring down fuel costs, all costs will drop, giving Americans room to absorb the damage from the tariffs. Other countries, those stuck in climate change madness, won’t have that cushion when Americans stop buying their products, so tariffs will indeed hurt them more than they hurt us.

Three, as Charles Gasparino wrote, in an epic essay, Wall Street is bloated. It needs to rid itself of the money that flooded it thanks to two major Biden activities: He printed money and he created so much instability, insecurity, pessimism, and government overreach that people were afraid to do anything but park their money in the market.

Moving forward, once people stop letting the mainstream media headlines panic them, they’ll see that the market just had a much needed high colonic, and things will return to normal, only better.

Finally, there’s Michael Lind’s point, which I completely embrace: China is the cuckoo in the nest, destabilizing the world’s industries, and Trump’s tariffs are meant to balance China’s overwhelming advantage:

The rehabilitation of tariffs, then, is a belated course correction in response to the rise of China, which has been driven by U.S. companies that offshored manufacturing. The Middle Kingdom has lost its position as the world’s most populous nation to India, but it has surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest national economy. China dominates global manufacturing, accounting for a market share of around 30% of manufacturing value added in 2023. In comparison, that same year American manufacturing accounted for only 16% of the global total.

Lind reels off incredibly depressing statistics about how China controls some of the most important industries in the world: auto manufacturing, airplane manufacturing, shipbuilding, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, drones, computer supplies, and more. We have become utterly dependent on China for our survival. Lind explains,

Statistics like these explain why not only the U.S. but most other industrial nations and many developing nations like India are throwing up trade barriers against Chinese imports. If they do not, their national manufacturing industries will be wiped out and they will be reduced to supplying the Chinese industrial superpower with farm products or fossil fuels or services like finance and tourism.

And it’s not just that China cheats, with a combination of actual slave labor (prisoners), virtual slave labor (abused workers), industrial theft, and government subsidies. It’s also because, as Lind points out, China is huge. Its one-child policy is catching up with its population, which is shrinking, not growing, but it’s still a ginormous country with endless amounts of space and human capital, and almost no regulations to get in the way of growth. (Plus, of course, all those coal plants that give it a huge advantage thanks to the West’s climate change madness.)

Lind has so much more that I cannot even begin to summarize it. All that I can do is urge you to read his essay to help you understand that Trump is, as he once said of himself, a very stable genius.