Trump has the world on edge as he mulls fateful tariffs decades in the making

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/01/politics/trump-tariffs-liberation-day-oval-office/index.html

He’s got the world hanging on his every word — and that’s how he loves it.

President Donald Trump held court in the Oval Office on Monday evening, ratcheting up suspense over his promised tariff war “Liberation Day” on April 2 and riffing on his 19th-century worldview that threatens to rock the 21st-century economy.

Many of the president’s allies on Capitol Hill still hope he’s bluffing — employing the familiar argument that he’s a great dealmaker who stakes out the most extreme position to extract concessions from adversaries.

But there’s a growing sense of hubris surrounding Trump and his team, some of whom falsely argue that tariffs represent a tax cut rather than a tax hike for consumers. Things rarely end well when presidents seem determined to prove their critics wrong, at any cost, in the face of inconvenient truths.

The White House is showing no signs of doubt ahead of a decision that could be fateful for Trump’s second term and the retirement savings of millions of Americans already hit by market sell-offs.