Tariffs? Same Sh*t, Different Decade—Trump’s Pulling a USFL
WATCH VIDEO: Donald Trump destroyed the USFL chasing headlines. Now he’s doing the same to the American economy with his reckless tariff war.
There’s a reason Donald Trump keeps leaving wreckage behind.
It’s not bad luck. It’s not a learning curve.
It’s a pattern—and one we ignore at our own peril.
In the 1980s, he destroyed a promising new football league out of pure vanity.
In 2025, he’s on track to sabotage the American economy the same way—with tariffs, trade wars, and no plan to clean up the mess.
The common thread?
Trump doesn’t care about long-term results. He only cares about how something makes him look right now.
Whether it’s a football league, a global supply chain, or the working class, the outcome is always the same:
Trump touches it, and it burns.
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The USFL—Trump’s First Victim
The United States Football League (USFL) launched in 1983 with a bold vision: professional spring football, televised nationally, with real talent and real potential. Players like Jim Kelly, Steve Young, and Reggie White got their start in the USFL. The games were competitive, the crowds enthusiastic, and the league had momentum.
Then Trump showed up.
He bought the New Jersey Generals not to build the league—but to use it as a stepping stone to buy his way into the NFL. And like everything Trump does, it became all about him. He pressured the USFL owners to abandon their spring schedule and go head-to-head with the NFL in the fall, assuming the NFL would fold or offer him a franchise in a merger.
It was a suicide mission.
The USFL wasn’t financially or structurally ready to challenge the NFL juggernaut. But Trump didn’t care—he wanted the fight, because it got him headlines. When the league followed him into that disaster, it went down in flames.
He led them into a courtroom, suing the NFL for antitrust violations. The USFL won the case—but only on paper. The jury awarded a grand total of $1 in damages, tripled to $3 under antitrust law. Symbolic victory, total failure.
Shortly after, the league folded. Hundreds of players lost their dreams. Cities lost their teams. Workers lost jobs. Trump walked away.
TikTok from Jeff Pearlman: Author of Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL
The Tariff Trap—Same Game, Bigger Stage
Fast-forward to 2025.
Trump is back in power, and this time he’s applying the same destructive logic to international trade. Once again, there’s no long-term plan. Just a big, dumb weapon—tariffs—and a target on anyone who gets in his way.
He’s already levied tariffs as high as 145% on Chinese imports and floated new penalties on goods from Europe, Mexico, and Canada. He brags about these tariffs at rallies, portraying them as “tough on China” and “good for American workers.”
It’s a lie.
Trump’s tariffs are already:
Raising prices on everyday goods like clothing, electronics, and groceries
Disrupting supply chains
Provoking retaliatory tariffs from trade partners
Squeezing small businesses and American manufacturers
Fueling inflation during a fragile recovery
And just like the USFL, there’s no strategy beyond the headline.
No plan to rebuild industry. No worker training. No investment in factories or vocational infrastructure. Just vibes—and a tax on the American consumer disguised as patriotism.
Trump’s Ego as Economic Policy
This isn’t about economics. It’s about ego.
Trump doesn’t care if the USFL dies. He didn’t care if farmers went bankrupt during his first trade war. He doesn’t care if American families pay more for shoes and food. He cares about optics, applause, and dominance.
In the USFL, he mistook courtroom drama for smart business.
With tariffs, he mistakes conflict for control.
In both cases, the damage is real:
The USFL had the potential to be a lasting league. He blew it up for personal gain.
The American economy has the potential to lead the world. He’s dragging it into chaos to feed his narcissism.
And in both cases, when it falls apart, he’ll blame someone else—China, the Fed, the media, “the deep state.”
He’s already laying the groundwork for that next excuse.
A Warning to the Working Class
If you’re a worker in this country, this matters more than anything.
Because Trump sells his image as your champion. But in truth, he’s the guy who promises you a job and then bets the factory on a coin toss.
Ask the USFL players who lost their contracts.
Ask the farmers who lost export markets in 2018.
Ask the small business owners getting crushed by import costs today.
Trump doesn’t build economies. He builds chaos.
And then he watches from the sidelines while everyone else tries to clean it up.
He Did It Before. He’s Doing It Again.
The USFL didn’t fail because of bad football.
It failed because Trump mistook it for a PR campaign.
The American economy won’t fail because of foreign competition.
It will fail if we keep letting a conman run it like a personal brand.
He doesn’t have a playbook.
He has a pattern: inflate the hype, break the system, walk away clean.
And if we let him keep running that same play…
The next collapse won’t just take down a football league.
It’ll take down all of us.
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We just hit 12,000 subscribers—thank you! To celebrate, we’re offering full access to The Coffman Chronicle for just $1 a week ($52/year).
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Whenever I see a picture of the young orange shithead, I immediately think, “Goddam, he’s always been so fugly!” Stupid too, of course, and nothing but a grifting phony, but sweet Jesus, that was never a good looking man.