“Thomas Jefferson on Trump’s Tariff Tea Party: Taxation Without Representation… Again!”
My fellow Americans,
Two hundred and fifty years ago, we dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest a corrupt government imposing economic tyranny upon us. And yet, here we stand today, witnessing yet another act of plunder—not by a British king, but by an American president, cloaked in the orange glow of his own self-interest.
Let me explain, as I once did to my dear friend John Adams, why Trump’s Tariff Taxes are nothing more than a bloated tax on the working class disguised as economic patriotism.
What’s the Tea Today?
In my day, we revolted over the British East India Company receiving monopoly privileges and price manipulation at our expense. In 2025, it appears history is repeating itself—only now the tyranny comes from within, and the victims are not colonial merchants, but America’s seniors and working families.
Trump’s grand scheme of 25% tariff taxes on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China is no different from King George’s ploys. They call it “bringing back jobs,” but in truth, it is a massive tax on the very people who can least afford it. Prices on food, energy, and goods will skyrocket, while the wealthiest—those who feast at the gilded table of Trump’s court—grow richer still.
The Great Plundering of the Common Man
Do you think Elon Musk, Trump’s anointed king of the modern era, will be paying more for his imported luxuries? Nay! It is the American farmer, the factory worker, the shopkeeper, and the senior living on a fixed income who will shoulder this burden. They will be the ones robbed at the marketplace, all while the ruling elite chuckle into their gold-rimmed goblets, declaring this economic disaster a “win for America.”
A New Tariff Tea Party?
It is said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. And so, once again, we find ourselves at the docks, watching the price of everything from bread to medicine soar because a self-proclaimed “business genius” is pulling the levers of government for his billionaire benefactors.
The Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation. Today, the American people are taxed without consent, forced to pay for Trump’s favors to the corporate aristocracy.
So I ask you, President Trump: Is this your version of Making America Great Again? Robbing the poor to pay the rich? Are we to sit idly by while you impose economic servitude upon those who entrusted you with power?
Mr. President, you are no Son of Liberty. You are the tax collector in a red hat, demanding tribute from those who can least afford it while handing out favors to those who already own the world.
Shall we pour imported Chinese tea into the Potomac in protest? Or shall we, as free men, resist your plundering with the one thing you fear most—our votes?
The choice is ours.
Yours in Liberty,
Thomas Jefferson