Trump's tariffs will cause inflation, trade wars and recession, said experts. In reality, tariffs had a tiny impact on inflation, resulted in favorable trade deals, and bring hundreds of billions of dollars . "It's the most amazing time to be alive as an American" @bungarsargon

For the last decade, experts across the political spectrum have argued that the proposals by Donald Trump to restrict migration, demand European allies pay more for their own defense, and hike tariffs on imports were racist and xenophobic. Hillary Clinton in 2016 described Trump’s supporters as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, [and] Islamophobic.” In February 2024, Kamala Harris said Trump’s criticisms of NATO were “dangerous [and] destabilizing” and in May of this year said Trump’s tariffs had created “the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.” Few high-profile Democrats are making such claims anymore. Congressional Democrats are criticizing the Trump administration’s deportations, but none are criticizing his closure of the southern border. Few Democrats criticized the June agreement won by Trump that European nations increase their spending on their military security to 5% of GDP. It’s not the case that Democrats have embraced the nationalist MAGA vision, notes author @bungarsargon . “Democrats can't figure out how to talk about immigration in a way Americans want to hear,” she said in a new podcast with Public. “They haven't figured it out yet. Most working-class people want no more immigration and much more access to healthcare. You say you think that they might be able to make it there, to accept that Trump was right about some things. I don't see any evidence of that.” But in other situations, Democrats are acting as though they were always in favor of the things Trump has done. “Trump will do something utterly revolutionary and then, rather than saying, ‘We were wrong, and he was right,’ and ‘We mocked him and laughed at him and now we're on our knees begging him for a favor because he was right,’ they act like it was the most obvious thing in the world. They do this on issue after issue, like immigration. Now, suddenly, Democrats are saying, ‘Obviously we have to get the criminals out….’ ‘Of course NATO should be paying 5%.’” And today, no high-profile Democrat has publicly criticized the trade deal Trump announced yesterday, whereby the US will increase the EU tariff rate tenfold, to 15%, while Europe will eliminate tariffs on US goods, which even anti-Trump publications like the Financial Times are calling a clear win for the president. As such, the media and Democrats have undermined their credibility. “Democrats and the liberal media hate Trump so much they’ve committed to this view that tariffs are bad and attacks on consumers,” said Ungar-Sargon. “Both of those are wrong. It's not a tax on consumers. With most of these products, the tariffs are not being passed on to consumers. They're either being eaten by the countries or by corporations, which — Hello! — Leftists are supposed to like. They are refusing to acknowledge that we are raising billions of dollars through these tariffs, which are being used directly to pay down our deficit. We were in a surplus as a government for the first time in decades last month.” The EU deal and the Japan deal before it are historic achievements that signal a new era, she says. “With Japan, we kept our 15% tariff on them and they don't have it on us. So we have reversed what was this unfair, utterly unjust anti-American status quo. They totally folded. We will still be raking in billions of dollars in tariffs off of Japan, but they have opened their markets to our cars, which is like an astonishing feat. It is a game changer in that it creates a symbiotic relationship that cuts China out of the picture and closes some of these potential back doors to China that we have through Mexico and Canada.” Why did Democrats and the media get Trump’s nationalist policies so wrong?... Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning reporting, read the rest of the article, and watch the full video!