Amid sudden tariffs, grandiose promises, and the rhetoric of economic warfare, the United States intends to “return to the core”: reindustrialize, close gaps, and recover its lost manufacturing glory. The problem is not the ambition — it’s the systematic denial of economic reality.
The proposal—to reindustrialize without raising prices, reduce the national debt without increasing taxes, and weaken the dollar without affecting its global dominance—is not bold. It’s incoherent. Attempting to achieve all three simultaneously is like trying to extinguish a fire by spraying it with gasoline with surgical precision.
American Industry: A Fantasy Built on Smoke
Today, the U.S. manufacturing sector accounts for just 11% of GDP (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2024). It is no longer the beating heart of the economy but a half-functioning valve. The country doesn’t produce more not because it can’t but because it has found more profitable ways to deploy capital: technology, financial services, and the knowledge economy.
Far from bringing factories back, tariffs have made key inputs more expensive, disrupted supply chains, and forced companies to pass those costs on to consumers. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Trump’s trade wars have cost the average U.S. household over $1,300 per year — with no net increase in manufacturing jobs.
The Fiscal Mirage
Trump promises to reduce the national debt while cutting taxes. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that public debt will exceed 115% of GDP within the next decade. This so-called “fiscal miracle” depends on brutally slashing public spending, particularly in healthcare and defense — something no Republican or Democratic Congress has been willing to do and likely won’t be any time soon.
While denouncing past administrations for corruption, Trump dismantles key state capabilities, promotes simplistic solutions with incendiary language, and erodes institutions rather than strengthening them.
The Dollar Held Hostage
Weakening the dollar is the third piece of this puzzle. But instead of fleeing, the capital seeks refuge in the dollar amid global uncertainty. 1985, the U.S. achieved a strategic devaluation through the Plaza Accord, coordinated with Japan, Germany, France, and the UK. Today, with growing distrust among allies and rising tensions with adversaries, such coordination is unthinkable.
Reducing global military presence or attacking key trade partners only undermines the dollar’s credibility as the dominant reserve currency. Without trust or shared rules, no monetary empire survives.
A Retreat Disguised as a Reconquest
What Trump sells as an industrial reconquest is, in truth, a retreat disguised as strength. There is no real investment plan in advanced technology, no national productivity strategy—only walls, noise, and imaginary enemies. And when it all fails—because it will—the blame will fall on China, Mexico, immigrants, or “internal traitors,” namely, the Democrats.
The world does not see the U.S. reindustrializing. It sees a nation locking itself inside its own mythology, worshiping a vanished greatness while dragging the global system toward a potential depression triggered by unilateral decisions.
It wouldn’t be the first time. In the 1920s, the American economy expanded through cheap credit, stock speculation, and a belief in economic exceptionalism. Financial deregulation, rising inequality, and aggressive protectionism — later embodied in the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act — set the stage for collapse. A foreign enemy didn’t cause the Great Depression. It came from within, born of overconfidence disguised as patriotic economics.
History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes
Today, history seems to rhyme. Heroic speeches return, as do simplistic solutions and the fiction that closing borders can somehow bring back lost power. But those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. And this time, the cost may not be just national—it could be global.
What Donald Trump is doing is not a return to the core. It’s a leap into the void, and many following him are doing it with their eyes wide open. Some of those applauding believe they are rising—when, in truth, the fall has already begun.
José E. Urioste
For Times Media Mexico – The Yucatan Times
April 07, 2025
Mérida Yucatán, Mexico
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José E. Urioste is a Yucatecan entrepreneur and columnist. He is the major stakeholder in one of Mexico’s longest-standing financial institutions, a shareholder in various ventures across mass media, real estate, and other strategic sectors, and a published author. As a political analyst and writer on philosophical and humanistic subjects, his work challenges conventional thinking with clarity and depth. His contributions to national media offer a distinctive voice on the social, business, and cultural issues shaping the public conversation.
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