The promise was simple: tariff the hell out of everybody, bring the jobs home, make America great again. The receipt is showing up on the kitchen table.
Trump’s tariff agenda just hit a new round. He wants 50% on Canadian vehicles starting January 1, 2027. Canada is retaliating with 50% on US steel and aluminum, plus new duties on carpets, washing machines, furniture, fridges, cutlery, plywood, and goddamn screws. The Budget Lab at Yale says this round alone costs about three bucks per US household. The whole trade war? About a thousand dollars per family. That’s not a theory. That’s the math on a working family’s month.
You know who is begging for an exemption? The National Association of Home Builders. They told Trump directly that his building-material tariffs are making the ‘ongoing housing affordability crisis’ worse. So the man who promised to fix housing is busy making the materials cost more. Lumber, steel, aluminum — every nail and beam now carries a surcharge to feed somebody’s tariff theater.
The Forest Products Association of Canada says 200,000 jobs on their side could shake loose. Cross-border manufacturers — the ones with US workers on one side of the line and Canadian workers on the other — are staring at shutdowns. The auto cushion that was eating the last round is ‘wearing thin,’ which is economist-speak for ‘working people are about to get fucked on used car prices.’
This is what ‘forgotten man’ rhetoric looks like when it lands. The forgotten man is now paying extra for plywood, the fridge, the washer, and the car he needs to get to the job that doesn’t pay enough to cover the house he can’t afford.
Take the flag pin off before you rob the family, you sanctimonious fuck. Patriotism is cheap when somebody else’s mortgage gets the surcharge.
Source story: Canada targets US household goods in new tariffs as 50% auto duties loom.