Trump’s Day of Liberation - Philip W. Blood
The world remains in shock after Trump’s so-called Liberation Day, a move that has left economists scrambling for explanations. Across social media, television panels, and podcasts, scholars, practitioners and the public alike have struggled to interpret its meaning. I, too, joined the chorus of criticism on X (formerly Twitter), convinced that these measures were as economically illiterate as they were politically reckless:
Cut the value of American companies, wipe profits and investment, exposing them to foreign takeover, reduce productivity, raise unemployment, end competitiveness, generate stagflation, but cultism spins.
— Dr Philip W Blood (@HistorianBlood) April 3, 2025
Then it struck me, why would Trump follow a reckless economic policy if peace and security were his electoral mandates? It was in that moment of confusion that I decided to reexamine what the day and the tariffs really represented. Were they simply another chapter in global trade wars—or something far more sinister? The more I listened to Trump’s advisors and studied the messaging from his administration, the more I became convinced: these tariffs are not economics by other means.
After Trump’s inauguration speech, I instinctively reached for Gore Vidal’s essay ‘State of the Union: 2004’, in which he writes, “We have a single political party in the U.S., the Property Party—with two right wings: Republican and Democrat.” Yet, despite Vidal’s prescience, his words belong to a different political age. What we are witnessing now demands a new interpretive lens.
Curious, I turned to the White House’s official website. When researching Putin’s statements for Putin’s War, Russian Genocide (2023) (link below), I had examined the Kremlin website for the Presidential speeches to gauge how far his rhetoric was rehearsed or spontaneous. Like Putin, Trump lays it all out—his background, his beliefs, and most tellingly, his mission. If this is fascism, it is distinctly American: corporate, theatrical, and cloaked in the language of prosperity. I pondered whether we were watching the unfurling of a new form of Trump popularism or whether this really was a turn to fascism in America.
The first striking feature of Trump’s mission statement is its tone—it’s not a political manifesto, nor a populist screed. It’s pure business rhetoric. I was reminded of Michael Porter, whose theories of Competitive Advantage revolutionised business strategy in the 1980s and were later applied to national policy during the Reagan era. Trump’s manifesto borrows from this tradition but retools it with slogans from the MAGA playbook: Make America safe again, Drain the swamp, Make America energy dominant again, Restore American values.
Many of these phrases are familiar, echoes of conservative mantras stretching back to Reagan and before. Yet what distinguishes Trump’s approach is not just the content—it’s the format. This is governance as enterprise. The U.S., under Trump, is to be managed like a corporation. And unlike traditional campaign promises quickly discarded once in office, Trump’s commitment to follow through with his promises has become his lethal weapon. He is staking a claim to the political moral high ground—and few seem to have noticed.
There’s long been mutual disdain between the academic-bureaucratic elite and the business class. Academics often view business as morally compromised, while business leaders see the ivory tower as irrelevant and bureaucrats as wasteful. Historically, America’s political system kept these domains separate. Even Trump’s first term didn’t fully breach that wall. But COVID, the humiliating end of the War on Terror, and growing national debt has changed everything.
The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, broadcast in real-time and spliced against images from the fall of Saigon in 1975, has shattered confidence in the status quo and history. America’s post-9/11 grand strategy has collapsed, and with it, faith in the governing consensus. As globalism appeared to falter and institutional trust declined, the electorate turned to MAGA.
Trump’s 2024 campaign was framed as a call for change, but few anticipated the scale of the revolution being planned. The first three months of his second term seemed predictable—until Liberation Day detonated. In retrospect, the signs were there: amnesties for January 6 rioters, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, demands for Greenland’s annexation, even an offer to make Canada the 51st state. Most of these were dismissed as stunts—until they weren’t.
Then came the Zelenskyy-Trump-Vance incident (February 28, 2025), Steve Witkoff’s revelations on the Tucker Carlson Show (March 21), and JD Vance’s visit to Greenland (March 29). Each event further signalled Trump’s intent to govern as he campaigned. Liberation Day sealed it. Strategically timed to fit within daylight saving time, to offset energy cost backlash, it marked the formal beginning of his new order.
At this stage, one question looms: will Trump succeed or fail? This question torments both critics and past regimes because it offers no comforting answer. If Trump fails, he could bring down the west’s credibility with him. But if he succeeds, he will dismantle the post-1945 political order. Like Brexit, MAGA is not a rational policy platform—it is a self-sustaining belief system. It cannot be reasoned with; it can only be matched or overcome.
Real Estate diplomacy
Anyone who tuned in to The Tucker Carlson Show on March 21, 2025, and caught his interview with Steve Witkoff would have heard a striking articulation of Trump’s second-term vision. Witkoff, speaking not as an observer but as a direct emissary of the president, outlined the administration’s approach: “peace through strength,” outcome-oriented governance, clearly defined endgames, tactical flexibility, and a leadership style rooted in goals—not process.
Throughout the interview, Carlson repeatedly emphasised that Witkoff “speaks for the President,” a point Witkoff did not deny. He confirmed he took instructions directly from Trump, reinforcing the impression that he was more than just a real estate mogul turned informal envoy—he was a key player in shaping Trump’s foreign policy doctrine.
The conversation focused heavily on hotspots like Ukraine and Gaza, with some attention to the unravelling US-European relationship. Carlson contrasted Trump’s style with that of previous administrations, claiming that while traditional diplomats dictated terms post-facto, Trump’s strategy was to anticipate outcomes and lay the groundwork for deals well before taking office. Trump, Carlson insisted, was not seeking instant fixes but long-term settlements—crafted by understanding what each party truly wanted and then negotiating trade-offs. In this frame, Trump becomes not a disruptor, but a “peacemaker,” an “honest broker.”
Perhaps the most striking concept introduced was the notion of a ‘real estate doctrine’ applied to diplomacy. Carlson enthusiastically described this as “revolutionary,” even while referencing muscular tactics—such as bombing Hamas “back to the Gaza conference table”—that evoke the ghost of Henry Kissinger’s Vietnam strategy. The guiding principle, according to Carlson, is simple: no more chaos, no more war.
Gradually, the conversation took a harder edge. Europe was branded “dysfunctional” and “dying.” Carlson and Witkoff agreed that the continent had become irrelevant to American interests. The critique widened: Biden was faulted for being aimless, closed-minded, and overly reliant on stale advisors. Trump, by contrast, was hailed as a visionary—a leader who understands blockchain, artificial intelligence, and who is, according to Witkoff, “breaking America’s welfare system.” In this vision, recent military incidents—like those in Syria—were merely “data points” in a broader algorithm of geopolitical recalibration. In a telling anecdote, Witkoff claimed that after a smartphone conversation with Trump, Turkish President Erdogan took immediate action—an assertion of Trump’s supposed power to effect change through sheer communication.
By the 52-minute mark, the discussion turned to Russia. Witkoff claimed Zelenskyy had “disrespected” Trump, whereas Putin showed him deference. He bemoaned “the arrogance of small countries” and stressed that Ukraine must accept a peace deal—one already discussed with Putin in Moscow. The conversation referenced a Black Sea moratorium and an “energy infrastructure ceasefire,” with Putin allegedly expressing a desire to end the war without further bloodshed—an assertion glaringly at odds with his military record. NATO’s expansion was condemned, and Ukraine’s entry ruled out. Witkoff characterised Putin as “straight up,” someone with whom Trump maintained a “good relationship”—unlike Biden, who, they claimed, never engaged directly with the Russian president. Witkoff praised Trump’s communication-based diplomacy, in contrast to what they painted as Biden’s censorship-enabled autocracy. The “Trump derangement syndrome” trope was again invoked to undermine critics.
Several themes crystallised: demilitarisation in Gaza; preventing Ukraine from escalating into World War III; and portraying Europe as an exhausted, irrelevant actor. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was mocked as a symbolic puppet—irrelevant posturing from a nation that, in Witkoff and Carlson’s eyes, no longer matters. Looming behind all of this was Trump, the proverbial elephant in the room, reframing diplomacy as a series of business transactions.
Deal-making may sound appealing—especially to an American audience weary of endless wars—but is the language and logic of real estate appropriate for international relations? Peace is not just a matter of contract. As anyone who’s bought a house knows, even the perfect deal can lead to costly surprises. And when it comes to diplomacy, failed settlements can mean more than buyer’s remorse—they can lead to bloodshed.
What’s truly at stake in this “real estate doctrine” is the nature of peace itself. Trump’s approach suits MAGA politics: quick fixes, symbolic wins, swift exits, and the occasional financial payoff. But genuine peace, as history has shown—in Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine, or the Korean Peninsula—takes time, nuance, and a willingness to stay engaged. If Trump’s diplomacy delivers, the world may breathe a sigh of relief. But if it fails, it may deepen the very instability it claims to solve. And in either case, it signals the return of a familiar American instinct: isolationism, dressed up as deal-making.
Liberation Day – The political Actualisation of MAGA
Remember the opening scene of HBO’s The Newsroom (2012)? A panel of media pundits is asked by a group of college students, “Why is America the greatest country in the world?” One panelist famously replies, “It’s not the greatest country in the world,” prompting gasps and catcalls. He continues undeterred, arguing that only in prisons, religion, and military spending can America claim global leadership. He laments a lost national purpose— “we reached for the stars”—and a political culture that no longer identifies with elected leadership. His final question echoes still: “Why do liberals always lose?” At the time, this moment signalled the shift from idealistic political fiction like The West Wing to a harsher, confrontational realism. Entertainment gave way to unease.
But this wasn’t the only warning. Six years earlier, in America: Freedom to Fascism, Hollywood director Aaron Russo crafted a self-starring documentary ostensibly about the IRS and the origins of the Federal Reserve. The film quickly veered into an anti-globalist screed, targeting bankers, compliant presidents, and the architecture of the so-called New World Order. Russo’s interviews—including a notable one with then-Republican Senator Ron Paul—asserted that the income tax was unconstitutional. Though the documentary faded into obscurity after Russo’s death in 2007, its ideological DNA found new life in MAGA. In his final years, Russo had drifted from Republicanism to Libertarianism, but his suspicion of institutional power remains embedded in today’s populist rhetoric.
Another forgotten cultural artefact from that era was Simon Schama’s The American Future (2008), a documentary that offered a more scholarly reading of the moment. Schama argued that Barack Obama’s presidency represented both continuity and change. But buried within the series were glimpses of deepening cultural and racial divides—tensions that would later harden into the ideological scaffolding of Trumpism. The signs were all there. Liberation Day, then, didn’t emerge from nowhere. It was foreshadowed by a decade of ignored signals. Now, the United States stands at the threshold of a 21st-century ideological war—a culture war primed to dismantle the edifice of 20th-century America.
Trump’s Liberation Day is the beginning of an ideological war. His real purpose is to fracture the old establishment—the political, academic, regulatory, and military elite that defined the postwar American order. At the heart of this assault are the Federal Reserve and the financial institutions, though Trump has not yet attacked them head-on. His hints at interest rate cuts, and the golden age before 1913, made days after the tariffs were announced, represent a strategic feint. By tying the tariffs to electoral promises, he has boxed in the banks—how could they publicly object to a president keeping his democratic word to voters?
Meanwhile, as Elon Musk spearheads the dismantling of government bureaucracy, the broader message is clear: no institution is immune. Military, civil service, and educational workforces have been put on notice. Even Wall Street is under threat. Stock markets plummeted. The dollar slipped. Profits evaporated. Pundits panicked. But the world didn’t end. The shock was short and sharp, but short-lived. There is no 2008 financial crash, there is no 1929 Great Crash – but there is transformation in realtime, mostly in political rhetoric and, this is only the beginning.
Musk stands for the ‘new’ frontier, the ambition to reach and colonise Mars – in this regard Trump has space exploration just as Kennedy had the race to the moon. In effect, Trump has revamped manifest destiny for the MAGA to restore America’s sense of purpose and future well-being. More importantly Musk can provide Trump with his most powerful weapon – Twitter/X and social media. By controlling the X algorithms, Musk can deliver opinion results and surveys faster than any other political poll. In effect, Trump is significantly advanced in digital democracy - an ideal often discussed by political scientists. This enables Trump to gauge his success against mass public opinion almost immediately. In the drive to a digital economy, Trump is far ahead of any rivals. If real estate capitalism is the new politics, Trump holds all the levers of control unlike any president before him. Arguably, his populist style is enhanced by the mass control of the population through artificial intelligence – a big brother scenario delivered through smartphones – some might see this as fascism.
Liberation Day, given what we’ve seen and heard, therefore, is not global economics. It’s the ceremonial dawn of a new ideology, the clearest signal yet of the direction of Trump’s second-term regime. The tariffs, along with his executive orders and mission statements, form the opening chords of a new political symphony. Where is the substance? Where’s the beef? This can be found in the five strategic pillars that define Trump’s MAGA doctrine:
- The institutionalisation of MAGA dogma – the elevation of campaign slogans into governing principles.
- A recalibrated strategic worldview – no longer rooted in liberal internationalism but in transactional realism.
- Continental homeland security – the transformation of North America into a fortified geopolitical zone.
- Strategic sustainability – a pivot toward autarky, with a focus on energy independence, industrial revival, and reduced reliance on global supply chains.
- Avoiding a two-theatre war – the abandonment of America’s post-WWII military doctrine, reducing commitments abroad to preserve strength at home.
Each strategic point deserves an essay but given the limits of this article they are summarised to provide a background to the reader. They collectively represent the spirt of Trump’s second term and quantify why Liberation Day was not a reckless display of kite-flying. In essence, Trump’s tariffs are a collective symbol. Symbols of a turning point. Symbols of rupture. Liberation Day marks the end of the old order. They are the symbolic curtain-raiser for a radical shift in American political life—perhaps even the beginning of a revolution. Liberation Day isn’t about trade policy; it’s about the ideological consolidation of Make America Great Again into governing doctrine. The tariffs are the overture to an American revolution, styled not in the language of democracy, but of a corporate mission. This is the beginning of a political revolution—and no one, not even its architects, can fully predict what comes next or how it will end.
The Future
A few concluding thoughts.
The Irreversibility of Political Dismantling
When Margaret Thatcher began dismantling Britain’s industrial and political establishment, those directly involved quickly realised a sobering truth: no matter the political turnover, the institutions and industries being broken apart would never be restored. This was confirmed under Tony Blair, whose centrist Labour government declined to renationalise the railways or undo Thatcher’s legacy. Keir Starmer has followed the same path—Britain’s failing water companies and transport networks (regardless of electoral promises to the contrary) remain in private hands, and tuition fees continue to burden students. The pattern is clear: institutional destruction is permanent. Trump is applying the same principle to the United States, targeting the political establishment, the education sector, the military establishment, and the federal bureaucracy—not simply to reduce the national debt, but to enforce the MAGA concept of freedom on America.
Trump’s historical reference point—pre-1913 America, before the income tax and the IRS—deliberately promotes a shared antagonism for the federal financial system – constitutional or otherwise, who doesn’t want to pay taxes? His geopolitical pivot away from Europe and toward the Pacific effectively removes the burdens of the two-theatre war doctrine that shaped American militarism for decades. Instead, the military will be streamlined, redefined by cost-benefit priorities, and aimed squarely at one adversary: China. Like Thatcher and Reagan before him, Trump understands that once the old machinery is taken apart, the opposition can never rebuild it – his regime is changing history.
Timing and Cultural Change
The rollout of Trump’s political revolution was as strategic as it was ideological. Coinciding with the summer months, when energy costs naturally drop, the administration may be quietly stockpiling resources ahead of a harsher winter—both literally and politically. Crucially, the early economic turbulence has been timed to overlap with the tail end of Biden’s policies, ensuring that market shocks and falling stock values are attributed to the prior regime. Unlike in 2008, no bailout will come. Corporations will tolerate lower profits if they believe that deregulation and the eventual erosion of corporate taxation are the long-term payoff.
Trump is not merely managing decline—he is attempting to rebuild the economy in digital form, stripping away welfare to pay for the restoration of American capitalism. The MAGA base, long steeped in culture-war grievances, will tolerate hardship to see tariffs, immigration restrictions, and deregulation reshape their vision of American identity. Every time a university professor flees to Canada, JD Vance and others will point to it as vindication—proof that the “public enemy” is evacuating. Democrats, meanwhile, are trapped in a nationalist paradox: opposing Trump’s policies risks making them appear un-American.
Europe: The Coming Severance
Europe must now face what few are willing to admit aloud: Trump has all but declared a cold war on the European Union. America’s withdrawal from NATO is not hypothetical—it is practically underway. While defence and security dominate headlines, they are only part of the rupture. Trump’s ambitions extend further: to export his ideology, to disrupt Europe’s political cohesion, and to fracture its institutions. His backing of Germany’s AfD and France’s Marine Le Pen is not rhetorical—it’s tactical. His financial empire has acquired stakes in European media and publishing. His support for Brexit was never isolated; it was the opening gambit of a broader campaign to disassemble the European project.
The Liberation Day tariffs are merely the first artillery round, following the earlier skirmish over NATO contributions. A peace deal between Trump and Putin—likely forced upon Zelenskyy—would collapse Europe’s current geopolitical structure. Ukraine is being leveraged to inflict strategic damage on the EU. Europe is being left exposed. If the United States is no longer a reliable partner, then the path forward is clear: the EU must abandon NATO and construct an autonomous military structure. This is no longer about transatlantic trust—it’s about survival. The divorce between America and Europe has begun. Now Europe must complete it.
If Trump’s second term represents a regime of American fascism, as so many critics claim, then its influence will not stop at U.S. borders. Trump is the greatest existential threat to Western liberal democracy since 1945—because if he fails, he will take the West down with him. But if he succeeds, the West as we know it will cease to exist.
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