Saving America, One Boycott at a Time
Because sometimes, love means letting the patient hit rock bottom.
Frankly, I wasn’t planning on writing this.
Actually, I had a pretty solid outline for a deep-dive into industrial decoupling and the sad poetry of semiconductor supply chains. But, as always, America happened.
This week, President Trump, channeling the economic foresight of a Magic 8-Ball dropped in a blender, has once again yo-yoed tariffs like a toddler discovering buttons. First they're on. Then off. Then back on. Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on whether he had breakfast or not.
And in this riveting episode of Tariff Roulette, the American economy is burning trillions of dollars and tanking other countries’ markets. There's no strategy here, unless you count “let’s look busy while doing nothing” as a strategy. In that case, bravo. Mission accomplished.
But let’s not be too harsh. Americans are good people. Honest people. People who, in the face of mounting economic chaos, still believe in the dream of bringing back manufacturing, as if the factories of the 1950s are just hanging out behind a Walmart somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered. Guess what? They’re not. Those jobs are gone. The expertise is gone. And frankly, the workers are gone too, retired, automated, or busy driving Ubers in cities built on software.
Yet Trump insists: we’re bringing it all back, baby. Steel mills, assembly lines, lunch pails. All in five years. That’s not policy. That’s not even a Netflix reboot.
Meanwhile, China doesn’t say much. Which, as any herpetologist will tell you, is exactly how a python behaves while it’s wrapping tighter.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not pledging allegiance to Beijing just because they’ve lapped the West in industrial policy, provides the West with pretty much all the tech gadgets they need to survive and can launch satellites faster than we can jug beers in Belgium. But ignoring what China has built, pretending America still holds all the cards, it’s not patriotic. It’s delusional. It’s financially suicidal.
So, here's my modest proposal.
Maybe the best way to save America… is to boycott it.
Yes, you heard me. Out of love. Out of respect. Out of pure, tearful patriotism. I think we should all help America finish what it started. Let’s stop buying American. Let’s short their stock market, divest from their junk bonds, stop pretending Silicon Valley can replace actual factories. Let’s let this thing crash properly so we can finally pick up the pieces and maybe — just maybe — rebuild with some sense.
Because here’s the thing: Americans are good people, but their leadership is drunk at the wheel. And if they’re determined to drive the economy off a cliff, the least we can do is take away the gas card and let gravity handle the rest.
It’s always been clear that Trump doesn’t want to lose to China. Even more so when he realised (because he did) China is lapping US too. Fun fact.
However, Trump also doesn’t want to do the actual work of making America competitive. And tariffs? They’re just sledgehammers swung in a hall of mirrors. Many of which are American mirrors. Oops… another fun fact.
China, in the meantime, isn’t retaliating with tweets. They’re selling treasuries. Blocking rare earth exports. Playing chess while we’re playing Calvinball. And while 10Y yields spike like a panic attack, we’re still pretending this is all part of some master plan.
Looking at the Trump administration and Trump himself, there’s nothing about this that smells like a plan. It’s mostly vibes.
But hey, don’t let the collapsing credibility fool you. America still has a few cultural strengths: storytelling, innovation, blind optimism.
And memes. Always memes. So maybe after the dust settles and the debt spirals and the tariffs boomerang, we can get back to building real things.
In the meantime, let’s give our American friends what they really need: a deep, market-wide, coordinated boycott. Not because we hate them. But because we love them. Like a friend staging an intervention as the house burns down.
Let’s help them hit bottom. So they can start over.
Let’s save America. One boycott at a time.
Written with love, sarcasm, and a deep respect for every rusted factory turned hipster coffee shop.
Frag