Donald Trump’s most consequential construction project may not be a ballroom or an arch, but his tariff wall.
His latest threat to raise tariffs to 50 percent on some Canadian goods, as drastic as it is, is not nearly as significant as what’s coming next. By the end of this month, the administration is expected to introduce major tariffs on dozens of countries intended to ensure what once was a temporary regime lasts well beyond this presidency. Unlike most previous rounds of tariffs, including the ones just threatened on Canada, the new ones are backed by monthslong investigations into alleged unfair trade practices by other countries. No court has ever overturned this kind of tariff.
But the biggest obstacle to undoing Mr. Trump’s tariffs after 2028 won’t be legal. It will be financial. With the national debt clocking in at a staggering $39.6 trillion, the market responsible for selling this debt has quickly grown addicted to the money coming into the government every day thanks to tariffs. Few politicians are willing to upset the bond market given that it dictates the cost of borrowing money for some of the most important purchases Americans make including their cars and their homes. Rather than be constrained by these forces, the next president can find a way to use them to the country’s advantage.
It’s a situation almost no one saw coming. It was the bond market that originally thwarted Mr. Trump’s tariffs only 15 months ago.
In April 2025, on the so-called Liberation Day, the president threatened to raise tariffs on nearly everything America imports to their highest level in nearly a century. Bond markets panicked, fearing that a global trade war could bring higher prices and slow growth, and they went into a nosedive, leading Mr. Trump to pause his plans a week later. “I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky,” he admitted at the time.
But Mr. Trump, still convinced that tariffs are the best economic weapon he has available to fix what he believes is an unfair trading system, never abandoned the strategy. In the months following, he relentlessly added tariffs on countries including America’s major trading partners. This time, the bond market shrugged. It certainly helped that the risk of a global trade war faded as Europe, India and Japan all declined to retaliate. At the same time, the United States was adding an estimated $40 billion a week to the national debt. Wall Street found that number much easier to swallow thanks to the new tariff money flowing into the Treasury.
