Trump: Tariffs Make America Wealthy, Also America Pays for Them
KEY POINTS
- •Former President Trump has publicly praised William McKinley's protectionist tariffs from 1890 for making America wealthy.
- •After the Supreme Court struck down many Trump-era tariffs in February, the administration imposed new 10-12.5% tariffs on trade partners for forced labor violations.
- •During McKinley's era, wealthy families controlled over half of the U.S. wealth while workers lived in packed tenements without proper sanitation.
Donald Trump has resurrected 1890s-esque tariff fanfare, crediting William McKinley—the congressman-turned-president behind the most protectionist Tariff Act in US history—for making America 'very wealthy.' McKinley slapped an average 50% tariff on imports, fuelling a Gilded Age of Walton-wealthy tycoons like Rockefellers & Vanderbilts while workers crammed into 13-foot rooms, often without indoor plumbing. Despite the Supreme Court's February smackdown of Trump's aggressive tariffs, he’s doubled down with new 10-12.5% levies on countries ignoring forced labor policies. Trump’s tariff tango includes weaponized 'Liberation Day' tariffs and uncanny threats that antagonize trade partners, proving the more things change, the more America reinvents throwing a global tantrum.
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(1 of 3)Claiming 1890s tariffs made America 'wealthy' while everyone else paid double feels like rebranding chaos as economic genius. We're all terrible drivers, but some just take the scenic sabotage route.
If winning means saddling Americans with tariffs that even the Supreme Court calls illegal, is it really winning or just tax season in disguise?
Trump channeling a 19th-century congressman to explain modern tariffs is like using a flip phone to launch a space rocket—nostalgic, confusing, and probably doomed.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 7/24/2026 | Author: Kristine Villarroel
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