Trump Imposes 100% Tariff on Televisions

Trump Imposes
100% Tariff on Televisions
Breaking News
Independent Mind News Service
Dateline: April 5, 2025. 9:30 AM PDT
Montecito, California

President Trump announced on Truth Social today that he is imposing a 100% tariff on imported televisions as of April 2. 

Acting on a campaign promise he said, “LIBERATION DAY IN AMERICA IS COMING, SOON. FOR YEARS WE HAVE BEEN RIPPED OFF BY VIRTUALLY EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, BOTH FRIEND AND FOE. BUT THOSE DAYS ARE OVER — AMERICA FIRST!!!” 

At a later press conference President Trump said, “Tariffs are a beautiful thing. We will be bringing some of the money back that has been taken from us. It will be liberation day because we will be taking in large amounts of money for our country, very large amounts like you’ve never seen, and bring lower taxes, and all other things that are good, and jobs, a lot of jobs, high paying manufacturing jobs. They have robbed American workers of high paying jobs. They’ve got to pay to do business in our beautiful country. I may give a lot of countries breaks. But I mean only if they give us some breaks that are nice for America. If they reciprocate with tariffs, I’ll fight back, maybe double the tariffs.”

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro stated at the press conference that saving domestic production of televisions is an issue of national importance. Mr. Navarro was asked if he was aware that the USA has no domestic manufacturers of televisions. He responded that, “See! Foreign competition has crushed American manufacturers who would like to be in that business. We’ve got to protect American entrepreneurs who want to create jobs and produce products that are good, made in America products.” 

The Trump Administration has said that tariffs are needed against foreign imports to protect domestic producers, address trade imbalances, and protect national interests. 

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This was a spoof. Apologies to those who thought it might be real. My purpose was to reveal the absurdity of President Trump’s tariff policies. Almost all of Trump’s quotes are real, slightly altered to fit my satire. The Navarro quotes were mostly made up. 

By the way, no televisions are made in the U.S. We don’t have the technology or industrial capacity, and foreign companies are very, very good at it. I wonder if the Trump Administration is aware that other countries can make some things more efficiently than we do and their comparative advantage and cost efficiency allows us to make things we are very good at. And that benefits everyone.

The Trump Administration’s justifications for imposing tariffs on imported goods are false and often outright lies.

1. Trade is not a process where one country is “ripping off” another country. First of all, “countries” do not engage in trade. Only individuals or companies do that. Any exchange between parties in a transaction foreign or domestic is seen by each party as a benefit – otherwise they wouldn’t do the deal. Who is ripping us off is Trump and his tariffs.

2. Manufacturing in the U.S. is at an all-time high. The U.S. is the second largest exporter of manufactured goods in the world (after China) by dollar value. Most of our exports are high-value, technical goods. Manufacturing employment has declined worldwide because of technology and capital investment which makes workers more efficient and makes us more competitive.

3. We are at full employment. Where are all those skilled factory workers going to come from? Auto tariffs won’t help anyone except the United Auto Workers. The rest of us are punished because tariffs are ultimately paid by consumers. It’s another tax. Things were working fine before Trump (see GDP) and now tariffs will make goods more expensive and us poorer. 

4. Service jobs have replaced manufacturing jobs. Perhaps you are just thinking about dish washers and ditch diggers, but you would be wrong. Service workers are doctors, lawyers, accountants, scientists, technicians, editors, authors, carpenters, caregivers, nurses, insurance clerks, financial advisers, nonprofit workers, coders, etc. They far outnumber factory workers and average wages are higher than factory work. As Steven Pinker says, “[M]any social critics have expressed nostalgia for the era of factories, mines, and mills, probably because they never worked in one.”

5. The “national defense” justification is something like Samuel Johnson’s “last refuge of a scoundrel” quote. “Gosh, if we don’t make cars, won’t that degrade our manufacturing base and harm national defense capabilities? Aren’t you patriots able to see that?” See No. 2, above. We still make autos and a lot of other things. This is absurd on its face. 

6. Trump’s tariffs will disrupt long established supply chains. We don’t know how far he will go, but once things are broken it may be hard to put them back together.

7. Uncertainty is spooking the financial markets and businesses. Fears of a recession are real.