The Pain is the Point

Image by David Todd McCartney on Unsplash

On April 2, the Trump administration imposed base and reciprocal tariffs on imports from nearly every country on earth at the highest rates in almost a century. Markets collapsed and have continued to freefall since.

Why would any presidential administration commit what appears to sensible outsiders as political suicide?

Donald Trump has long abhorred income taxes—he once said that not paying income taxes made him “smart”—while asserting that tariffs are “beautiful.” He fondly recalls the presidency of William McKinley, when there was no federal income tax and the government funded itself primarily through tariffs and customs duties. In the meantime, members of the administration preach patience, that we will see positive results by the end of the year.

Yet, it is hard to see how this could actually come to pass.

Critics of the policy have pointed out that the tariff rates imposed have nothing at all to do with other countries’ trade barriers and instead were calculated based on the size of trade deficits. Trade deficits do not necessarily reflect existing tariffs or trade restrictions; some arise simply from comparative economic advantages between countries. As a result, many of our trading partners will have a difficult time finding something they can offer to the US (if they even wish to do so) to negotiate for lower tariffs.

Others have noted that the tariffs are highly unlikely to result in factories and jobs returning to the US any time soon. It can take years to build a new factory. And many of the manufacturing jobs that are now overseas are low skill and low pay, not the kinds of jobs Americans want. Even if new factories are built, automation is likely to minimize the number of new jobs created. Moreover, a company will only invest in domestic production if it has confidence in the return on investment, and if it has access to the funds to make such investments. The chaos of the Trump administration is not conducive to making long-term investment decisions. And according to Citibank, the tariffs and anticipated counter-tariffs by other countries may entirely wipe out US corporate profit for the year. Businesses won’t have the discretionary funds to invest even if they thought doing so was prudent.

In the meantime, the rest of the world will likely join the trade war we have chosen, but only against the United States. They may elect to reduce trade barriers among themselves to counter the new barriers around America. We are effectively driving the rest of the world into each other’s arms, as we fade into the background.

There can be little doubt that in the near and medium term, at least, inflation will increase, economic activity will decrease, and the chance of a recession is enhanced. Over the long term, the future of international trade and American foreign relations is profoundly uncertain.

In ordinary circumstances, this seems like a recipe for the incumbent party’s political self-immolation. With all these risks, why did the administration go through with this plan?

The pain is the point.

Many of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 did so because they were frustrated. Frustrated at an economy that no longer ensured that the next generation was wealthier than the last. At the increasingly high cost of housing (and eggs). At a government that, at all levels, seems ineffectual, inefficient, and uncaring. At a system that seems rigged.

While it is fair to say that the Trump campaign did not promise anything that would address the frustrations of voters, it did run on a promise to break things, while the Democrats ran on a platform of staying the course. Sometimes, people want to see something broken just to see if it can be remade better. It provides an outlet for anger and frustration.

And that’s pretty much what this administration has done. One may easily criticize its actions, but no one can argue it hasn’t been extremely busy. And it isn’t just the tariffs: massive cuts in the governmental workforce, canceling grants for aid and assistance and science and research, the elimination of entire departments and programs and agencies; all of this will cause disruption and pain to those who relied on them.

To paraphrase the administration’s principal claim: the pain is necessary because of the disaster created by mismanagement by generations of Democrats; fixing everything that has been ruined isn’t easy, it’s hard; and all those who accept the challenge, who are willing to suffer for a better future, are part of a great program to restore America. Already, Fox News has portrayed the tariffs as the opening salvo in a war that all good Americans must sacrifice to support.

And so, the pain is the point. It gives Trump’s supporters something to hang onto. It proves they are suffering for a great cause. If there are setbacks—and there will be—those will be blamed on other countries, on the corrupt old order, on the media, on bad people (Democrats) who are betraying America. In that sense, alleviation of the pain—creating a better economy—would defeat the purpose.

Should things improve, voters could consider Trump’s term a success and vote him and his party out of office. But if things stay bad, then victory has not been achieved. The war must go on, and Trump and his successors and his party must be re-elected.

This may seen extremely cynical, and one may wonder if anyone in the Trump administration really has such a plan in mind.

Perhaps not, but it may not matter. Whether intentional or accidental, the outcome is the same.

One crisis after another provides fodder for the administration’s arguments: good Americans must always be at war, with the old order, with the Democrats, with the rest of the world; and so long as that is the case, Trump and the Republican Party must remain in power until the job is done.

The pain is the point.