Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts are about tax cuts to benefit the GOP’s wealthy oligarchs

The new Gilded Age is here

Donald Trump wants you to believe that his 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico—and 10% on goods from China-- are somehow connected to stopping “illegal immigration” and fentanyl from coming into the country or creating more U.S. jobs. None of that is true--as even the Wall Street Journal detailed in their editorial Sunday titled, “The Dumbest Trade War Fallout Begins.”

Same goes for Elon Musk’s vow to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget because he is all about “efficiency.” That, too, is a lie.

The reality is Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts are about one thing: The rest of us paying for Trump’s promised tax cut to the wealthy oligarchs who bankrolled his 2024 campaign. Period.

Even Trump’s one month pause on tariffs on Mexico announced Monday morning was in response to the stock market dropping more than 600 points and Trump’s wealthy Wall Street backers including even Fox News Business anchors expressing concerns the tariffs could hurt Wall Street. (The promise of Mexico today to send 10,000 troops to border to make Trump happy is less than the 15,000 the country sent in 2019 to calm Trump down—meaning this is a charade.)

The reality is that the people who will bear the brunt of Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts are you and I. Trump even admitted this Sunday declaring smugly, "We may have short term, some, a little pain. And people understand that." But we all know the pain won’t be felt by the wealthy oligarchs who funded Trump like Musk, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Miriam Adelson, Timothy Mellon and others.

As prices for goods from Mexico, China and Canada spike ranging from groceries to electronics to liquor to energy and more, we will feel the pain—especially as the economy likely begins to slow down. The WSJ’s editorial board—far from a liberal publication—made that point, writing about the tariffs, “Trump wants American workers and employers to take one for the team. Hope you don’t lose your job or business before the golden age arrives.”

And now the unelected Musk has gained control over the weekend to sensitive US Treasury data including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. This has raised alarm bells from people like Sen. Liz Warren who wants to know why Musk had access to the system that “ensures tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits.” If Musk seeks to cut the budget by saying you don’t get your federal money for any made-up reason, then you are forced to hire an attorney at your own cost to argue that you do.

All of this is to fulfill Trump’s repeated pledge during the 2024 campaign to cut taxes--which we know will primarily help the wealthy just like his 2017 tax cut did. But to extend these tax cuts, Trump needs to at least be able to say he has raised other revenue and that he is cutting spending in other places. Hence, Trump’s tariffs and Musk’s cuts give the GOP cover in Congress to support cutting taxes for their oligarchs.

And Trump is now saying he wants to end all income tax and instead rely only on tariffs. Just two weeks ago at a Jan. 25 event Trump declared, "We're going back to the old days. No income tax, just tariffs,” he added, “Tariffs will fund everything we need and more."

When Trump says we are going back to the “old days” on tariffs he means the time of William McKinley—a Republican who Trump loves to cite—and the massive tariffs he championed in 1890 as a member of Congress. At the time, Republicans told Americans that these tariffs won’t raise prices and instead it will be foreign nations paying the fee.

That was a lie. As the NY Times reported back in 1890, “The Republican campaign orators and pamphleteers” promised “that the various import duties levied by Congress are paid by the foreigners who send goods to America.” But as the Times noted, with the tariffs now in place, “Let the facts, which are multiplying every day, tell who it is that pays the onerous tariff taxes. They will answer that the American people pay these taxes and that the burden of them rests most heavily upon the poor, in as much as there are very few of the necessities of life the prices of which are not increasing on account of the McKinley tariff.”

Yep, it was the working-class Americans who bore the brunt of the GOP’s tariffs. This cost the GOP politically as they got crushed in the 1890 midterm election—with even McKinley losing his seat in Congress. (This raises concerns that Trump will attempt to prevent the 2026 election.)

An all tariff funded federal government as Trump now seeks harkens back to before the federal income tax was established in 1913, when tariffs accounted for at times 90% of federal revenue. But this isn’t the 1890’s U.S. economy and last year tariffs only provided us $80 billion in revenue.

The only way to fund our massive military budget alone--that will exceed $850 billion in 2025--would require massive tariffs and massive budget cuts. Don’t be surprised when Musk calls for slashing government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more. Ending these programs has been a long-held dream of the GOP—just like overturning Roe v. Wade.

To Trump defenders who claim that the tariffs will somehow spark job creation in America, the facts destroy that lie. As NBC News reported, a study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Zurich, Harvard and the World Bank concluded that Trump’s first term tariffs “neither raised nor lowered U.S. employment’.” For example, despite Trump’s 2018 taxes on imported steel, the number of jobs at U.S. steel plants remained right around 140,000.

And as the WSJ Journal wrote Sunday, these tariffs will likely cause an economic slowdown. The WSJ noted that Jay Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement that “a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico threatens to upend the very supply chains that have made U.S. manufacturing more competitive globally.”

Yep, Trump’s tariffs will hurt job creation. But Trump and Musk don’t care. Trump’s only focus is repaying his wealthy oligarchs who bankrolled his 2024 campaign. Why would Trump be so focused on giving a large tax break to his wealthy donors if he can’t run again in 2028?! That question answers itself.

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