by Jacob G. Hornberger

August 26, 2026

The Trump administration continues its trade-war spree that was launched immediately after Trump returned to the White House. This time it’s against Canada—again. Soon after recent trade negotiations between the two nations fell apart, President Trump raised tariffs on certain Canadian goods to as high as 50 percent. Canada, not surprisingly, is retaliating in a similar manner by raising tariffs on certain American goods, especially those produced in battleground states in the upcoming midterm elections.

But Trump’s trade war inflicts harm not only on Canadian citizens but also on the American people. Tariffs are simply sales taxes on the purchase of foreign goods. It is American consumers who ultimately pay those taxes. What Trump is doing with his beloved trade war is raising taxes on hard-pressed Americans, especially those having difficulty making ends meet.

In other words, on top of federal income taxes, state sales taxes, state property taxes, the federal inflation tax that reduces the purchasing power of people’s money, and the soaring prices resulting from the U.S. undeclared war of aggression on Iran, Americans must now bear the cost of Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, along with the higher prices arising from Canada’s retaliation.

There are, of course, those Americans who innocently and naively continue to believe that our enemies are Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, the communists, the terrorists, the Muslims, the drug cartels, the illegal immigrants, and other scary official boogeymen.

Those Americans are flat-out wrong. They are living in la-la land. The enemy of the American people is the U.S. government. Not only is it plundering and looting Americans, regulating and controlling the most minute aspects of their lives, and making life much more expensive, it is also making life more dangerous, oppressive, and precarious for them.

After all, who can realistically deny that we live under a tariff dictatorship, one in which Trump exercises the omnipotent power to raise tariff taxes on the American people whenever he wants and to whatever extent he wants?

That’s not all. Consider the drug war, in which Trump and the Pentagon are now exercising the omnipotent, dictatorial power to murder whoever they want. And that comes on top of all the destruction of civil liberties and privacy that has long characterized this evil and malevolent federal program, such as civil asset forfeiture, mandatory minimum sentences, racist enforcement, no-knock raids, and warrantless stops and searches.

Consider the bombing sprees in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Syria, Yemen, and so many countries. How do those bombing sprees make Americans safer? They don’t. They subject every American tourist to the distinct possibility of being assassinated while traveling overseas, especially given the propensity of U.S. officials to target innocent foreign civilians with death by bombs or sanctions as a way to achieve regime change in the country in which they live.

Moreover, how does it make Americans safer and more secure when the U.S. government is threatening China with secondary sanctions on Iran? Doesn’t squeezing a major nuclear power increase the possibility of a miscalculation that leads to an all-out nuclear war between the United States and China?

Consider the Pentagon’s use of NATO to provoke Russia into invading Ukraine, just as it did back in the 1970s, when it provoked the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan, as a way to “degrade” Russia. Consider also all the military and intelligence support the U.S. government has provided to Ukraine in that conflict. Does that not increase the chances of a miscalculation that leads to an all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States? How does that make Americans safer and more secure?

Consider the deadly, destructive, brutal, cruel, and ruthless U.S. war on illegal immigration. Sure, it’s easy for people to think that all the death and suffering is being inflicted only on foreigners. Not so. It’s also a gigantic act of tyranny and oppression against the American people, which comes in the form of a deadly, destructive, tyrannical, and oppressive immigration police state that is necessary to “secure” the border and that is now expanding nationwide.

Consider the paper-money system and the Federal Reserve, which has debased the value of people’s money ever since the 1930s. I don’t see any of America’s official enemies devaluing our money, do you?

What about the IRS and the income tax? I see nothing but plundering and looting at the hands of one of the most feared, abusive, and tyrannical agencies in U.S. history.

What about that $40 trillion debt that now sits over the American people like a sword of Damocles? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s the U.S. government, not the U.S. government’s official enemies, that has incurred that debt to fund its welfare-warfare state, its regulated/managed economy, and its deadly, destructive, evil, and immoral programs.

What about the welfare state, which has converted many Americans into helpless, weak, and dependent wards of the state, ones who are so scared of losing their political dole that they wouldn’t think of opposing anything their beloved government is doing to them?

What about the national-security state, which replaced our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic—and without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment? How can people living under a government that wields omnipotent powers, such as assassination, torture, and indefinite detention, genuinely be considered a free people?

No, the enemy of the American people is not “over there,” as so many Americans innocently and naively believe. Our enemy is right here. The sooner Americans come to that realization, the better off everyone will be.