What do you think is the real reason why Trump loves tariffs?
People who believe everything Donald Trump says think he really loves tariffs, as in, a policy to charge importers for doing any business outside the country. People who believe nothing Donald Trump says still believe he “loves tariffs” because he said so a bunch of times. Trump has said it before: he thinks tariffs are “the most beautiful word in the English language.” But isn’t that amazing? That even the most staunch “never-Trumpers” like the Bulwark still believe him when he says he loves tariffs. Am I truly the only one who doesn’t believe him entirely?
Perhaps he loves tariffs, but not because he loves tariffs. Maybe Trump loves tariffs because they’re more useful to him than you even realize. Maybe Trump loves tariffs because they’re more useful to him than anybody else (besides me, and a few of his closest friends) realizes. Even the global powers he’s negotiating with in this trade war don’t realize what he’s up to.
Trump’s Love Affair With Tariffs
Most people laughed when he said he loves tariffs. His opponents laughed because it sounds ridiculous. His supporters laugh because they find him hilarious. Some thought he was posturing. A few nodded along, seeing it as a flex of economic nationalism.
But here’s the truth:
That wasn’t a joke.
It wasn’t hyperbole.
It was a confession.
Because Trump’s obsession with tariffs has nothing to do with protecting American jobs or punishing China. It has everything to do with building a quiet pipeline – a pipeline of real, liquid U.S. dollars that flows through the Treasury and can be redirected, skimmed, and used without oversight. Tariffs are a red herring.
The Pipeline Beneath the Headlines
Trump’s tariff policy is fake. It’s a fraud. A scam. He’s lying. Trump doesn’t care if anyone rips off American workers – why would he?He also shows no interest in bringing manufacturing back onshore. It’s financial theater masking what may be the most sophisticated act of presidential self-dealing in American history. So, hats off to the President for that, if you can call it an achievement. But breaking it down is something that Democrats should be doing.
Unfortunately too few of them are literate enough to understand what’s happening. There are senior-level Democrats who are complicit in Trump’s schemes and have been for years, as well. So that’s a problem. But understanding how this is happening may be the first step on the path to recovery.
Slick Scotty Bessent Hides In Plain Sight
Scott Bessent, as Secretary of the Treasury, is the man standing right next to the valve on the monetary faucet of the federal government’s payment system.
Here’s what most Americans don’t realize:
Every imported good is taxed when it enters the country. That money is collected by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and routed into the U.S. General Fund, the central account for financing government operations.
In other words, tariffs are (more importantly for Trump’s purposes than the rest of our concerns) a funnel of cash flow. Whether the sale is profitable for the people involved or not is not the President’s concern anymore. Trump only cares, like Elon Musk did with Paypal, that they get a cut of the transaction. How much? No way to know, but probably some nominal fee like 1% or .1% depending. Maybe they get greedy some days and take more than they’re supposed to.
How many people have access to this fund? I don’t know. But that cash hits an account controlled by the Treasury. That puts it squarely in the purview of Scott Bessent.
So when they talk about raising or lowering tariffs – they’re not trying to balance the economy. They’re adjusting their own private stream of revenue. And more importantly, creating a narrative smokescreen so no one asks where that stream eventually goes. At this point, with all the concerns about Donald Trump’s unconstitutional conduct, people can only imagine him shorting the stock market.
Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t About Trade
In this system, it doesn’t matter to Trump whether China pays high tariffs or low ones.
- If the rates are high and trade shrinks, each transaction is worth more.
- If the rates are low and trade booms, the volume makes up the difference.
It’s not about winning or losing to Trump in the same way as it is to the American people. For this administration, it’s only about controlling the pool. The General Fund once filled, is a massive capital reservoir. And like any reservoir, it can be diverted. If the White House controls all the regulatory and compliance oversight – and chooses to look the other way or stay silent – it lets them keep getting away with it. That’s why in some sense, an impeachment inquiry is one of the only ways to actually force this issue to come to light.
Bessent’s Role Is Playing the Role of a Stiff
Scott Bessent is no fool. He understands liquidity, capital flow, and policy optics. But he’s not standing at the helm of the Treasury because he is a genius of monetary policy or financial instruments. He is there because he is a loyal sycophant to this President and he will keep secrets. Bessent knows how to look the other way while keeping his eye(s) on everything. For whatever reason, Trump knows that and trusts him with this.
Watch Bessent’s posture, though. View his body language. The way he holds himself upright and back. The way he tightens his neck and avoids direct angles. He looks like a man sitting on top of something he doesn’t want anyone else to see. He knows this:
The General Fund is no longer just a public account. Under Trump, it has become a private asset.
And tariffs are a mechanism which will fill it up with or without this trade war. So why did they do things in a chaotic way attacking our allies in this way? They need distractions around this operation so people are directed towards the administration’s preferred narratives which have nothing to do with robbing the American people blind.
Yet, that’s exactly what they’re doing: robbing the American people blind.
Musk, DOGE, and the Misdirection of Fear
When Elon Musk and his DOGE team got access to the Treasury systems, they were involved in exfiltrating data for purposes unknown. This was also probably the time where Secretary Bessent was asserting his control over the situation to enable Trump to do whatever he needed to do. Rather than have Elon in control of that, in a potential power grab. At the end of the day they all got in line, and here’s the misdirection:
The public was worried about their data.
They should have been watching the money.
There is no asset more powerful than the U.S. government’s liquid capital. No data breach, no identity theft, no blockchain scheme can match the scale of damage – or control – that can come from access to a national financial infrastructure.
And while people feared their private info was being harvested, the real harvest was happening inside the General Fund.
That’s the coup. Not digital. Not military.
Monetary.
Operational.
Ongoing.
All the other fear tactics are important for whatever they see coming next, however, if they never get their hands fully around this monetary and financial scheme, they will fail in their ultimate aims which will be clearly devastating for the entire planet. At this point the Trump administration is operating like a rogue state within the seat of power in the American federal government. While their actions have been called a coup by some, it’s “like a coup nobody’s ever seen before” in true Trump fashion. That means everybody is filled with indignation about January 6th so they can’t fathom how a takeover by Trump would look. This is it.
The Coup Nobody Can See
You expect coups to look like it did on January 6th which did not yield Trump the White House. So either that was a different kind of coup or it was something else entirely. But Trump has been planning with his closest allies, this robbery. Tariffs, framed as good or bad policy, are being used in a money pump – feeding capital into a shadow Treasury system enabled by complicity at the highest level.
That is one of the only rational explanations for some of these mysteriously record setting green days on the stock exchange. Despite retail investors losing their money or being scared and out of control. Despite the hedge funds running from America like the plague restarted here. Somehow or another hundreds of billions of dollars or even trillions of dollars worth of value floods back into the stock market? Seems unlikely. So while the media debates whether tariffs are “effective” and economists argue over trade deficits, nobody asks: What happens to the money?
That’s the magic trick.
Trump doesn’t need to hide the truth.
They just need you arguing about the wrong part of it.
The real reason why Trump really loves tariffs?
Tariffs are about access. They’re about control. They’re about building a multi-billion-dollar capital valve in plain sight, and surrounding it with people too scared – or too invested – to shut it off. Filling the public sector with more noise than they can handle. Like a screaming, screeching alarm that won’t stop ringing.
It’s time to break up Trump and his grip on power.
Divorce him from the Oval Office.
