Six months have passed since the arrival of 'Liberation Day,' a title so dripping with unearned cinematic gravitas it could only have been birthed in the spray-tanned fever dreams of a man who views the global economy as a high-stakes game of Monopoly played with other people’s inheritance. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that the world was ending. The neoliberal clergy at the IMF and the various Ivy League cathedrals of 'The Science' of Economics wailed that Donald Trump’s tariffs would be the asteroid that finally extinguished the dim-witted dinosaurs of global trade. Conversely, the populist mouth-breathers promised a manufacturing renaissance where every rust-belt garage would suddenly start churning out high-end microchips instead of meth.

Both sides, as is their evolutionary mandate, were spectacularly wrong. The world didn’t end, and your local factory hasn’t reopened; it’s just been turned into a Spirit Halloween. Instead, we find ourselves in a reality that is far more boring and infinitely more cynical: global trade is perfectly fine, and the only thing that has changed is the paperwork.

To the shock of absolutely no one with a functioning frontal lobe, the global supply chain is not a delicate flower that wilts at the first sign of a tax hike. It is a multi-headed hydra that feeds on human greed and cheap labor. When the 'Orange King' slapped tariffs on Chinese goods, the market didn't collapse in a fit of patriotic integrity. It simply engaged in a massive, planet-wide exercise in laundry. Goods that once shipped directly from Shanghai to Long Beach are now taking a scenic, 'transformative' detour through Vietnam, Malaysia, or Mexico. A few stickers are swapped, a few bribes are paid to the local apparatchiks, and suddenly, that 'Made in China' toaster has been 'liberated' into a 'Made in Not-China' toaster. The consumer pays an extra four dollars for the privilege of this geographical shell game, and the politicians get to stand in front of American flags and pretend they’ve achieved something. It is a masterclass in performative idiocy.

The 'Liberation Day' summary suggests that things look 'rosy.' If by 'rosy' we mean that the giant, soul-crushing engine of international commerce continues to grind humans into paste for the sake of discounted plastic spatulas, then yes, everything is coming up roses. The resilient nature of global trade isn't a testament to human ingenuity; it’s a testament to our collective inability to stop buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have. The tariffs haven't 'broken' trade because trade is the only thing keeping the lights on in this decaying shopping mall of a civilization.

Let’s look at the players in this farce. On one side, you have the Trumpian isolationists who believe you can fix a fifty-year systemic shift toward globalization by scribbling 'Tax Them!' on a napkin. They operate under the delusion that American workers, who have spent the last three decades learning how to optimize their TikTok engagement, are going to suddenly develop a passion for textile milling. On the other side, you have the hysterical globalists who treat a 10% levy on aluminum as if it were the Siege of Stalingrad. They weep for the 'international order,' which is really just a polite term for a system that ensures CEOs can buy a third yacht while children in the Global South assemble their electronics in windowless rooms.

The fact that trade has not collapsed is the ultimate insult to both camps. It proves that the politicians are irrelevant. They are like children sitting in the back of a self-driving car, fighting over a toy steering wheel and screaming that they are the ones making the turns. The car is going to the warehouse regardless of who is throwing a tantrum in the booster seat. The 'rosy' outlook reported six months post-Liberation is simply the sound of the machine recalibrating. The trade routes have shifted, the middlemen have taken their cut, and the mountain of debt continues to grow.

In the end, this 'protectionist' era is just another layer of theater for a public that has lost the ability to distinguish between policy and professional wrestling. We are told we are being 'protected' while our purchasing power is eroded by the very friction these policies create. We are told the world is 'decoupling' while the data shows we are as hopelessly enmeshed in the global sweatshop as ever. It is a spectacle of futility, presided over by a man who thinks trade deficits are a personal insult and opposed by people who think a carbon tax is a substitute for a soul. The tariffs failed to break global trade for the same reason a toothpick fails to stop a tidal wave: there is too much momentum in our collective descent into consumerist oblivion. Enjoy your rosy outlook; it’s just the reflection of the sunset on a world that refuses to learn its lesson.