We can all argue as to whether Trump is incompetent or can even spit out a coherent sentence, for that matter. What should never be in question are the real people behind his perceived power. To rule, you have first to gain control. Trump realised a long time ago that politics is not complicated, tell as many lies as you have to, to convince the uneducated you are one of them and that tribal loyalty is everything. Teach them that Democrats are not the opposition; they are the enemy.
Say what you will about him, Trump has remained virtually untouchable his entire life. He understands how to weaponise festering public discontent and use it to incite a new breed of voters prepared to do whatever it takes to intimidate and coerce family members, friends and anyone else in their orbit, even to the point of them supporting policies against their best interests. Trump overcame a level of criminal and immoral behaviour that would have sunk any other politician on the planet. For God’s sake, this is a man who said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any support. He wasn’t wrong because he lied, he cheated, stole from his own charity, stole classified documents and incited an insurrection after telling the Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. "I just want to find 11,780 votes." The man is corruption personified, but has a political Teflon coating that defies logic.
Not only did he do all these things, but he went on to secure immunity from the Supreme Court of the United States, allowing him now to act with near total impunity. Nothing about him or this administration is normal. What we do know is that a significant number of the objectives of Project 2025 (that thing he knew nothing about) were met in his first 100 days. Various open-source trackers now attempt to track its implementation, like the Project 2025 Tracker. The key here is that nobody appears to be able to stop him.
Looking at his poll numbers, it appears that common sense does still exist, buried somewhere in the American psyche, because he’s so underwater he’s in danger of his swollen ankles exploding. However, the truth is, it means nothing until the disaffected get an opportunity to use their vote to put an end to this tyranny. That’s not lost on those behind the seat of power, and that is why we are seeing the attempted redrawing of the electoral maps in Texas. There is concern, but they believe they can manipulate the elections enough for the threat not to derail their plans.
On the surface, the economic data continues to defy expectations, allowing Trump to mask the underlying issues. As I have said many times before, this is no longer about controlling the narrative; it’s now about maintaining an illusion of perceived economic progress. It’s like a Trump Vegas economic magic show.
The thing about economics is, eventually, the chickens do come home to roost as reality comes knocking on the door. The administration recognises that people are largely disengaged from politics. At the same time, there is discontent out there; it is not enough to cause the cabal concern, but they can’t let up for a minute on maintaining the illusion and the promise of ‘jam tomorrow’. Trump was quick to respond to the 3% GDP number and the fact that inflation is not out of control. He predictably pressed Jerome Powell for an interest rate cut, but the Fed resisted the pressure and, in my view, did the right thing in standing firm on holding rates.
The thing about Trump’s magic act, as with all illusions, is that the truth is never too far away. However, to keep the illusion alive and kicking, he did what he always does and offered up another promise he has no intention of following through on. As reported by CBS a few days ago:
President Trump on Friday said he's considering issuing rebate checks for Americans based on the billions in new tariff revenue collected by his administration.
"We're thinking about a little rebate. But the big thing we want to do is pay down debt. But we're thinking about a rebate," Mr. Trump said in comments to reporters before he left for a four-day visit to Scotland.
Have you spent your DOGE $7000 dividend yet? Oh, wait, did it never show up? Please don’t go out and order a new TV on an illusory tariff dividend. It’s just Trump telling fairy tales.
Here’s the reality. The problem with tariffs is that they are a tax that has inescapable consequences. The United States has generated $125.6 billion this year from tariffs as of July 29. Up to April, tariffs generated around $7 billion per month before ‘Liberation Day’. To be clear, this means that the US government has raised taxes on US importers by $125.6 billion. If you exclude revenue before ‘Liberation Day’, the number is closer to $100 billion, but what’s $20 billion between friends? I want you to think about that for a moment. The party, which advocates for low taxes and champions business, has imposed a $126.6 billion tax on US importing businesses since coming to office. That’s not a left-wing talking point; it’s a fact he is proud of. The counter-narrative is that exporters are absorbing the tariff cost. Export prices show little to no price reductions, so this claim is absolutely false. The exporting company does NOT pay the tariff.
It’s all about basic math at the end of the day. Trump’s TACO approach to tariff implementation distorts the impact of these economically damaging measures. The markets have primarily chosen to ignore his threats, which is why we have seen less volatility recently. They see no point in reacting today only to get back to business as usual tomorrow. Yesterday, bond yields were as follows:
The 10-year Treasury yield rose 4.2 basis points to 4.37%.
The 2-year yield was up 6.6 basis points at 3.941% and
The 30-year bond yield added three basis points to 4.898%.
The bottom line is that confidence in the US economy remains guarded at best, and in my view, this is the best it’s going to get in the short term. The thing is that the $126.6 million tariff revenues Trump is doing a lap of honour with are purely performative. The reality is that the revenue in question is not truly revenue derived from competitors; it’s effectively revenue extorted from US companies in duties. In other words, an imposed federal tax. Now, stay with me here because this is important. The impact of this tax depends on how the importer absorbs that cost. If the importer absorbs it, it will lead to lower profits.
Let’s take Ford as an example of the impact of tariffs. The BBC reports today :
Ford says Trump tariffs to cost it about $2bn this year
The report continues:
The company says it had already paid an extra $800m in duties in the three months ending in June. It also suffered losses related to cutting an electric vehicle programme.
It is the latest indication of the impact of US President Donald Trump's tariffs on major American firms and the challenges ahead as he seeks to reshape global supply chains.
GM has already reported that it has been hit by $1 billion, and Volkswagen puts its current losses at $1.5 billion. I’m just using these three examples of what will be a nationwide impact on manufacturing. You should also remember that Ford is not as vulnerable to the effects given its level of US manufacturing. Any manufacturing business reliant on exports is seeing its input costs increase dramatically. The only way they can deal with this is to reduce overheads, so then we look at unemployment rising and all the associated costs of that, both economic and societal.
If we move away from corporate losses, this involves those corporations passing on a proportion of their costs to the consumer. The result? This manifests itself in higher prices, increased inflation and political pressure from voters who say ‘I didn’t vote for this’. The point I’m trying to make is that the revenue from tariffs is not revenue generated from outside the US; it is revenue generated from a tax increase on American businesses. America is, in effect, robbing itself. It is textbook ‘robbing Peter to Pay Paul’ to perpetuate an economic illusion.
The true intent of tariffs should be to reduce imports and encourage domestic manufacturing and consumption of domestically produced products. So Trump’s aims are bizarre in the context of the win he’s trying to sell, because if imports drop, then tariff revenue drops and the American import sector shrinks. The theory suggests that exports accelerate to fill the revenue gap created by tariffs. The only problem with that is that because of tariffs, US manufacturing input costs increase, making US goods noncompetitive in the global market. I think I would describe this as a lose-lose situation.
The truth is, this was never about tariffs; it was about leverage and the ability to bully longstanding trading partners. Trump’s broader goal was to increase the cost of doing business in the American market globally. He doesn’t want to see 50% tariffs on trading partners; his aim was simply to raise what they were paying before he took office. He’s looking for a number, maybe between 10 and 20%, because he believes that he can impose up to a 20% tax on American businesses, which can then choose how much to pass on to consumers.
The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates that, as of 28 July 2025, the average effective tariff rate imposed by the US on goods imports stood at 18.2%, the highest since 1934. That was up from 2.4% in 2024, before Donald Trump returned to office. This average rate is likely to increase with the implementation of the August 1st tariffs. I hope I’m making sense here, because it’s essential. Trump’s on-off approach to tariffs, aside from creating an environment to manipulate the stock market for him and his friends, allows him to juice up tariff revenue before he eventually backs off. Also, you should bear in mind that the current overall Chinese tariffs are running at 51% and this is crippling small and micro businesses, which are the backbone of the US economy. The key point is that there is nothing to celebrate about taxing yourself!
Another important consideration is the lengths to which Trump is prepared to go to perpetuate his economic illusion. Plans have already been floated to change the way that both GDP and inflation are measured. Be in no doubt that they are quite prepared to cook the books to perpetuate the illusion. A piece by Abha Bhattarai in The Washington Post, she reported in March:
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says government spending should be separate from economic growth.
In another piece by Catholic publication America - The Jesuit Review on the 12th July by Dennis Sadowski:
The Trump administration is weighing a plan that uses a different definition of inflation to determine who lives in poverty and who does not.
The plan, floated in the spring, has raised concerns among Catholic advocates for low-income and working families. They said that hundreds of thousands of people would no longer be eligible to receive assistance under federal programs if it is adopted.
The point here is that there is NOTHING they will not do to hide their true intentions, and the intent is to deceive the American people and obscure the truth when it threatens to cast a negative light on the Trump agenda. We have reached a point where corporate news has essentially bowed to pressure. In the case of CBS, it has become very clear that they are now going out of their way to place a positive spin on news related to Trump. I find that utterly repulsive and a betrayal of journalistic integrity, but this, I’m afraid, is the new corporate media world in which we now live. The truth will become increasingly elusive, which is why it’s crucial to support individuals like me and other independent information sources. We work long hours to uncover, make sense of, and present it to you with a fair analysis. These are dangerous times, and your support is becoming increasingly important. Paid subscriptions here are critical to enable me to gift this community important articles that would otherwise sit behind paywalls, gain access to expensive data analysis tools, not to mention create critical video content.
It will be interesting to see what tariffs are actually implemented tomorrow. It certainly appears we are going to see the implementation of tariffs on China postponed, which is no help for the small and micro business owners who are the actual victims of Trump’s international extortion plans. The truth is that none of the currently negotiated trade agreements are truly agreements as would typically be ratified in normal times; they are little more than handshakes and a few words on the back of a beer mat. Trump can change his mind at the drop of a hat, and the victim country is forced at gunpoint to play by whatever new rules he sets.
In Brazil’s case, tariffs are even being used to shield his buddy Jair Bolsonaro from a corruption indictment. America is now considered globally as an economic terrorist organisation, running an international extortion gang out of the Oval Office. A gang that has created a crypto bribery pipeline to buy deregulation, friendly legislation, and facilitate shadow investment in Trump for favourable treatment in any negotiations. Let’s just tell it as it is.
What you should be looking at is next month’s numbers, because that’s when the tariff impact will begin to bite and surface at a level that could start to hurt Main Street, and that will be the real litmus test. Tariff revenues will continue to grow as Trump increases the level of taxes on American importers and, ultimately, American consumers. The question is, when does he hit the breaking point in respect of those who will begin to suffer? It’s important to note that I take absolutely no pleasure in pointing out that America is skating on thin ice. The world does not want to be forced to develop strategies to drive around American bullying behaviour, but eventually it will, and steps are already being taken to rewire global trade. China is simply waiting for the right opportunity to cash in.
Can you please help amplify and imbed in voters minds Claus Kellerman's TRUMP TARRIFF TAX mantra. See attached link.
https://youtu.be/GSYv7PXkTBA?si=xGwg3qNHVitGb2_k
Our country is mostly glazed over reality show junkies that have no recollection of true hard times and no interest in putting effort into what is not spoonfed to them thru propaganda. We are the idiocracy movie in real life. It's despicable.