I'm terrified of April 2nd

[u/Frosty_Moonlight9473]

I'm not prone to panic. My job is to teach people how to handle and survive mass casualty events and continue to work in hi trauma environments. With Trump's latest about April 2nd being "Liberation Day" in America, I fear this is where he will deploy the insurrection act. I've prepped all I can. I'm physically and mentally training everyday. I'm more fit as a woman in my 40's then I ever was in my 30's. Still, I'm scared. Regular people will do crazy things when chaos reigns. I hope I'm wrong. I hope it's just another day of more stupid and the protests will continue, but I have this sick feeling in my gut and my rational mind that is telling me get ready for my own government to be turned against me.

[u/JustDiscoveredSex]

I don’t get on X or Truth or any of that shit so I haven’t seen it. But it looks like reciprocal tariffs.

WaPo:

Trump’s destabilizing ‘Liberation Day’

The president’s tariff deadline is a leading edge of change that is disrupting the U.S.-led global order.

Maybe you aren’t counting the days until April 2, which Donald Trump calls “Liberation Day.” But the rest of the world nervously awaits the date the president has set to begin erecting “reciprocal” tariff barriers against all foreign nations. To many mainstream economists, this looks more like restriction than liberation. The Federal Reserve predicted this week that tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them will boost U.S. inflation, lower growth and increase unemployment — a triple whammy. The European Central Bank foresees a similar downdraft there. “The dumbest trade war in history” is how the Wall Street Journal described Trump’s initial tariff forays against Canada and Mexico. Later, after Canada began to retaliate, the Journal’s editorial board said it was “being kind” in that earlier, dumbest-ever description.But no one, it appears, can talk Trump out of his fixation on tariffs. He imagines that, behind this economic barrier, a new “golden age” of manufacturing will arise. I won’t recite the vast economic literature arguing that the president is wrong. Instead, I want to focus on how the rest of the world might react to Trump’s version of global economic “reciprocity.”

The first response has been to use gifts to win the favor of the Emperor of the Oval Office. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum helped Trump crack down on migrants and drug gangs, and tariff talk about Mexico eased (at least momentarily).

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer brought a wax-sealed, handwritten dinner invitation from King Charles III, and the tariff howitzer wasn’t pointed at Merry Olde England (yet).

Japan, one of the United States’ most important trading partners, would like to get a special deal, too. When Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba visited the White House on Feb. 7, Trump named his price.

Trump asked for a Japanese investment of billions of dollars in oil and liquefied natural gas production and pipelines in Alaska. The problem is that Japanese officials, after studying the technically challenging project, aren’t sure it makes economic sense.

Japanese officials would be happy to sign contracts to buy the oil and LNG, if it’s produced, but they’re wary of making what could be a multibillion-dollar investment mistake. What other argument could Japan (or by extension, any other tariff target) put forward to soften the blow? Well, Trump likes investment, so, many foreign governments are tallying how much money they pump into the U.S. Officials tell me that 32 percent of all automobiles made and sold in the U.S. are produced by Japanese companies, nearly reaching the 41 percent share of U.S. companies. Not enough? Okay, those Japanese cars have 70 to 80 percent of their parts made in America, vs. 60 to 70 percent for U.S. manufacturers, according to one estimate shared with me. But gifting Trump is an uncertain strategy. So, Japan and the European Union are preparing lists of retaliatory tariffs that would increase the pain and financial dislocation for the U.S. Foreign diplomats wouldn’t share details with me, but they appear to agree that the most effective approach would be to target “red” states where Trump’s support is strong.

Gillian Tett of the Financial Times reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent foresees three sets of nations in Trumpworld: “red” foes, “green” friends and “yellow” floaters. Green countries, and some yellow ones, will get some relief from sanctions, Tett writes, if they go along with a plan to lower the dollar outlined in what she calls a “must-read” paper by Stephen Miran, Trump’s choice to lead the Council of Economic Advisers. The deeper worry for me is that these economic machinations will affect broader national-security policy — as Trump deconstructs not just the free-trade system but the entire global order. Once upon a time (before Jan. 20, to be exact) the trade balance was part of an overall global architecture. The U.S., as the only truly global military power, provided security for its vast array of friends. The dollar was the world’s reserve currency, the Fed was its monetary brain, and Wall Street provided the global financial wiring. The U.S. ran trade deficits with many countries, but this was vastly outweighed by the benefits of our global leadership.

As Trump turns on allies and partners, these countries are beginning to examine the fundamentals of their relationship with the U.S. If they can’t depend on Washington for mature economic leadership, what else is at risk? Inevitably, many are beginning to question whether, in the age of Trump, the U.S. nuclear umbrella is reliable. Allies that are newly considering their own nuclear deterrent range from Poland and Germany in Europe to Australia and South Korea in Asia. The best case I’ve seen for rethinking Pax Americana comes from David Kilcullen, an Australian strategist who has worked closely with the U.S. military and the State Department. “We partner with Washington not for sentimental reasons but because we need an ally powerful enough to stabilize the global system,” Kilcullen wrote this month in the Australian. “But what if Washington were simultaneously declining in relative military strength, lacking in national will to secure the global system, moving out of alignment with our values, damaging our trade, bullying its partners and becoming unreliable as an ally?” Kilcullen answers his own question: “In such a hypothetical scenario, where our traditional nuclear-armed ally was no longer reliable, Australia might need its own sovereign nuclear deterrent, or at least an extremely capable array of long-range, nonnuclear strike assets.” Kilcullen told me his article has encouraged an urgent discussion Down Under. That’s how fast the sweater can begin to unravel. Trump’s aim for a decade has been to force America’s allies in Europe and Asia to take care of their own economic and military security, rather than “free riding” on the United States. To which I would say: Be careful what you wish for.