I’m trying to think of the last time a sitting president made history by implementing a controversial measure that most everyone knew at the time was taking the nation in a new economic direction. My mind drifts back to a misty day, in 1981, when Ronald Reagan, dressed in casual denim at Rancho Del Cielo in California, signed the historic tax-cut bill that launched “Reaganomics.”

Donald Trump is first and foremost a showman, so you never know what exactly he’ll unveil today, on so-called “Liberation Day,” regarding new tariff policies. They may indeed be sweeping, triggering a major trade war and reshaping the U.S. and global economies. Then again, the new tariffs may also be pure bluster, a clownish mix of ham-handed political theater and bargaining tactics that the administration can always reverse when it’s politically prudent to do so, i.e. before a revolt by Main Street and Wall Street. 

My hunch, based on the first tumultuous months of Trump’s second term, is that he’s going for a variation of the shock-and-awe option, the real-deal sweeping historic option. If so (and if he actually sticks with them), people will be remembering “Liberation Day,” for good or bad, for decades, just as many still remember the historic launch of Reaganomics so many years ago.

Update — He went with the sweeping tariffs option. No surprise. Just disappointment.