Trump's Tariffs Are Doing What the Fed Couldn't - Fixing Yellen's Biggest Mistake
President Trump didn’t come back to office to play defense, he came to clean up the mess Biden left behind. The economy? Bloated. The debt? Out of control. The bond market? On life support. And Trump’s first big move? Tariffs. On every country.
Not just China. Everyone. Why? Because for years, other countries taxed our goods while we played the nice guy. Under Biden, we kept letting it happen, America was the global free trade doormat. Now Trump’s changing that narrative and using tariffs as an economic weapon. And yes, it’s working.
What Biden Actually Left Behind
Biden ran trillion-dollar deficits like it was a Black Friday sale. No war, no national emergency, except the one he created in Ukraine, just nonstop spending. And to keep the optics under control, the administration shifted how it borrowed money.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen leaned heavily into short-term debt, specifically Treasury bills, rather than issuing longer-term bonds.
Let me break this down.
When Janet Yellen was running the Treasury under Biden, she started borrowing money in the worst possible way: short-term.
Imagine if you had a mortgage, but instead of locking in a 30-year fixed rate while rates were low, you chose to refinance every 3 months. Sounds dumb, right? That’s basically what she did with America’s debt.
Normally, the U.S. spreads out its borrowing, some short-term, some long-term, to stay stable. But in 2023, Yellen ramped up short-term borrowing, taking it from 15% to 22% of all U.S. debt. That’s over $1 trillion in debt that comes due within months, not years. Debt that under normal conditions would have been issued as notes and bonds.
Why would she do that? Because it makes things look calm on paper. By issuing less long-term debt, she kept the 10-year Treasury yield artificially low. That pushed stock prices up and made the economy look like it was doing better than it actually was, conveniently right before the election.
But now? All that short-term debt is rolling over at today’s higher interest rates. So the government’s interest payments are skyrocketing. Just like someone who took out a cheap loan and now has to pay it back at a brutal rate.
The Reality Behind the Jobs Numbers
The Biden administration bragged about a low unemployment rate, but here’s what they left out:
Government jobs ballooned. Paid by you and me.
Low-wage immigrant labor filled gaps in construction, food service, and other sectors.
So yes, “unemployment” looked low, but it wasn’t the kind of job growth that builds a strong economy. Productivity was flat. Wages got crushed by inflation. It was a padded stat sheet, not real progress.
Trump’s Strategy: Inflation Control Through Tariffs
Donald Trump understands the real threat: the 10-year Treasury yield. It’s the foundation for mortgage rates, business loans, and the government’s cost of borrowing. And right now, it’s too high because of the economic instability Biden created.
So what does Trump do? He hits the world with tariffs. Not for show. Not for politics. For strategy.
Tariffs increase prices in the short term, which slows demand, cools imports, and tamps down inflation expectations. That’s what brings the 10-year yield down. Not Fed magic or Wall Street manipulation. Just actual economic pressure.
And for everyone in finance or economics who’s quick to criticize Trump, take a step back. If you actually understand how debt markets work, if you understand inflation and bond yields, then you should be the first to recognize what President Trump’s doing here.
It’s not chaos, it’s correction. Bashing him while ignoring the structural mess he inherited is lazy analysis.
Trump’s not relying on the Fed to save the day. He’s using policy tools, like tariffs, to directly impact the macro picture. It’s old-school economic leverage with a modern playbook.
Why It Matters
Biden mismanaged the debt and sold the illusion of growth.
Yellen bailed on traditional long-term debt strategy, betting on short-term bills to mask the real risk.
The bond market stopped trusting U.S. debt management, and yields spiked.
Trump stepped in and used tariffs to control inflation and repair bond market confidence, without needing the Fed to slash rates.
This isn’t just about trade deals. This is about reshaping how the U.S. economy operates, and how the world interacts with it.
Last Words
President Trump didn’t walk into a stable economy, he inherited a fragile system running on stimulus fumes and fake stats. Now, he’s restoring leverage, bringing discipline to debt markets, and putting America first in global trade for real.
The tariffs? They’re not just a headline. They’re a solution. A way to protect the dollar, anchor yields, and fix what Biden broke.
This is economic leadership. Like it or not, this is what cleaning up looks like.
One thing that most people overlook is that the trade deficit provides an infinite market for USD, which allows the government to borrow ad infinitum. If tariffs were high enough to eliminate the trade deficit, this would cripple the government's ability to borrow—solving a problem that has to this point been intractable.