Tariffs, Not Tactics: Why the Real Play is Manufacturing, Not Monetary Policy

There’s been a lot of noise in the echo chambers lately that the return of tariffs is some backdoor plot to twist the Fed’s arm into lowering interest rates, giving the government a cheaper path to refinance its mountain of debt.

Let me stop you right there….

The idea that this is all some sophisticated, covert operation to save money on refinancing is laughable.

It sounds clever…

And it fits neatly into the “4D chess” narrative.

But like most conspiracies, it gives too much credit and ignores the simpler, more plausible truth.

Occam’s Razor: apply it.

Trump genuinely believes America is getting a raw deal on trade, and he's going about fixing it with blunt force, IMO.

Is it damaging? Probably.

Will it have unintended consequences? Almost certainly.

But the motive isn’t to pull strings behind the scenes at the Fed — it’s to bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil.

And here’s the real kicker: even if it were about refinancing, the numbers just don’t add up.

We’ve got $9 trillion in debt rolling over!

Sure, rates are higher… But fighting tooth and nail to shave a few hundred billion off interest payments — while simultaneously risking capital markets, global trade dynamics, and midterm control of Congress — makes no sense.

It’s a drop in the OCEAN, compared to the size of the U.S. economy and tax base.

Moody’s could downgrade the country tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter.

Too big to fail. Just numbers on a screen...

Debt-to-GDP? Please. 

Deficit? Please…

These concepts have become irrelevant in a post-populist, post-modern monetary world.

Nobody’s voting based on them.

Nobody’s investing based on them.

You think anyone in D.C. is losing sleep over a credit rating when they can print money and tax the most productive economy on Earth?

This isn’t about rates. It’s not about saving money.

It’s about reshaping the structure of the economy — aggressively and nationalistically — to bring back jobs, rebuild domestic production, and rewire supply chains that have been offshored for decades.

The people pushing the “rate cut conspiracy” are the same ones who sat smugly in the front row of the Magnificent 7 show, thinking they were geniuses because their ETF allocation did well. (Thank you, thank you!)

Now the winds are shifting.

The game is changing.

And some of that carnage is overdue. Valuations are too high anyway.

But spare a thought for the capital-intensive sectors — like mining — that have been left starving for risk capital while the world chased NVIDIA and Apple.

Tariffs aren’t going to magically bring that appetite back either, but at least they signal a directional shift. A real economy shift.

Not a spreadsheet theory. Not a macro hedge fund fantasy.

It’ll take time… but, the motive is clear.

The goal is an industrial revival.

And the playbook is as obvious as it looks — no 4D chessboard required.

Just my two cents.

And, as always, happy hunting!