If we want to fight Trump’s voodoo economics, we must appeal to the heart too and remind people why capitalism is worth fighting for, writes Eliot Wilson

“Tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” President Trump has often said. That mixture of the romantic, the mundane and the weird which is so characteristic of his speech has hung over his second administration since its beginning. A protectionist regime of tariffs was inevitable but the details were elusive. Last week the world had to wait no longer.

Trump’s voodoo economics

Trump dubbed last Wednesday “Liberation Day”. He appeared in the White House rose garden with large placards listing “reciprocal tariffs”, like a television game show version of Top Trumps. The headlines: a baseline tariff of 10 per cent on all imports, with some unlucky trading partners receiving further penalties. The UK seems to have escaped all but the universal tithe, but China merits 34 per cent (to add to an existing 20), Taiwan 32 per cent and Japan 24 per cent. The EU has been hit with a 20 per cent rate.

On “Liberation Day”, the president declared that “April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn”. This is wild........

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