Trump’s Trade War Will Not Make America ‘Great Again’
Published in La Prensa
(Nicaragua) on 15 April 2025
by Andrés Hernández Alende (link to original)
(Nicaragua) on 15 April 2025
by Andrés Hernández Alende (link to original)
Translated from
by Victoria Wallace.
Edited by Helaine Schweitzer.
President Donald Trump has paused the controversial hike in tariffs on a number of a countries, but he has raised tariffs on products imported from China to 125% at the same time.
Through the trade war he started, as well as other measures, such as granting U.S. residency to multimillionaires with the aim of increasing investment in the United States, Trump is trying to restore a version of America that is long gone.
In the 1990s, when globalization emerged as a result of fashionable neoliberalism, many U.S. companies — and others in developing nations — moved production to countries with much lower labor costs.
For example, many American factories moved to Mexico and countries in Central America and then to China and nations including Vietnam and Bangladesh, where production costs were even lower than those along the Río Grande. By creating a booming industrial economy, the U.S. became an economy based primarily on its finance and service sectors. Industrial activity stepped aside to make way for speculative business.
I witnessed this phenomenon myself. When I moved to Miami, the nearby city of Hialeah was a hub of factories that provided work to many of its residents — most of whom were of Cuban origin. These Hialeah factories became famous throughout the region and beyond, becoming so well-known by the local Spanish-speaking community that the traditional Spanish word for factory, "fábrica," was replaced by its English-inspired version, "factoría." Its workers were far from living a life of luxury, but they could at least pay rent on a place to live (in some cases, even buy a house or apartment in the industrial town), own a car and afford basic standards of living.
Today, not one of this legion of factories remains. Globalization moved them far beyond the border to Central America or to the other side of the Pacific, and now Hialeah depends on the service sector while it also serves as a base for freight transport, which has turned traffic in the city into a nightmare.
A similar phenomenon took place in other regions throughout the U.S., such as in the Rust Belt, a vast region to the south of the Great Lakes. A traditionally industrial area, it suffered a marked industrial decline at the turn of the century, as globalization shuttered factories.
Trump wants to make America “great again” by bringing back companies that left the country in search of lower production costs, and thus generate jobs. He wants to encourage foreign investment by granting permanent U.S. residency to those who buy a $5 million “gold card.” A card, incidentally, which bears an image of Trump, a nod to his narcissism.
Yet all this is nothing but wishful thinking. U.S. companies that moved production to China and the Global South don’t want to return to America, quite simply because they would face much higher costs in the U.S. with higher salaries for their employees. And those most affected by the tariff war that Trump is waging against the world will end up being American consumers themselves, who will suffer from higher prices in stores, supermarkets and car dealerships, among other businesses — a price hike that, for many, will be simply unaffordable.
Once he starts facing pressure from business interests who oppose his unorthodox commercial policy, Trump will probably end up conceding and refraining from enforcing tariffs, although his antagonistic nature means he’ll dangle them like a sword of Damocles above the heads of those who don’t align with U.S. interests — that is to say, the interests of the population’s wealthy 1%. Take, for example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who reprimanded the Spanish government for its position regarding commerce with China. Bessent told Spain it would be cutting its own throat, aggressive language reflecting his boss’ imperialistic arrogance toward the rest of the world.
But Trump will not achieve his dream of taking America back to some idyllic past because that reality never truly existed. He certainly will not achieve it through absurd commercial maneuvers or military threats, nor through cruel deportation orders on immigrants without documentation — some of whom may have just crossed the border, but others having lived years and even decades in the U.S., working and paying taxes. With his hostile attitude, Trump will not make America “great again” with his hostility. But he might make it more isolated than ever before.
The author is a writer and journalist based in Miami.
Through the trade war he started, as well as other measures, such as granting U.S. residency to multimillionaires with the aim of increasing investment in the United States, Trump is trying to restore a version of America that is long gone.
In the 1990s, when globalization emerged as a result of fashionable neoliberalism, many U.S. companies — and others in developing nations — moved production to countries with much lower labor costs.
For example, many American factories moved to Mexico and countries in Central America and then to China and nations including Vietnam and Bangladesh, where production costs were even lower than those along the Río Grande. By creating a booming industrial economy, the U.S. became an economy based primarily on its finance and service sectors. Industrial activity stepped aside to make way for speculative business.
I witnessed this phenomenon myself. When I moved to Miami, the nearby city of Hialeah was a hub of factories that provided work to many of its residents — most of whom were of Cuban origin. These Hialeah factories became famous throughout the region and beyond, becoming so well-known by the local Spanish-speaking community that the traditional Spanish word for factory, "fábrica," was replaced by its English-inspired version, "factoría." Its workers were far from living a life of luxury, but they could at least pay rent on a place to live (in some cases, even buy a house or apartment in the industrial town), own a car and afford basic standards of living.
Today, not one of this legion of factories remains. Globalization moved them far beyond the border to Central America or to the other side of the Pacific, and now Hialeah depends on the service sector while it also serves as a base for freight transport, which has turned traffic in the city into a nightmare.
A similar phenomenon took place in other regions throughout the U.S., such as in the Rust Belt, a vast region to the south of the Great Lakes. A traditionally industrial area, it suffered a marked industrial decline at the turn of the century, as globalization shuttered factories.
Trump wants to make America “great again” by bringing back companies that left the country in search of lower production costs, and thus generate jobs. He wants to encourage foreign investment by granting permanent U.S. residency to those who buy a $5 million “gold card.” A card, incidentally, which bears an image of Trump, a nod to his narcissism.
Yet all this is nothing but wishful thinking. U.S. companies that moved production to China and the Global South don’t want to return to America, quite simply because they would face much higher costs in the U.S. with higher salaries for their employees. And those most affected by the tariff war that Trump is waging against the world will end up being American consumers themselves, who will suffer from higher prices in stores, supermarkets and car dealerships, among other businesses — a price hike that, for many, will be simply unaffordable.
Once he starts facing pressure from business interests who oppose his unorthodox commercial policy, Trump will probably end up conceding and refraining from enforcing tariffs, although his antagonistic nature means he’ll dangle them like a sword of Damocles above the heads of those who don’t align with U.S. interests — that is to say, the interests of the population’s wealthy 1%. Take, for example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who reprimanded the Spanish government for its position regarding commerce with China. Bessent told Spain it would be cutting its own throat, aggressive language reflecting his boss’ imperialistic arrogance toward the rest of the world.
But Trump will not achieve his dream of taking America back to some idyllic past because that reality never truly existed. He certainly will not achieve it through absurd commercial maneuvers or military threats, nor through cruel deportation orders on immigrants without documentation — some of whom may have just crossed the border, but others having lived years and even decades in the U.S., working and paying taxes. With his hostile attitude, Trump will not make America “great again” with his hostility. But he might make it more isolated than ever before.
The author is a writer and journalist based in Miami.
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