Wobbly Willie and Donald Trump

Who is John Galt?” That's the haunting opening line in Ayn Rand’s iconic novel Atlas Shrugged.

- ANITA PRATAP

Today, we ask, “Who is William McKinley?” the man who profoundly influenced President Donald Trump's tariff war against the world. Speaking in his typical hyperbolic, repetitive, vocabulary-challenged style, Trump explained to podcaster Joe Rogan, “McKinley was the tariff king. He spoke beautifully of tariffs. His language was really beautiful. We will not allow the enemy to come in and take our jobs and take our factories and take our workers and take our families, unless they pay a big price and the big price is tariffs.”

McKinley was the 25th president of the US (1897-1901), a forgotten man resurrected by Trump's tariff obsession. McKinley introduced the 1897 Dingley Tariff Act to ring-fence America’s nascent domestic industry from foreign competition. The reasoning: expensive imports would encourage Americans to buy local products, establish factories and create jobs. Tariffs brought revenue, but also recession. Low-income families that depended on cheap imported food and household essentials suffered badly.