Against his own promises, Donald Trump’s tariff plan will actually cost Americans more money, according to him.

For months on the campaign trail, Trump insisted—without evidence—that it would be other countries who footed the bill in negotiations, lowering the cost of goods in the United States while bringing more manufacturing employment stateside. But on Saturday, Trump’s executive order ushering in a steep 25 percent tariff on all goods and 10 percent tariff on energy products from Canada and Mexico—the country’s largest trade partners—effectively launched the nation into a trade war.

Trump’s executive order on the raised tariffs is set to take effect on Tuesday.

America’s two neighbors immediately announced retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an equal tariff hike on $20 billion in U.S. goods starting Tuesday, while Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce a “plan B” for trading with the American economy sometime Monday.

And Trump was forced to acknowledge that that will hurt. “We may have short term, some, a little pain, and people understand that, but, long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” he told reporters Sunday at Joint Base Andrews.

“We have deficits with almost every country, not every country, but almost,” he continued. “And we’re going to change it. It’s been unfair. That’s why we owe $36 trillion; we have deficits with everybody.”

Meanwhile, the leaders of U.S. banks seem perfectly happy with the increased expenses. Speaking with CNBC on Sunday, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon—whose net worth is assessed at $2.8 billion—described tariffs as an “economic weapon” and said that if the fallout of Trump’s plan is inflation, then Americans should “get over it.”

“They’re an economic weapon, depending on how you use it,” Dimon said. “I would put it in perspective; if it’s a little inflationary but it’s good for national security, so be it. Get over it.”

Dimon also argued that Trump’s tariff plan could be used to settle “unfair trade” with America’s allies.

But economic experts have always believed that Trump’s tariff plan would hurt the country. In a joint letter released before the election, nearly two dozen Nobel Prize–winning economists formally warned against Trump’s economic plan, arguing that the MAGA leader’s stiff tariff increases and tax cuts would spell disaster for the average American.

Economist Larry Summers reiterated that concern on Saturday after Trump announced the tariffs. “This is a ‘Stop or I’ll shoot myself in the foot’ threat. It defies economic logic,” Summers told CNN. “It means higher prices for consumers. It means more expensive inputs for American producers.”

Trump falsely claimed in December that Mexico and Canada’s trade deficits with the U.S. were “subsidies,” rather than indicators that America’s neighbors are purchasing more goods from the U.S. than they sell to it. In 2023, that differential—or deficit, as Trump insists—was nearly $41 billion with Canada and $162 billion with Mexico, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Trump also vastly overinflated the reality of the deficits, wrongly asserting that the U.S. is “subsidizing” its neighbors to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars each.

Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” deputies have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal information of millions of federal workers.

Reuters, citing two anonymous sources, reported Friday that senior career officials at the Office of Personnel Management, the governing agency for the federal workforce, have had their access to department data revoked. They lost access to the Enterprise Human Resources Integration database, which includes the dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades, and length of service of government workers.

“We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said to Reuters about DOGE’s activities. “That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications.”

There is good reason to be concerned. Musk’s other efforts led to the setup of a new email server in OPM offices tasked with sending mass emails to every single federal employee. The server has already resulted in a lawsuit over potential privacy and security issues and led to a flood of spam emails being sent to various federal workers on Thursday.

Musk has installed his own loyal underlings at OPM to slash the federal workforce and convince government employees to take early “buyout” offers, though the plan looks more like simply asking workers to quit. That offer was met with a backlash from civil servants, resulting in Musk and President Trump doubling down on their proposal.

It’s a clear attempt to sweep Trump’s adversaries out of the federal workforce. The president, through Musk, has already forced out a senior Treasury Department employee over access to key government payment systems, responsible for $6 trillion of money disbursement around the country. How successful will Musk and Trump’s purge of the federal government be?

On Friday, almost immediately after the Trump administration announced that tariffs against China, Mexico, and Canada will begin on Saturday, the stock market plunged.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters........

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