We are now living in one of those awakenings.

President Trump’s newly announced tariffs, sweeping in scope and unapologetic in tone, have ignited a firestorm across the global economic stage.

Markets tremble. Allies mutter. The media calls it 'reckless.'

But the real story here isn’t about taxes on steel or retaliation from China. It’s about a reckoning, not just economic, but moral.

Trump didn’t create the chaos. He’s responding to it. And that chaos was born under the brittle leadership of Joe Biden, whose four-year exercise in appeasement left the United States weaker, divided, and adrift.

This happens when you elect a caretaker in a time that demands a commander.

Joe Biden’s presidency was sold as a return to “normalcy.” We were told the adults were back in the room, competence would prevail, and empathy would be restored.

But the results were far from normal.

Inflation surged to the highest levels in four decades, crushing the working class Biden claimed to champion. The Southern border dissolved into dysfunction. Afghanistan fell with a thud, not just militarily but symbolically. We left allies behind and watched a 20-year war evaporate in 20 days. Cities burned, crime surged, and the country turned on itself culturally, morally, and institutionally.

Through it all, Biden spoke like a ghost: present but insubstantial. His America was in managed decline.

That vacuum begged to be filled. And in 2024, the American people did what people always do in the face of slow collapse: they reached for strength.

You may not like Trump. Many don’t. But you can’t accuse him of indecision. His leadership, now back in the saddle, is a reaction to years of strategic ambiguity masquerading as virtue.

His recent tariffs, including those on China, the EU, and even imports tied to green energy policies, weren’t just an economic decision. They were a declaration that America is done apologizing for its interests.

That kind of posture terrifies the global elite.

They prefer smooth operators, men like Biden or former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, fluent in platitudes and allergic to confrontation.

But history does not bend to soft words. It yields only strength.

Whether it’s tariffs or borders, trade or war, the message is clear: the United States will act on its behalf again. Trump may be brash, chaotic, even offensive. But he understands one thing Biden never did: the world doesn’t respect uncertainty. It exploits it.

Let’s not be naive. Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy has real risks. Markets are rattling, China is retaliating, and global supply chains, already fragile, are stretching thin.

But these are not signs of collapse. There are signs of conflict when a nation stops sleepwalking and starts defending itself again.

You don’t have to agree with every Trump policy to recognize what’s happening: we are exiting the polite fiction of international cooperation and re-entering a time of national survival. America spent the last four years trying to be liked. Now it’s trying to be respected.

That shift isn’t smooth. It never is. But it’s necessary. Because the world is full of wolves, and Biden’s America, for all its smiles, smelled like weakness.

And sovereignty, national or spiritual, is worth the cost.

Weakness is cheap. It’s easy to nod, compromise, and hold summits that produce nothing but selfies. But real leadership requires friction. It invites conflict. And sometimes, it must choose national pain over global appeasement.

Trump understands that. Biden didn’t.

So here we are, in a nation waking up, groggy, uncertain, and slightly bruised from the fall. Trump’s leadership is not gentle. It is not refined. But it is a direction. And after four years of drift, direction feels like air to a drowning man.

The question is: are we willing to endure the discomfort of course correction? Can we accept that real strength offends before it rebuilds?

And maybe more personally, in politics, faith, and life, are we finally done tolerating weakness just because it’s polite?

Because if Trump’s tariffs signal anything, it’s this: the age of appeasement is over. And the age of consequences has begun.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License