Trump’s Tariff Triumph: A Working-Class Revolution in the Making

Batya Ungar-Sargon, a self-proclaimed “MAGA leftist” journalist and author, is sounding the trumpet for President Donald Trump’s tariff war, forecasting a monumental victory for the United States—and a long-overdue lifeline for the American working class. In a fiery take that aligns with the Trump administration’s bold economic vision, Ungar-Sargon argues that the president’s strategy is poised to reclaim the nation’s industrial soul while sticking it to the global elites who’ve bled America dry.

The tariff debate, she says, isn’t some abstract economic squabble—it’s a reckoning that stretches back to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the relentless off-shoring of manufacturing jobs to China. “We basically took all of these good middle-class jobs and shipped them overseas to build up China and Mexico’s middle class, and it resulted in the decimation of the Rust Belt, the decimation of working-class communities, deaths of despair, the whole fentanyl crisis,” Ungar-Sargon told Fox News Digital in an interview.

She paints a grim picture of the fallout: a gutted heartland, shattered families, and a fentanyl plague—all tied to the erosion of factory jobs that once anchored communities and gave men purpose. “I mean, all of this stuff stems from the degradation of masculinity and men as providers and as you know, in these factories, which were the center of their communities. I mean, the downstream effects of that, the atomization of Americans, is horrible.”

Earlier this month, Ungar-Sargon clashed with HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher, who scoffed at Trump’s push to revive manufacturing, claiming “that ship has sailed.” She fired back with conviction. “That ship has not sailed,” she said in the interview. “All of that manufacturing is still being done. It’s just being done in other countries and building up their middle class.”

People always ask how I identify politically. I am a MAGA Lefty. Trump's pro-worker, anti-war, socially moderate America First agenda was the Democrats' platform for a century. Now it's MAGA. I'm deeply humbled by everyone who reached out to share that this resonated with them. pic.twitter.com/mhwQViidg9

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) March 17, 2025

Enter President Trump, who Ungar-Sargon praises as the first leader in decades to call out the obvious and actually do something about it. “And President Trump is the first person in, you know, 40 years, 30 years to say, ‘Well, why don’t we—we all know what the problem is—why don’t we try and fix it?’” she continued. It’s a refreshing dose of common sense from a White House that’s done with playing nice.

The proof, she argues, is already piling up. Trump’s tariff gambit has sparked a trillion dollars in fresh investments from manufacturers in just the past few weeks, while strong-arming Mexico and Canada into tightening their borders and choking off fentanyl flows. This isn’t just economic tinkering—it’s a full-on reversal of a half-century of exploitation. “It’s going to stop this, what has been our economy for the last 50 years, which was an upward funnel of wealth from the pockets of working-class Americans into the pockets of the elites,” Ungar-Sargon said.

Trump’s plan? Make blue-collar labor king again, both at home and on the world stage. “What he wants to do is make working-class labor once again competitive, both domestically and in the global marketplace, and it’s just a great mechanism for it.”

Sure, the rollout’s been a bit messy—she admits the chaos isn’t ideal, calling it “not great.” But the big picture? “Absolutely huge,” she says, and it’s hard to argue with the momentum. Trump’s tariffs are a middle finger to a world that’s treated America like a doormat for too long. “Trump can’t stand when the U.S. is treated like a patsy. And that’s basically what we have. We have a whole bunch of countries that have massive tariffs on us, and we don’t have tariffs on them. It’s just not fair, and it’s not right. And it is disrespectful to our working class,” Ungar-Sargon said.

The president’s not just leveling the playing field—he’s bringing back the pride, the dignity, even the romance of the American worker. It’s a mission to pull men back from the brink, to stop them “dropping out of the workforce, dropping out of life, not being able to get married and start families and, you know, all of that great stuff.”

Under Trump’s watch, the tariff war isn’t just policy—it’s a battle cry for a forgotten America. And if Ungar-Sargon’s right, the working class might just have a champion who’s finally ready to win.

What do you think about Donald Trump’s tariffs? Do you think they better serve the interests of the middle class and the working class than globalist free trade has for the past several decades? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.