The U.S. financial markets have been swinging wildly this week in response to President Donald Trump’s various announcements about tariffs imposed on goods imported from around the world. Trump first announced the tariffs on April 2, what he called “Liberation Day,” but the exact terms—from the percentage imposed on each country to the rationale behind them—have literally been changing by the hour.
As it stands right now, almost every country’s goods are being slapped with at least a 10% tariff as they come into the U.S., with China getting a tariff on all goods that’s 145%. China’s tariff started at 34% and has changed roughly half a dozen times since last week. Canada and Mexico also have some goods that now have 25% tariffs attached. But that could all change in the blink of an eye, depending on our fascist president’s whims.
If nothing else, Trump’s inconsistency and incredibly ridiculous rationalizations have provided an opportunity for a laugh because these were some of the most amusing memes we’ve seen this week. [Editor’s Note: You’ll have to click some of these to get the joke.]
Congratulations, you made it to the end of this post. But who knows what may have happened in the relatively brief time you spent reading this. Has the U.S. imposed new tariffs on China? What about the tariffs on penguins near Antarctica? It’s even possible that Trump has declared war on some country, given his aggressive message against allies like Greenland, Denmark, Panama, Mexico, and Canada.
Nobody knows for certain what the future holds, even during the most stable of times. But Trump’s instability has created a world where nobody knows what to expect from one hour to the next. That could be by design. Or it could be because he’s a 78-year-old fascist who somehow got installed as the most powerful person in the world again.
Good luck, everybody. We’re all going to need it.
