The Hidden Debt Bomb Behind the Tariff War. And Why It Matters to You

A quick primer on why the tariffs happened, what they mean going forward, and where we're going from here.

America looks strong on the outside. Good jobs numbers. Stock market humming. Houses still getting sold for eye-watering prices.

But under the hood? There’s a slow leak. And now, finally, a few people at the top are willing to say it out loud: the current system is broken. Pain is coming. Tariffs are their way (not necessarily the right way) of dealing with it. A spoonful of medicine if you’re sick. Or diet and exercise if you're staring down heart disease. Both suck in the short run.

Today, I'm going to walk you through what’s actually happening. Not the clickbait. Not the partisan noise. The real story.

And yes, I’ll be dropping some specific investment ideas from this theme soon. If you've been around here a while, you know the drill. Seek first to understand. Then act. There’s a reason wise men say only fools rush in. Especially when the entire ecosystem is changing right under our feet. Chill for a minute. Understand the terrain.

This is not a normal cycle. It is something much bigger. Read on to see why I don’t think this is changing overnight & sectors I like going forward.

The Big Picture: Why Tariffs Are Coming Back in a Big Way

When Trump first dropped tariffs in 2018, most "serious" people lost their minds. Tariffs were supposed to be dead, a relic of a different era. But here we are in 2025, and they're back. Bigger, broader, and more critical than ever.

Because tariffs aren't really about "punishing" China anymore. They're about saving America. Foreign countries like China, Europe, Japan, and Mexico have been using America as their dumping ground for decades. Sell us goods. Take our dollars. Buy our Treasuries. Rinse and repeat.

It worked for a while. Cheap goods kept inflation down. Stocks went up. Politicians got re-elected. But it hollowed out the core of America. Our factories closed. Our workers took on debt to survive. Our government borrowed trillions to paper over the cracks.

We became the big bloated consume-only guy at the table, outside of tech. And this is NOT sustainable forever.