Tariffed and Terrified

A giant steel-and-concrete factory labeled “US MATERIALS SECTOR” sits on a gleaming hill, belching thick, greasy smoke that forms the words “RECORD EARNINGS.” At the factory gate, a grinning Wall Street analyst in a blazer stamped “Brokerage Research” holds up a report titled “5-YEAR HIGHS” and pats a towering stack of gold bars labeled “TARIFF WINDFALL.” Down the hill, an overworked US consumer in a holiday sweater labeled “Shaky Confidence” struggles to push an empty shopping cart up a broken, pothole-ridden road marked “MAIN STREET.” The cracks in the road are stuffed with IOUs and past-due bills. On the far side, a barbed-wire border fence made of steel beams is tagged “TARIFF WALL.” On the foreign side of the fence, a ghostly factory skyline in China and Mexico is fading out—but the smog from their chimneys drifts freely over the fence and merges with the US factory smoke, forming a single, darker cloud that hangs over a small, withered tree tagged “Climate.” High above, a billboard reads “STRONG AMERICA” with an American flag; tiny disclaimers along the bottom say “Offer applies to commodity producers only. Consumer and planet sold separately.”