The constant caterwauling about tariffs is a perfect example of libertarians not understanding strategy, allow me to explain.

First, if the implementation of reciprocal tariffs results in other nations dropping their own tariffs, I'd call that a win for free trade. So maybe let Trump cook on this one.

Second, I'm going to let you in on a secret about the people who support the current system of taxation but oppose tariffs: they don't actually oppose tariffs in principle, in fact they buy into the myth of protectionism, they just don't want it. The reason I know this is because these same people support all the other nations that have tariffs ostensibly to protect their own industry. In other words, they are just trying to protect the service economy and welfare state. To hear them tell it, "our people don't work in factories, other people do" in a deliberate inversion of John D Rockefeller's "I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers," as well as a warped version of the colonialism they pretend to be against.

On a tangentially related note, have you ever come across a reasonably concise rebuttal to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States? Most of the misinformation about free markets failing and government controls working as advertised seem to come from there. Not only that, but ever since Javier Milei became president of Argentina, I have seen article after article from smug progressives saying that they feel so vindicated because Argentina has become a shithole, even though Argentinians themselves say that things have never been better. Never mind economic history, economic reality is being re-written in real time.