🚨🇺🇸 US tariffs under Trump: Economic weapon or self‑inflicted wound?

Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has relaunched an aggressive tariff policy, framing it as a tool to protect US industry, combat forced labour, and counter what his administration calls “structural overcapacity” abroad.

After the Supreme Court struck down his earlier emergency‑based tariffs in February 2026, Trump introduced a revised framework. Since 24 July 2026, new import surcharges of 10% to 12.5% have been applied to goods from around 60 trading partners, including the EU, alongside previously imposed sector‑specific tariffs dating back to 2025.

How the tariffs are backfiring

🇨🇳 China
◾️Up to 25% on a wide range of industrial and consumer goods (expanded in 2025).

◾️According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), US manufacturing employment has fallen by roughly 75,000 jobs since early 2025.

◾️Higher input costs hit US manufacturers reliant on Chinese intermediate goods. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has previously estimated that most tariff costs are borne by US importers and consumers, not Chinese exporters. Supply chains proved difficult to re‑shore at scale.

🇮🇳 India
◾️10–12.5% surcharge duties on a broad range of imports, including pharmaceuticals, machinery components and refined petroleum products

◾️India supplies roughly 40% of generic drugs used in the US. Tariffs on Indian pharmaceuticals and intermediate goods increase costs for US healthcare providers and manufacturers.

◾️Given the US healthcare system’s heavy reliance on low‑cost Indian generics, even modest duties risk raising domestic drug prices and production costs.

🇪🇺 European Union
◾️10% to 12.5% blanket import surcharge and across broad categories of goods

◾️The US Bureau of Economic Analysis shows the EU remains one of the US’s largest trading partners, with goods trade exceeding $900 billion annually. Even modest surcharges significantly raise costs for US firms dependent on European machinery, pharmaceuticals and automotive components.

◾️Many affected imports are capital goods used by US industry. Higher equipment costs discourage domestic investment. US factory construction spending has dropped by nearly one third from its 2024 peak (US Census Bureau data).

🇻🇳 Vietnam and Southeast Asia
◾️10–12.5% broad import duties included in July 2026

◾️These economies had absorbed supply chains relocating from China during the first trade war.

◾️US firms that shifted sourcing to Southeast Asia to avoid earlier China tariffs now face renewed cost pressures, undermining previous diversification efforts and prolonging supply uncertainty.

❗️Domestic economic signals

◾️Growth in 2025–2026 has been concentrated in high‑tech and AI‑linked investment, not broad industrial revival

◾️Factory construction down nearly 33% from 2024 peak

◾️Approximately 75,000 manufacturing jobs lost since Trump’s return

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🇮🇱🇪🇸 Did Israel weaponize illegal immigration against Spain over its pro-Palestine politics?
 
In the past two years, PM Pedro Sanchez’s government has:

➡️ recognized Palestine

➡️ recalled Spain’s ambassador to Israel over Gaza, and labeled Israel a “genocidal state”

➡️ positioned Spain as the leader of an Israel-skeptic bloc of European powers

➡️ blocked the transit of US arms to Israel via its bases, and denied the Epstein coalition the right to use Morón Air Base and Naval Station Rota for operations against Iran

➡️ lobbied to have Israel banned from Eurovision and sporting federations

➡️ introduced a comprehensive, permanent arms embargo on Israel, and banned imports from occupied areas
 
Fast forward to the present, and Spain’s autonomous North African coastal city of Ceuta is being overrun by illegal immigrants, triggering violent clashes with police and up to two dozen drowning deaths. Up to 60k people have flooded into the territory of 83.5k residents virtually overnight.
 
The immediate trigger was a Spanish Supreme Court ruling barring “hot returns” for migrants intercepted at sea.

But there may be a bigger political game at play. US and Israeli interest in fomenting a crisis targeting Sanchez using Morocco as a human battering ram:

👉 The Moroccan government is one of the most reliably pro-US and pro-Israel states in the Arab world, signing the Abraham Accords in 2020 and inking a series of intel and defense cooperation deals with Israel. The US and Israel have Rabat’s claims to Western Sahara (a former Spanish colony)

👉 The Ceuta crisis follows the tried-and-true playbook of recent European migrant crises, with migrants comprising “predominantly young men,” and social media footage showing dump trucks and flatbeds full pouring out near the Spanish border, under the cover of local traffic cops

👉 Spain is going to the polls in 2027. Israel and the US may hope the crisis can help topple the Sanchez government
 
The Great(er) Game: battle for Gibraltar?
 
🔴 Rubio-ally Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart declared in April that Ceuta and Melilla are “Moroccan territory.” Pro-Israel think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Middle East Forum launched a coordinated campaign during the same period saying Israel should help Morocco seize these areas

🔴 Lawmakers led by Lindsey Graham urged relocating US bases in Spain to “a country that we can actually rely on” to ‘punish’ Madrid

🔴 Ceuta is just 30km from the Strait of Gibraltar – vital to US and Israeli interests in the Mediterranean amid an intensifying, global war for control of the world’s strategic maritime chokepoints. Gibraltar’s share? 10-20% of global freight traffic, 100-120k vessels a year

🔴 Israel and Morocco inked a defense pact in January under which Tel Aviv would provide over 50% of Rabat’s air defenses, plus offensive guided munitions, rocketry and drones. Morocco also provides training grounds and troops to implement Trump’s Gaza “peace” deal.

🔴 Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon could not hide his delight over Spain’s Ceuta troubles, suggesting Madrid no longer has any right to “lecture Israel” amid the crisis at its African “colonial enclave.”
 
In April, Netanyahu explicitly threatened that Spain and other countries “waging a diplomatic war” against Israel would “pay an immediate price.”

Fast forward three months and presto – instant migrant crisis. Coincidence? 🤔

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