President Trump is set to take the biggest gamble of his second term on Wednesday, when he will announce a fresh round of tariffs.

Trump has dubbed Wednesday “Liberation Day,” suggesting that it will mark a watershed in what he sees as an effort to push back on trade imbalances.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a media briefing on Tuesday that Trump views it as “fundamentally unfair” that “too many foreign countries have their markets closed to our exports.”

From Wednesday, she insisted, the days “of being ripped off are over.”

But are they?

Trump is playing for the highest stakes, and the downsides are at least as stark as the upsides.

Put simply, most economists believe that tariffs are inflationary by their nature. The tariffs imposed are not paid by the exporter, as Trump’s rhetoric sometimes suggests, but by the importer, who then typically passes the extra costs onto the consumer.

In addition, the sheer uncertainty around the tariffs is spooking the stock market. The broad-based S&P 500 has fallen roughly 7 percent since Trump’s term began while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite has declined by even more.

The stock market’s slide, coupled with worries about inflation, has affected consumer confidence, which has also dipped downward recently. Such a dip risks become a self-fulfilling prophecy,........

© The Hill