Thursday, April 2, 2026

One year ago, President Donald Trump ushered in a revolution from the Rose Garden. On April 2, he proclaimed the arrival of “Liberation Day” and described a nation plundered by foreign trade that could only reclaim its riches through double-digit tariffs imposed on almost every country on Earth.

“This will be, indeed, the golden age of America,” Trump said in pushing for the rebirth of American industry. “It's coming back.”

Investors shared neither his confidence nor optimism. Financial markets plunged. A Treasury bond sell-off led to a spike in yields that compelled Trump to pause the reciprocal tariffs for three months.

In the end, the Supreme Court nixed them, in a case that upheld limits on the executive branch’s ability to unilaterally apply tariffs on foreign governments. The scorecard is in and the results, with some exceptions, aren’t encouraging: Inflation has risen while the U.S. manufacturing sector has shed jobs for 10 months in a row.

“The evidence shows the tariffs were not reciprocal, did not generate the promised investment boom, raised less revenue than projected, and contributed to higher prices,” economists Erica York and Emily Kraschel wrote in a blog post for the right-leaning Tax Foundation.

The U.S. economy didn’t spiral into a recession from the tariffs last year, as many economists initially feared. Uncertainty, though, is still coursing through most sectors of the economy still unnerved about tariffs making a comeback and now a war in the Middle East dragging into its second month.

Small businesses still report grappling with tariffs that slashed their revenue margins and in some cases led to flatlining growth.

"Some of our tariffs are still 90%,” Matt Cagle, owner of an outdoor equipment company in North Carolina, said on a recent call organized by We Pay the Tariffs, an advocacy group. “This was the first year since I started my company in 2006 that we didn't grow. We were on a really sharp growth trajectory, and then all of a sudden, we're flat.”

Employment growth is crawling along as well. The hiring rate in February fell to 3.1%, according to the latest JOLTS report released Tuesday. It matches the lowest level set at the onset of the pandemic in April 2020.

Anxiety about a downturn is flaring again in the wake of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which has caused a spike in oil prices and a slide in financial markets. Average gas prices crossed the $4 per gallon threshold this week for the first time since August 2022, fueling concerns of fresh restraint in consumer spending.

Like oil prices, the stock market has been on a wild ride. The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly entered correction territory last week, when it was 10% lower than its previous high set in February. In recent days, the Dow clawed back some of its losses as investors clung to hope that the conflict with Iran would end soon.

Nicholas Mulder, a professor of history at Cornell University, cracked a joke that perhaps summed it up best: “If you feel overwhelmed this week, just take a moment to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Liberation Day, an easy and relaxed global economic shock by comparison.”

After the Supreme Court knocked down his tariffs, Trump vowed to rebuild a similar regime under parallel legal authorities. Administration officials are still drawing up those tariffs through a barrage of time-consuming national security investigations. A universal 10% tariff is in place for now, though it has a limited shelf life of six months. Beyond that, Congress must approve it.

Foreign governments are putting new plans in motion to crack open new markets for their products. In May, a new free trade agreement between the European Union and four South American nations that make up the “Mercosur” will kick in, accounting for a quarter of global GDP.

The global commerce landscape is gradually shifting in acknowledging a new reality: The U.S. isn’t a reliable trading partner, at least for the time being. If 2025 was meant to be a year of liberation, 2026 is the year of apprehension.

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig

A Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of oil docked in Matanzas, Cuba earlier this week. It was the first major energy shipment to reach the island since Trump enacted an oil embargo in January as part of another regime change campaign.