Trump declared: "It will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day we began to make America wealthy again."

What's your take?

Doug Casey: The left constantly calls Trump a liar. And frankly, things like this are why. It's not that he lies more than a typical politician, or even lies intentionally. It's that his use of words is so hyperbolic, so estranged from reality, that it makes him seem like a liar. It's intellectually dishonest—dishonest, period—to falsely label something. It's bizarre that Trump thinks his potentially catastrophic tariffs should be called Liberation Day.

The fact is that tariffs are taxes paid by the importer of goods. The money mostly goes out of the pockets of the buyers and, perhaps, to some limited degree, the sellers. It's 100% certain that tariffs are a tax, and the money goes 100% into the pocket of the State.

Supply chains between countries have become so complex that there are very few items that are—or even could be—manufactured completely within any one country. Production of everything will drop worldwide.

Trump's tariffs will both increase prices and cause shortages. They don't, however, cause inflation. Inflation is caused strictly by an increase in the money supply. Tariffs don't increase the money supply, but they do cause higher prices and a lower standard of living for both the buyer and the seller. Just as bad, as a tax, tariffs result in more dollars in the hands of the State.

The US imports something on the order of $3 trillion annually. Perhaps Trump thinks that a 10% tax will result in $300 billion of revenue for the government, and a 20% tariff will yield $600 billion. But this is incorrect because the higher costs will reduce the amount of trade proportionately. Not only can't tariffs solve the government's deficit problem, they'll make it worse.

He says that the main object of the tariffs is to force investment in the US. And, of course, that may happen to some degree. He's forgotten that when the US was prosperous before 1971, it never needed foreign investment. But it's as if we trade Cadillacs to Guatemala in exchange for their bananas. Since they sell more bananas to us than we sell Cadillacs to them, it causes a huge deficit in their favor.

So let's put a 100% duty on bananas. Problem solved. Guatemalans sell many fewer bananas, but now they can't afford to buy any Cadillacs at all. Everybody gets hurt—banana producers, Cadillac producers, and most particularly, the people who use those products.