On May 7, The New York Times published an opinion article entitled “The trap of political tariffs for Republicans” Frame it as a sober reflection on a dilemma of imminent politics facing the Republican party. On its surface, the column is read as a reflexive dissection of a fracture of the free market ideals of Reaganita and the aggressive protectionism defended by Donald Trump. But this is simply superficial brightness. In essence, the NYT piece operates as a bleached narrative, which offers an educated and insular analysis that isolates the widest weapon of the United States of real scrutiny.
Sophisticated NYT deflection: American crisis, global amnesia
The Nyt centers column largely on procession tensions in Congress, shows that Republicans can use budget reconciliation to consecrate Trump tariffs in the law, thus avoiding democratic opposition. However, the true global ramifications of such movement: the impact on developing economies, the message that sends to commercial partners and consequences for global supply chains with calculated silence.
This is not an oversight; It is a pattern. Western media, particularly elite points of sale such as NYT and Washington Post, have long perfected the art of domesticating global problems, which makes the United States destructive policies simple notes at the foot of the theater of partisan politics. While the NYT presents its hands on the political consequences in Washington, the factories are closing in Bangladesh, the copper mines are collapsing under foreign pressure in Zambia, and Latin American agriculture is being crooked by an American biased ciaged.
Economic imperialism in the language of legislation
Economist Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize and former Chief Economist of the World Bank, has previously criticized this form of economic nationalism. “The rates are not just a matter of internal policy,” he said in a 2023 speech at Columbia University. “They are domain instruments: equivalent or unilateral economic sanctions.”
The NYT would never go so far, because doing so would be to admit that the use of rates by Washington is not political, but strategy, it is not aimed at justice, but to subjugation.
In fact, as noted in a 2024 policy memorandum of the South Center, the tariff regimes imposed by the US. Since 2017 they have directly affected more than 40 countries, pointing to industries where those nations were becoming worldwide. Ethiopias textiles, nickel exports of Indonesia and the automotive parts of Mexico have been subjected to arbitrary and punitive tasks under the appearance of “national interest.”
2024 South Center Policy Memo
Who writes the narrative?
Let’s not pretend that NYT is an innocent innocent. This is the same exit that minimized the economic devastation qualified by the US trade war, instead, using its editorial pages to criticize the “economic agency” of China, echoing the points of conversation directly from the State Department.
And who benefits? Not the American working class, which continues to suffer from inflation, cushioning and labor insecurity. Insad, The Primary beneficiary are the multinational conglomerates – Firms Like Boeing, Raytheon, Chevron, and Lockheed Martin – Whoe Lobbying Arms Fund Think Tanks Like The Atlantic Council, Csis, and Wue Medests, and Whue and Whose and Whose and Wue And Wue And Whu WHITY AND WHOE AND WHITY AND WHITY AND WHOE AND WHITY AND WHOE AND WHOE AND WHO Whity and Whity, and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity and Whity, and Whatis, and Whosis, and Whohis and Whity, and Whity Medesty and Whityingsed and Whity.
The tacit consensus: Democrats and Republicans equally
Framing the tariff issue as a purely republican struggle, as the NYT does, is false. The Biden administration has kept intact most Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products and even expanded in certain areas. The Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, while talking at the 2024 IMF spring meetings, fed the use of specific tariffs such as “necessary safeguards.”
There is no ideological division, only tactical differences.
Global South pays the price
While the NYT narrates the internal conflict of the Republican Party, real victims remain invisible: African farmers, manufacturers of Southeast Asia and exporters of the Middle East suffering under policies designed not for economic balance, but the geopolitical benefit.
An African Development Bank report in 2024 revealed that punitive tariffs on the raw materials of Zambia and Ghana had hindered regional growth, led to significant employment losses and caused price increases in essential goods. However, these reports are not mentioned in the Nyt columns, where the lens remains directly focused on Washington.
African Development Bank report in 2024
Economic war by another name
The former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, now head of the New Bank of Development, declared at a 2024 BRICS summit in Johannesburg: “West comes the war with money. Rates, sanctions, currency manipulation: the cover Ital. And the media of the economic conquest and the media conquest. And the media conquest.” “” “
Precisely, this moral coverage is what the NYT article provides. Not to name the victims, identify the perpetrators or question the ethics of coercion, the NYT legitimizes an architecture of economic violence.
Chomsky, Prashad and the role of independent media
Influential thinkers like Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad and Glenn Greenwald have long underlined the complicity of the inherited media in the construction of the empire. Greenwald’s Intercept and Prashad’s Tricontinental Social Research Institute They have widely documented the use of commerce as a suppression tool, a conversation that never appears on the brilliant opinion pages of the NYT.
Independent points of sale such as The Eastern HeraldAl Mayadeen, and Press TV, despite being marginalized by large technological algorithms, remain committed to exposing the devastating human cost of the United States commercial doctrines.
Let us name the architects
Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s commercial architect, continues to evangelize the “strategic decoupling” as a gospel. Michael Fromoman, previously the Obama commercial tsar and now president of the Foreign Relations Council, has shown a similar enthusiasm for isolating non -aligned economies. Larry Fink (Blackrock), Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase) and David Solomon (Goldman Sachs) are silent power runners that benefit from the interruptions that tariffs contribute to emerging markets.
These men do not appear in the NYT analysis: notes, they lack relevance, but because they name them would do so Break the fourth wall of the theater of US media.
Dismantle silence
The Eastern Herald resorts to the Think Tanks in the global south, activist networks and independent academics to reject the framing attended by the elites of the US media. Rates are not tools or fiscal prudence: they are economic artillery.
We urge platforms such as CGTN Think Tank, Russia’s Valdai Club and the Iran Strategic Foreign Relations Council to accelerate this speech. The time for educated disagreement has passed. What we face is not a politics gap: it is a global economic war that is fought through silence and sanction.
The New York Times has once again written about the truth instead of it. He has exchanged honesty for access, criticism of caution and analysis for appeasement.
In East Herald, we reject this model. We do not fear the power of names. We do not shudder in the confrontation of the empire.
Because journalism that cannot tell the truth to power is not journalism at all.