Given President Donald Trump’s professed following of the Village People, evinced by his campaign adopting Y.M.C.A at rallies in last year’s election, he may have had their song Liberation in mind when he dubbed last week’s announcement of global tariffs “Liberation Day”.

The Village People probably had other people’s liberation in mind rather than a billionaire real estate developer turned leader of the free world. But the people Trump claims to represent – the American poor thrown out of their jobs by the decline of manufacturing in the US – won’t be liberated; they are the people who will be hurt the most.

Credit: Illustration Rob Duong

As tariffs on imported goods drive up prices, inflation kills businesses and leads to unemployment, and the Federal Reserve increases interest rates, the economic and social wastelands that Trump says he will transform into boom towns will be the ones least capable of dealing with the losses.

For those who comforted themselves with the illusion that Trump was only making off-the-wall statements during the election to win, but would govern in an orthodox way as president, in the words of Donny Brasco: “Forget about it.” Trump means to govern this way for the next four years – at least. And if he........

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