SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
350.org
'Batsh*t Crazy' Trump Tariffs Should Be Seen as $7,000 Tax Hike on Workers, Says Economist
Instead of strategically imposing tariffs, Trump has chosen to "give the country the most massive tax increase in its history, possibly exceeding $1 trillion on an annual basis."
Apr 03, 2025
As stocks "nosedived" on Thursday, economists, policymakers, and campaigners around the world continued to warn about the impacts of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war, which includes a 10% universal tariff for imports and steeper duties—that he claims are "reciprocal"—for dozens of countries, set to take effect over the next week.
"This is how you sabotage the world's economic engine while claiming to supercharge it," wrote Nigel Green, CEO of the international financial consultancy deVere Group. "Trump is blowing up the post-war system that made the U.S. and the world more prosperous, and he's doing it with reckless confidence."
As Bloombergdetailed after the president's "Liberation Day" remarks from the White House Rose Garden:
China's cumulative tariff rate of 54% includes both the 20% duty already charged earlier this year, added to the 34% levy calculated as part of Trump's so-called reciprocal plan, according to people familiar with the matter. The European Union's rate is 20% and Vietnam's is 46%, White House documents showed. Other nations slapped with larger tariffs include Japan with 24%, South Korea with 25%, India with 26%, Cambodia with 49%, and Taiwan with 32%.
In Europe on Thursday, "the regional Stoxx 600 index provisionally ended down around 2.7%," while "the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was down 1.6%, with France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX posting deeper losses of 3.3% and 3.1%, respectively," according toCNBC.
In the United States, CNBCreported, "the broad market index dropped 4%, putting it on track for its worst day since September 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1,200 points, or 3%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 5%. The slide across equities was broad, with decliners at the New York Stock Exchange outnumbering advancers by 6-to-1."
American exceptionalism.
[image or embed]
— Justin Wolfers ( @justinwolfers.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 12:14 PM
However, as Economic Policy Institute (EPI) chief economist Josh Bivens noted last week, "because most households depend overwhelmingly on wages from work as their primary source of income and not returns from wealth-holding, the stock market tells us nothing about these households' economic situations."
And Trump's tariffs are expected to hit U.S. households hard, as the cost of his taxes on imports are passed on to consumers.
"Tariffs can be a legitimate and useful tool in industrial policy for well-defined strategic goals, but broad-based tariffs that significantly raise the average effective tariff rate in the United States are unwise," Bivens and EPI senior economist Adam Hersh stressed in a Thursday statement—which also called out Trump for mischaracterizing one of the think tank's 2022 analyses.
"Further, the second Trump administration's rationale, parameters, and timeline for tariffs have been ever-shifting," Bivens and Hersh continued. "As the original post cited by the administration argues, tariffs should not be a goal unto themselves, but a strategic tool to pair with other efforts to restore American competitiveness in narrowly targeted industrial sectors."
Instead of strategically imposing tariffs, Trump has chosen to "give the country the most massive tax increase in its history, possibly exceeding $1 trillion on an annual basis, which comes to $7,000 per household," warned Center for Economic and Policy Research co-founder and senior economist Dean Baker. "And this tax hike will primarily hit moderate and middle-income families. Trump's taxes go easy on the rich, who spend a smaller share of their income on imported goods."
Baker—like various other economists and journalists—also took aim at Trump's claims that the tariffs are reciprocal, explaining:
Trump's team calculated our trade deficit with each country and divided it by their exports to the United States. Trump decided that this figure was equal to that country's tariff on goods imported from the U.S.
Trump's method of calculating tariffs is comparable to the doctor who assesses your proper weight by dividing your height by your birthday. Any doctor who did this is clearly batshit crazy, and unfortunately so is our president. And apparently none of his economic advisers has the courage and integrity to set him straight or to resign.
However, outside Trump's administration, the intense criticism continued to mount, including from groups focused on combating the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, which also endangers the global economy.
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and Campaigns at 350.org, said Thursday that "Trump's tariffs won't slow the global energy transition—they'll only hurt ordinary people, particularly Americans."
"Despite his claims he 'gets' economic policy, his record tells a different story: Tariffs are tanking U.S. stocks and fueling inflation," Sieber added. "The transition to renewables is unstoppable, with or without him. His latest move does little to impact the booming clean energy market but will isolate the U.S. and drive up costs for American consumers."
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. campaign manager at Oil Change International, similarly emphasized that "Trump's tariffs will hurt working families first and foremost, raising costs for essentials we depend on and threatening to plunge the U.S. economy into a recession. Though Trump pretends to care about the cost of living for ordinary people, his real loyalties lie with his fossil fuel industry donors."
"If he actually cared about energy affordability, he would stop bullying other countries into buying more U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), which boosts the fossil fuel industry's profits, but results in increased prices for domestic consumers and pushes us further toward climate catastrophe," she asserted. "The one step countries can take to hit Trump where it hurts most is wean off their dependency on fossil fuels from the United States."
The impact of Trump's new levies won't be limited to working-class people in the United States. Nick Dearden, director of U.K.-based Global Justice Now, pointed out that "Trump has set light to the global economy and unleashed a world of pain, not least on a group of developing countries that will suffer tremendous impoverishment as a result of his punitive tariffs."
"All those affected must come together and stand up to this bully by building a very different international economy that promotes the interests of ordinary people rather than the oligarchs standing behind Trump," he argued. "For all its scraping and crawling, the U.K. got no special treatment here, and the government should learn this lesson fast: They need to stop giving away our rights and protections in a futile effort to appease Donald Trump."
Leaders in the United States are also encouraging resistance to Trump. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Wednesday that "this week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won't understand how the tariffs make economic sense. That's because they don't. They aren't designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool."
Murphy made the case that "the tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief, it's a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears."
"But as long as we see this clearly, we can stop him. Public mobilization is working. Today, a few Republicans joined Democrats to vote against one set of tariffs," he added, referring to a
resolution that would undo levies on Canadian imports. "The people still have the power."
Keep ReadingShow Less
US-Trained Military in Uganda Targets Oil Pipeline Protesters
"The arrest of climate activists against EACOP is a blatant move to silence crucial advocates for change," said Fridays for Future Uganda.
Aug 26, 2024
Police and soldiers from Uganda's U.S.-trained army cracked down on demonstrators at two Monday protests against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, continuing the globally condemned oppression of EACOP opponents.
In the capital city of Kampala, where protesters tried to march on Parliament and the Chinese Embassy "there are 21 people arrested, they included 19 males and two females," defense attorney Samuel Wanda toldAgence France-Presse. They were taken to the city's central police station and charging details were not yet available. Eight protesters would be directly impacted by the project.
As AFP noted, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation has an 8% stake in EACOP, which is set to carry crude nearly 900 miles from Uganda's Lake Albert oilfields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. Ugandan and Tanzanian state-owned companies each have a 15% stake, and the remaining 62% is controlled by the France-based multinational TotalEnergies.
"The arrest of Stop EACOP activists in Kampala today is an attack on democracy and the right to protest," said climate campaigner and environmental consultant Ashley Kitisya on social media. "We condemn this crackdown and call for the immediate release of all detained activists. Peaceful voices demanding justice must not be silenced. #StopEACOP."
Fridays for Future Uganda declared that "the arrest of climate activists against EACOP is a blatant move to silence crucial advocates for change."
"Many affected are misled and unaware of the true risks," the youth-led group added. "We must oppose this injustice and demand EACOP’s immediate halt to protect people and the environment."
Hundreds of peaceful pipeline opponents—including breastfeeding mothers—also gathered in Hoima City, according to the Kampala-based Monitor. They were at a Kitara Secondary School (SS) and planned to demonstrate at regional EACOP offices but "were surrounded by heavily armed police" and Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers "who foiled the protest."
As the outlet noted last year, declassified U.S. State Department data shows that from 2019-21, Uganda received $8.5 million in military training assistance from the United States, and from 2012-16, the African country got grants for equipment worth $21.9 million .
On Monday, Christopher Opio told Hoima Resident City Commissioner Badru Mugabi that the project affected persons (PAPs) he represents had not received a government response to an April petition "so, we decided to say we can again put our concerns in writing. Today, we were taking our petition to the offices of EACOP, and Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) peacefully."
As the Monitor detailed:
Mugabi responded saying: "If you have a court case and the court has not heard you, please come to our offices. We shall put these courts to order, or we shall appeal to their supervisors. But walking to these offices will not change the status quo legally."
Later, Mugabi selected a few PAPs' representatives and escorted them to deliver their petition to the offices of EACOP and PAU while the rest of the aggrieved locals were left at Kitara SS under tight security.
In a series of social media posts, the StopEACOP campaign called out law enforcement for blocking the peaceful protest in Hoima, highlighting the threats and intimidation faced by PAPs and local climate activists.
Despite the oppression in Uganda, protests are planned in Tanzania on Thursday, according to the global climate organization 350.org.
"The EACOP project threatens local communities, water resources, biodiversity, and efforts to curb climate change while providing little to benefit ordinary Ugandan and Tanzanian people," the group said Monday. "Already, tens of thousands of people along the pipeline's route and near its associated oil drilling sites have been forcibly displaced, losing their land, livelihoods, and traditional ways of life. Many have been relocated to inadequate homes on infertile land, making it impossible to grow crops or sustain their families. Others have received inadequate compensation or none at all, leaving them unable to rebuild their lives."
"Additionally, community members and activists face escalating threats, including violence, intimidation, arrests, harassment, and even abductions for resisting the project," 350 added. "Impacted communities and land, human rights, and environmental defenders in the project's host countries are taking to the streets to demand an end to EACOP and justice for the harm that has already been caused."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Climate Experts Rebuke Musk Over 'Dumbest' Interview With Trump
"Why is Musk doing this?" asked 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben. "My only conjecture is that he hopes the world will become barren enough that we simply have to pony up for his big trip to Mars."
Aug 14, 2024
Elon Musk thinks he knows more about climate issues than the entire staff of a major international newspaper, but on Wednesday, experts on the planetary emergency offered the billionaire businessman a reality check.
Responding to a Guardianarticle critical of Monday's glitch- and lie-laden interview of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Musk's X social media platform, Musk proclaimed that "my little fingernail knows more about climate issues than the entire staff of The Guardian."
Bill McKibben, who co-founded the climate action group 350.org, is quoted in that article calling the Musk-Trump interview "the dumbest climate conversation of all time."
Responding to Musk's diss, McKibben said Wednesday on X that he would "be pleased to debate you (or your little fingernail) at any point about why we don't, in fact, have a century to spare in solving this crisis."
Climate scientist Michael Mann, who calls Musk a "climate denier" in the Guardian piece, also weighed in, telling Musk on X that "if you've got a beef, take it up with me."
Some X users noted that once upon a time, Musk—who is the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla—acknowledged the urgency of the climate crisis. In 2018, he said: "Why not go renewable now and avoid [the] increasing risk of climate catastrophe? Betting that science is wrong and oil companies are right, is the dumbest experiment in history, by far."
In an opinion piece published Tuesday by Common Dreams, McKibben noted that after Musk—who endorsed Trump and created a pro-Trump super political action committee—the former president's biggest funder may be fracking billionaire Harold Hamm.
"He took Trump up on his offer that for a billion dollars he'd give the oil industry whatever it wanted, and he's been working the phones ever since," McKibben wrote of Hamm.
Trump returned the favor by calling Hamm "so boring to be with... because all he wants to talk about is oil and gas."
During his first White House run, Trump infamously called climate change "a Chinese hoax." He staffed his administration with climate deniers and rolled back previous administrations' climate policies under the "drill, baby, drill" mantra popularized by former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
"Why is Musk doing this?" McKibben asked. "Who knows? After all, the success of Tesla has been mostly driven by government subsidy that grows out of the effort to slow the growth of carbon in the atmosphere."
"My only conjecture," McKibben added, "is that he hopes the world will become barren enough that we simply have to pony up for his big trip to Mars."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular