My grandmother grew up during the Great Depression. The Real Great Depression, the one where people gave away their own children so they could survive. A really depressing time in America, not the manufactured events that our politicians create today. When Donald Trump was in the White House Rose Garden and declared that April 2 was “Liberation Day.” The president unveiled a baseline 10% tariff on all trade. The legacy media and Democrats could not wait to declare another American Great Depression that very same day.
“Donald Trump’s tariff plan could bring us back to the 1930s,” was reported by The Hill on October 4, 2024. Even before Trump was re-elected, the legacy left-leaning media made dire predictions. They claimed we were headed for another economic depression in America. The Hill contributors literally compared Trump’s tariff plans to the stock market crash of October 1929. Contributors like former Reps. Charlie Dent (R) and Dan Glickman (D), said Trump would destroy the American economy that the Biden administration created.
The Hill article ends with this comment, “the Trump tariff plan is a direct threat to American jobs and our global economic leadership. It is clearly not a risk worth taking in this era of unpredictable global economic and political stability.” Comments and articles like this are why America is not respected in the global markets. The uncertainty in the global economy comes from articles that undermine and let us be honest, “embellish the truth”!
Let us try to compare 2025 and Trump’s tariffs that created a so-called depression in today’s market, to the real Great Depression. This is how you learn from your history. And this is how you learn what to believe and who not to believe. Let us compare. When the Great Depression hit cities around the world, especially those dependent on heavy industry, were heavily affected. Construction had virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%.
The Great Depression was so harmful because politicians failed to act. They failed to act during the successful “Roaring Twenties”, and they failed to act when the market crashed. The effects of failed leadership made the recovery from the depression even harder. Politicians never reacted; they had no adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929. The difference between the media comparing today’s American economy to the one we had in 1929. Is one simple word, “American Capitalism”. All trade and commerce go through or too America, first. The USA is the consumer of the world’s products.
Do you know anyone on a cruise right now? Do you think people from America are on vacation in Italy or France today? Did Carnival Cruise Line cancel every itinerary scheduled because of the next Trump economic depression? Has construction stopped on the highways and cities anywhere you look? When Trump’s tariffs were implemented, did the already Biden administration inflated prices at the grocery store go up, or down?
Another non-comparison of the Great Depression and today’s Trump tariff war. During the depression families were torn apart. Parents were financially unable to care for their loved ones. Families faced immediate financial challenges as the loss of income meant that many could no longer afford basic necessities. Families were forced to make difficult choices regarding food, shelter, and healthcare. The concept of “making ends meet” took on a new and more desperate significance. Many families resorted to drastic measures, including giving away their own children to survive.
Have any of our children come running home from school to tell us half their class is gone? Have your neighbors put their children in the front yard for sale next to the ’87 Trans Am? We are the generation of Americans that enjoy the beauty of “White Privilege”. Everyone alive living in America today lives in a King mentality. The economy of the US literally has people that will shop for whatever you want and then deliver it to you. All we do now as Americans is just tap the button on our phones.
Historians say the Great Depression was created by high unemployment rates and widespread poverty. There were drastic reductions in industrial production and trade, and numerous bank and business failures. That almost sounds like what got America into the mess we are in today. The stock market boom during the Biden administration was limited to the wealthy. It primarily benefited the well-connected. The AI stock market boom was BIG Tech and billionaires that got rich during that time. Historians say the depression was caused by the lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity. The initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. All the events that happened under the Biden administration and during COVID.
When Trump announced the tariffs in 2025, the stock market took a dip. The money lost was the fake boom that AI generated. The only problem is that the boom is all hot air and speculation. AI and the technology that runs it is being developed as we speak. There is not even a government infrastructure or accountability in place. We have to repurpose Nuclear Silos and Nuclear plants to create enough energy to power the AI infrastructure future. Maybe the cost and environmental factors to power AI, is more of a threat to America than Trump’s tariffs?
Maybe the left legacy media and the fear pushing Democrats want you to feel negative things like the Great Depression? They must push the theory that everything Trump touches, will fall to pieces. In the midst of the depression, governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods. Most foreign countries started to “impose tariffs, create import quotas, and make exchange controls”. These restrictions triggered much tension among countries with substantial bilateral trade. This caused major reductions in export-import activities during the depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced “trade and exchange restrictions only marginally.”
This is exactly what Trump did, he imposed tariffs. How could Trump create the Great Depression of 2025 and do what other countries did to stop the harmful effects of the depression? Governments across the globe created tariffs to keep their economies strong and still have a Gold Standard. Countries that remained on the gold standard, keeping currencies fixed, were more likely to restrict foreign trade during the Great Depression.
Was the United States of America in a Great Depression under the Biden administration and no one told us? Is this another cover-up by the Biden Harris team to fool America again? Everything President Donald Trump is doing, sounds like what other countries did during the Great Depression. Is Trump saving the American economy from further depreciation? Countries that abandoned the gold standard during the depression allowed their currencies to depreciate, which caused their balance of payments to strengthen.
Historians and economic experts point to other factors that created the worse economy in US history. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States. Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors. Contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System. Just as President Trump disagrees with the Federal Reserve today and the policies of Jerome Powell the chair of the Reserve. Did the Federal Reserve purposely slow down the reducing of interest rates during the Biden administration to prolong the depression Biden created?
Has history just repeated itself again, and again. The Federal Reserve during the depression acted in the same manner as Jerome Powell did. Donald Trump had problems with how the Federal Reserve acted during his first China trade war in 2019. On November 2, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Powell to serve as the chair of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet Yellen at the helm of the central bank. On December 5, the Senate Banking Committee approved Powell’s nomination to be chair in a 22–1 vote, with Senator Elizabeth Warren casting the lone dissenting vote.
One of Powell’s first actions was to raise US interest rates. This was in response to the increasing strength of the US economy. He also announced that the Fed would reduce its asset portfolio from $4.5 trillion to $3 trillion over four years in a process called quantitative tightening. This tight policy drew public criticism from President Trump, who expressed second thoughts about nominating Powell. The Federal Reserve continued to apply elevated levels of monetary stimulus to further raise asset prices and support growth, some observers perceived a disconnect between asset prices and the economy.
These actions by the Federal Reserve crumbled financial assets in 2018 and markets erupted in volatility in December. Powell abandoned quantitative tightening in early 2019, leading to a recovery in asset prices. And maybe the greatest economy in American history. Trump continued to state that Powell was not reacting quickly enough. As a trade war with China escalated over the summer of 2019, Trump called the Fed’s policies “insane” and labeled Powell an “enemy.” In August of 2019, Trump completely disagreed with Powell’s approach and called for a sharp cut in interest rates. In October 2019, as asset prices waned, Powell announced the Fed would return to expanding its balance sheet. This decision led to a global rally in assets.
Still the left legacy media and Democrats will not stop using the word “Trump Tariffs” during every chance they get. The US used tariffs way before the Great Depression of 1929 and Trump’s second term. NPR News Chandelis Duster compared Trump’s tariffs to the Great Depression. On March 6, 2025, he asked the question, “did tariffs contribute to the Great Depression”? Economics professor Gary Richardson at the University of California had this to say.
Did tariffs cause the Great Depression? “Certainly not,” says Richardson. Richardson is a former historian of the Federal Reserve System. “The depression started when tariffs were low. So, the tariffs or the thought of having tariffs were not a cause of the Great Depression,” Richardson tells NPR. So, history and historians have a different story than the left media. I guess the only one I can trust is my grandmother.