‘Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs. Foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories. And foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American dream.’
These are the words US President Donald Trump said to millions yesterday while unveiling his wide-ranging tariffs package on nations across the world.
He went on to claim other countries had ‘taken so much of our wealth away from us’, and that America is ‘standing up for our great farmers and ranchers who are brutalised by nations all over the world’.
His rambling remarks went on for 50 minutes as he explained the new ‘reciprocal tariffs’ against more than a dozen nations, which experts worry could cripple world trade.
But Trump’s choice of language also signifies a dangerous change in the American mindset, an expert told Metro.
Historian and propaganda analyst Ian Garner said: ‘It is completely detached from reality. It is built on a grievance complex – a sense of victimisation that “the world is out to get America”‘.
He added Trump appears to believe that by conjuring up an ‘imagined world’ in which America is under the heel of ‘shadowy foreign powers’, it portrays the view to Americans that things will get better after his tariff announcement.
‘Trump’s language seems to be getting markedly more extreme in this sense’, Garner adds. ‘He’s talking about brutalization, cheaters, about scavengers.
‘This is the kind of material that you would have found in the 1930s in a totalitarian newspaper in Europe. He’s saying the world is somehow irredeemably bad and will stop nothing to attack the country of the democratic.’
The way Trump is structuring the relationship of Americans with the world around them is creating a very dangerous kind of reality – one where things can ‘only get worse’, Garner said.
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One of the main focuses of Trump’s speech was America being ‘ripped off’ for ‘too long’ by other nations.
Trump said: ‘For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.’
This rhetoric, and other statements in his speech, signifies a ‘classic authoritarian turn’, Garner explained.
‘Countries can get trapped in this catch-22 situation where the ruling party introduces damaging policies in response to what they claim are the bad intentions of outsiders,’ he said.
‘Then when the policies fail, they use the failure to justify further policies going in the same direction or equally damaging directions.’
So what effect will the new tariffs have on America? It’s too early to say – but economics experts have said prices will rise for US citizens, and those abroad.
Thomas Sampson, Associate Professor in Economics at the London School of Economics, told Metro: This is clearly a negative economic shock for the global economy. It’s likely to reduce growth in many if not all countries.
‘I don’t know whether this slowing down will trigger a recession, but growth will be lower than it otherwise would have been.
‘It will reduce demand for UK exports and it will reduce the supply of exports coming from other countries.’
What other countries have been given tariffs?
Brazil, Singapore, Chile, Australia, Turkey, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Trinidad and Tobago and Morroco have all been slapped with 10% tariffs.
Others got it worse. Now facing 54% tariffs on exports to the US, the world’s number two economy China vowed countermeasures, as did the European Union.
Both allies and foes united in criticism of measures they believe will deal a devastating blow to global trade.
‘The consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe,’ EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement, adding the 27-member bloc was preparing to hit back if talks with Washington failed.
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