Tariffs All The Way Down. Where Are We Headed? What Should We Expect?

This week’s big theme on the Sunday shows? Uncertainty. The stock market is wobbly, the global economic order feels like it’s being rewritten, and nobody knows exactly where it’s headed. We’re seeing Donald Trump take a swing at globalism with an aggressive tariff strategy. And within that, you can see the internal tug-of-war: one Trump wants to be the tariff-happy industrial protector; the other wants to be the big dealmaker who makes the stock market pop. The big question is which Trump wins out.

Economic surrogates like Kevin Hassett are all over TV smiling through the chaos, telling us that jobs are up, inflation risks are “minor,” and this is just a long-overdue correction. Meanwhile, companies are halting imports of foreign-made luxury goods and consumer electronics — not because they're more expensive, but because they might not be available at all. It’s not so much a price hike as it is a vanishing act.

Fractures on the Right and Foreign Fallout

This is creating strange fractures within the GOP. Old-school free marketers like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are voicing their opposition. At the same time, others like Markwayne Mullin are defending the tariffs. This isn’t just a debate over policy — it’s a clash of identities within the party. Republicans are being asked to back economic positions that progressives used to champion, and not everyone’s ready to flip the script.