Do we feel newly liberated this week? I suppose that might be true if we felt somehow confined prior to April 2. Before New York U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik introduces legislation designating April 2 a national holiday, we should probably wait to see what Liberation Day brings us. President Donald Trump promises tariffs will make America wealthy again. Of course, the United States is as wealthy today as it’s ever been. Our challenge seems to be how we apportion this vast wealth. When the top 1% owns as much as the bottom 50%, you don’t have to be a Marxist to suspect the dollar distribution would benefit from a little tinkering. The $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage won’t lift a worker, much less his or her family, out of poverty.

As the financial writer James Surowiecki points out, the self-proclaimed “very stable genius” residing in the White House appears to have difficulty mastering simple math. He explains, “They didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers as they say they did.” Rather, it turns out, they took the amount of our trade deficit with a particular country and divided it by the value of that nation’s exports to us. This generates a number with absolutely no relationship to the exports we are selling to them. “What extraordinary nonsense this is,” Surowiecki notes. Viet Nam, by way of example, is shown as imposing an average 90% tariff on American imports, when its large trade deficit rises from an effort to move American manufacturing from China to competing Asian economies.

They also omitted the purchase of American services (software, legal, accounting, etc.) where our firms tend to dominate in world markets. With more than a hundred trading relationships, the administration’s take-it-or-leave-it, “eat your spinach” approach defies common sense. Dispensing with diplomacy when  dealing with the s***hole countries whose immigrants the president so utterly disdains is bad enough, but what about our neighbors and allies? Don’t they deserve a quiet conversation concerning the possible rebalancing of trade relations wherever needed? Accusing Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea and other allies of maliciously “ripping us off” serves no positive purpose. They have, I’m sure, grievances of their own that will only be aggravated by a trade war initiated by a larger, wealthier and suddenly untrustworthy partner. It didn’t take long for China to negotiate a free trade agreement with Japan and South Korea.

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Farmers and ranchers, who will be hurt badly as tit-for-tat tariffs explode, deserve little sympathy. Yes, their economic welfare is often ignored by urban (usually Democratic) majorities. As David Frum explains in a recent Atlantic article examining their growing appeals for special treatment, “Farm costs will rise. Farm incomes will drop… farmers will pay more for fertilizer… equipment and fuel.” They should not, however expect taxpayer subsidies. President Trump won 77.7% of the vote in our 444 most agriculturally dependent counties. They also received windfall profits from a congressional bailout following Trump’s first-term tariffs and they enjoy federal crop insurance against depressed commodity prices, which seem nearly certain as unsold American surpluses rot.

Frum argues further, “If a farm family voted for Trump, believing his policies were good, it seems strange they would then demand they, and only they, should be spared the full consequences of those policies. During the 2024 election campaign, Americans were told, in effect, no sacrifice was too great to revive the domestic, U.S. toaster-manufacturing industry. If that claim is true, then farmers should be proud to pay more and receive less, making the same sacrifices as any other American.” Naturally, I suspect farmers see this differently, yet elections matter. President Trump never hid his enthusiasm for tariffs. He promises a bonanza for workers in three or four years as businesses return manufacturing capacity to the American heartland. Alternatively, we may well experience painful economic stagflation.

I’ve been puzzled for nearly a decade so many voters have been bamboozled by this ignorant, grifting, pathological liar now serving a second term as president. I find myself embarrassed on a nearly daily basis. Watching young Venezuelan men, admitted to this country on a priority basis after they were encouraged to flee a corrupt dictatorship, shackled and frog marched into a prison in El Salvador strikes me as disgracefully un-American. Certainly, any who ignored our laws should return to their countries of origin — active gang members included. But, when ICE admits someone was shipped to that prison in error and claims they have have no way to recover or return him, I’m ashamed. When is Liberation Day likely to arrive for this father and his family?

Does a national crypto currency reserve at the Department of Treasury sound like a sound idea? Hardly. Ripping the guts from our public health care institutions, cancelling scientific research grants at our universities and dismissing climate change as a waste of taxpayer dollars places our future in jeopardy. And, what of the tens of thousands of federal employees who have been summarily dismissed? Are we really meant to believe they were all barnacles clinging uselessly to the ship of state? National Park Rangers? Wildland firefighters? Food inspectors? There is more to ensuring public safety than simply maintaining a powerful and competent military. Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned out 35,000 people for their “fighting oligarchy” tour in Denver’s Civic Center a few weeks ago. The future they envision: a debt-free college education for anyone who wants one, an affordable home for every family and wages that will sustain parents raising a family and provide a dignified retirement. That sounds like a Liberation Day worth waiting for.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.