Who are Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs really liberating? Thousands of manufacturers have suffered heavy losses, with many on the verge of shutting down. A North Carolina man who voted for Trump and had to shut down his family lumber mill is left asking the same question.
The Senate has been split over the “Liberation Day” tariffs, with the opposition strongly opposing them. Many GOP senators are siding with Democrats to remove the tariffs.
Donald Trump announces what he calls “Liberation Day.”
For him that means a 25% tariff on all imported autos, including from Canada.
This will hurt American workers. Trump doesn’t see that. pic.twitter.com/K2etnzqTrB
— Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) March 27, 2025
“Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive,” Mitch McConnell stated. He noted how every time in history that a trade war has been started, economic harm has come hand in hand.
While other GOP members, including Mike Crap, have backed the President in his move to impose hefty tariffs. “At this juncture, this resolution is counterproductive to helping American families and businesses of all sizes,” the Senator was heard saying.
Wilson Jones was a proud owner of the Mackeys Ferry Sawmill, which was a family lumber business located in North Carolina. The disheartened businessman spoke to Bloomberg to share the struggles that followed after the President’s plan to impose aggressive tariffs.
Jones began narrating his story while noting how he had been in the lumber business for as long as he could remember. “And to hear nature at a sawmill, I think, for any lumberman, is not natural,” he added in reference to his family lumber now being forced to shut down.
He noted how shutting the mill was similar to seeing a loved one take their final breath. “When I say Liberation Day, I cannot put enough snark and sarcasm in my voice because we weren’t liberated,” he pointed out. Wilson shared how the Liberation Day “damn near liberated me from our business.”
The tariffs seem to have caused more harm to American manufacturers than profit. Manufacturing employment has gone down by 42,000. The job openings and hires have fallen by 76,000 and 18,000, respectively, as well.
Wilson attested to the drastic effect the tariffs have had on American communities. “If you put all these little communities together from Maine over to Michigan, down to Mississippi and Alabama, it’s having the same effect on these small little communities,” he added.
The effect that the American manufacturing sector has seen since April is a stark contrast to what the President had promised. Trump had promised self-sufficiency, reindustrialization, and that the industry would be ‘roaring’ once his tariffs took effect.
In 2024, Trump said about tariffs:
It is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”
Today, ‘Liberation Day’ – tariffs begin.
Canada, China, and the EU are preparing devastating 25% counter-strikes.
Here’s what the next 12 months look like for America, and your wallet:🧵 pic.twitter.com/W4KEA4Pztu
— Kosha Gada (@KoshaGada) April 3, 2025
“Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already,’ the 79-year-old was heard declaring with conviction on “Liberation Day.”
He had also promised the people an outcome that would end in his administration being able to “supercharge” the “domestic industrial base.” The brutal reality of what Wilson Jones’ family and thousands of others have had to endure doesn’t align with the bright future that Trump promised the people.
