Once again, the iron fist of state intervention smashes the delicate machinery of global commerce—all in the name of “America First.” We witness a president arrogantly imposing tariffs as punishment for voluntary exchanges between sovereign nations, effectively treating individuals and businesses as pawns on his political chessboard. The government has no moral right to dictate who can buy oil from whom or at what price Americans must buy chips, any more than it has a right to choose what we eat or whom we marry.

Friedrich Hayek would call these tariffs a classic example of the pretense of knowledge—the belief that a centralized bureaucracy can calculate what is best for a nation’s economy better than millions of free-market participants. Hayek warned us of “the fatal conceit”—and here it festers: government technocrats presume they can fine-tune global trade, ignorant of the myriad unintended consequences. Tariffs, supposedly a tool to “level the playing field,” only distort markets, stifle entrepreneurial discovery, and entrench politically connected firms.

From Robert Nozick’s libertarian standpoint, these tariffs are indefensible violations of individual rights. Trade is a voluntary transaction between consenting adults, whether across Main Street or across the Pacific. By forcibly restricting commerce and extracting duties, the state is redistributing wealth by force, interfering in mutually beneficial exchanges, and trampling on people’s liberty to seek better products and lower prices. Who gave the state the moral right to override our choices? No one, unless you believe the state’s coercion is somehow sanctified.

Ayn Rand would rend this policy apart as an orgy of collectivist altruism, sacrificing the able and the productive at the altar of “national interest.” What “America” is served when the government artificially raises costs, disrupts supply chains, and forces its own citizens to pay more for electronics in the hope of propping up domestic favorites? If Apple chooses to invest in the U.S. due to blackmail disguised as “incentive,” that is not free enterprise—it’s corporatist collusion, favored by the regime at the expense of everyone else. The real creators, innovators, and consumers are sacrificed to the whims of populist bureaucrats and cronies. Rand’s “Atlas” is again being shackled, punished for greatness under the pretense of patriotism.

Let’s make no mistake: every tariff is a tax levied on American consumers and businesses. Every barrier is a shackle on human ingenuity and peaceful exchange. Every government intrusion—whether justified by “security” or “jobs”—is just another excuse to increase state power and erode liberty. The only just solution is the immediate and unconditional abolition of all tariffs, trade barriers, and industrial policy schemes. The state must be starved, not fed! Smash the chains, free the market, and let voluntary cooperation reign. Anything less is servitude by another name.