OPINION:
Just days after “Liberation Day,” in which President Trump announced tariffs on most of our trading partners, Communist China — which never saw a trade policy it didn’t violate — retaliated with its own 34% duty on imports from the U.S. This move ratcheted up the trade war between the world’s two most economically powerful countries.
Though the stock market took an unprecedented $6.4 trillion loss the day after China’s response, Trump responded defiantly in a Truth Social post, assuring jittery new investors that “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.”
Trump is telegraphing to both domestic investors and trading partners who have taken advantage of the U.S. for decades that he completely and emphatically believes what he’s doing is right for our country and its long-term interests. And he will stand strong and resolute in the face of a brutal storm of unrelenting short-term criticism.
As Trump wrote in the subchapter “Fight Back” in his brilliant 1987 autobiography, “The Art of the Deal,” “[M]y experience is that if you’re fighting for something you believe in — even if it means alienating some people along the way — things usually work out for the best in the end.”
It appears to the naked eye that Trump is betting the success of his second term (not to mention the economic fate of the country) on this key piece of life advice that has seemingly worked out well for him over the years.
It’s now truly sink-or-swim time for Trump’s ultimate legacy. And I bet he wouldn’t want it any other way.
LUANA DUNN
Medford, New York
