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“You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American president in history.”
— Trump adviser Stephen Miller, on X.
“The problem with these tariffs is that their scale and indiscriminate nature will have the effect of destroying demand and destroying the capability to develop alternative supply. I suppose if the only goal is to hurt China then shooting yourself in the foot, such that you no longer need to buy shoes for stumps, is a strategy you could choose, but that does nothing to help with what should be the primary motivation: shoring up the U.S. national security base.”
“There was no process. There are no power brokers. On questions of trade, there’s Donald Trump’s whims, his collection of clown car enablers, and maybe an intern who plugs some things into ChatGPT. That’s pretty much it.”
“This is the biggest self-inflicted wound we’ve put on our economy in history… Until we have a reversal, I think we’re going to have a real problem.”
—Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, quoted by Politico.
“If you failed to spot America being ‘looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far’ or it being cruelly denied a ‘turn to prosper’, then congratulations: you have a firmer grip on reality than the president of the United States. … It’s hard to know which is more unsettling: that the leader of the free world could spout complete drivel about its most successful and admired economy. Or the fact that on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions, Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era.”
“‘Liberation day’ has arrived. Unfortunately, it threatens to liberate Americans from robust real wage growth, low unemployment and a good chunk of their retirement savings.”
“They’re playing to Trump’s strengths, which is as a mob boss.”
— Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb, quoted by Politico, on the capitulation of law firms, Ivy League universities and media outlets.
“We are witnessing an extraordinarily broad chilling effect in American society. It is not just what you want to say, but what you are allowed to ask. It is about both formal government actions and informal threats, with threats of professional ruin or even violence from the President’s supporters. It is about both censorship and self-censorship. It is about a sense of collective fear.”
“Musk’s behavior is emblematic of tech’s most heinous figures, who now feel emboldened to enter the analog world with the same lack of care and arrogance with which they built their sloppy platforms.”
“If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything — including cut off their energy with a smile on my face. …They rely on our energy, they need to feel the pain. They want to come at us hard, we’re going to come back twice as hard.”
— “Speaking Monday at a mining convention in downtown Toronto, Ontario Premier Doug Ford doubled down on threats to cut electricity exports to U.S. border states if the tariffs go through,” the Toronto Sun reports.
