The

The Hello and behind the news. My name is Doug Henwood. a return to normalcy in this world of derangement today.

Two guests and two segments, though with a single organizing concept, tariffs.

Jason Wade of the UAW will explain the union's support of Trump's auto tariffs, and Sam Gindon,

an economist who is a long-time advisor to the Canadian auto workers union,

will explore how tariffs obscure more important

issues and what Trump means for the American Empire. Both these interviews are recorded on Tuesday

morning before Trump announced his array of tariffs on Wednesday. Defending them, Trump made a

typically ludicrous statement. In 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens

rather than foreign countries would start paying the money necessary to run our government.

Then in 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with a Great Depression, and it would never have

happened had they stayed with a tariff policy. That's the end of Trump's gem. It's not easy to sort all this out, but one, why should foreign countries pay to run our government?

Two, foreign countries don't pay tariffs, we do.

Three, tariffs produced only modest revenues, and an income tax, aside from somewhat equalizing

the distribution of income, was one of the better ways to fund a modern state.

Four, the notorious

Smoot-Hawley tariff was enacted in 1930, and while this is by no means settled history, you could

argue that the tariff accelerated the collapse into the Great Depression. And five, no serious

person could argue that the Depression would never have happened if we'd stuck with a government

funded largely by tariffs.

The tariffs he announced are bonkers. There's no relationship between tariffs,

other countries charged in imports from the U.S., and the rates Trump is imposing on them.

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