The Destruction of the American Dream – The Ugly Big Lie

Frenchtown, an unremarkable place with just under 2,000 residents in Missoula County in western Montana, exemplifies the rural West of the United States – and both the hope and the challenges associated with the American entrepreneurial spirit. The settlement was founded in the 19th century, when French-Canadian fur traders and trappers opened up the fertile valley and gave it its name. For a long time, Frenchtown lived primarily from agriculture, forestry, and later from a large paper mill that was the region’s biggest employer for decades. With the closure of the mill in 2010, the town lost much of its industrial identity and had to realign itself economically. Today, smaller craft businesses, agriculture and forestry, tourism, and some innovative manufacturers like Montana Knife Company shape the town’s character. Politically, Frenchtown is rather conservative – the majority of its inhabitants vote Republican, which is typical for rural areas of Montana. At the same time, the proximity to Missoula, a university-oriented, rather progressive city, ensures a certain cultural and economic exchange. Frenchtown thus stands symbolically for many small towns in the American West: caught between tradition and change, with a strong community, but also the uncertainties of the new economy.

It is one of those stories that sums up everything that is so toxic and shortsighted about current US trade policy. Josh Smith, founder and CEO of Montana Knife Company, was once a fervent supporter of Donald Trump. He believed in the promise to make America great again, to protect industry, and to keep jobs in the country. Today, he is left with the shards of that illusion – and with him, a growing part of the American middle class.

Smith is not an outsider, not a theorist, but a prime example of what Trump’s team always called the “heart of the nation”: an entrepreneur who, during the pandemic, built a knife factory in his garage in the small town of Frenchtown, Montana, focusing entirely on quality and US production. His company boomed while politics in Washington stumbled from one recession to the next. But now, after Trump’s tariff policy kicked in, Smith is feeling the full force of this supposedly patriotic agenda. A highly specialized grinding machine from Germany, originally ordered at a fair market price of $515,000, now costs $77,250 more thanks to punitive tariffs. Not because Smith is importing cheap mass-produced goods – but because there is no comparable machine available in the United States.

“Then punish those who make knives in Taiwan and China – that’s fine by me. But I’m the one who makes knives in America, Donald Trump. Don’t punish me for making knives in America by slapping tariffs on my equipment and my steel. Slap tariffs on those who don’t make anything in America at all. That’s what’s called differentiation in policy, and that’s exactly what I’m asking for.”

Smith now explains resignedly – and thus sums up what is long ignored in the political sphere. Trump’s tariffs do not just hit Chinese dumping products or questionable cheap imports, but cut through the entire value chain. Steel, machinery, even the complex components that make up high-tech “Made in USA,” suddenly become luxury goods. The result: Companies like Montana Knife Company pay more and more, invest less, hire fewer people, and postpone innovations. In the end, products become more expensive for everyone, competition declines, and the supposed protection of the domestic economy turns into its opposite. What is sold as a signal to the stock market – constant muscle flexing, frantic tweets, artificially fueled price rallies – is, in truth, a risky game with the downfall of the real economy.

How dramatic the effects are is shown by specific price lists that have hardly ever been made public.

The scale of this price shock is exemplified by the price lists for an industrial vacuum system from US supplier Ipsen (see video of this documentation) that we have obtained. While the total cost for a “Titan H2 12 bar Vacuum Furnace,” including all options and spare parts, was about $725,000 in the summer of 2024, the price for the same system climbed to more than $850,000 less than twelve months later. The reason: In addition to global supply shortages, it is primarily Trump’s new import tariffs that are driving up the costs for machines and components – even for US suppliers. This development is crystal clear in the clear price breakdowns from Ipsen: Between July 2024 and July 2025 alone, the difference adds up to well over $100,000 – a real, documented additional burden for every American company that wants to invest in modern production. These numbers are no longer just abstract calculations, but have long been a bitter reality for US industry – and a creeping threat to the entire business location.

Anyone who thinks this development is a marginal phenomenon is gravely mistaken. Estimates suggest that the effective tariffs Trump recently announced could reach up to 80 percent in some sectors. Anyone who speculates that the US economy can remain autarkic and sealed off from global interdependence is living in a parallel world. The collateral damage is already enormous: Small and medium-sized businesses are facing ruin, large corporations simply pass on the additional costs to the end price – or move abroad.

The political context is even more fatal: Trump’s administration no longer sees itself as a representative of overall societal interests but acts like an insider club that prioritizes stock market gains and its own finances. Insider trading, cronyism, leaks to privileged circles – everything seems focused on short-term optimization of personal profit. The White House increasingly resembles an investment firm with an attached PR department, publicly preaching patriotism but privately using every loophole for personal enrichment.

This development does not go unnoticed internationally. While Trump’s team is ever more shameless in shutting off domestic markets while at the same time relying on foreign know-how, Europe remains strangely hesitant. Instead of pursuing a clear strategy against American tariff and subsidy policy, endless papers are written in Brussels and Berlin, but hardly any political resolve is shown. That plays right into Trump’s hands: As long as Europe does not respond seriously and become independent, he can continue to serve his clientele and line his own pockets.

The global economy is at risk of plunging into chaos because of this policy. Protectionism, accusations of dumping, trade wars, the tearing apart of supply chains – none of this leads to growth or greater prosperity, but to uncertainty, instability, and ultimately social dynamite. What began as the bogeyman of “America First” has long since degenerated into an “every man for himself” slogan.

Josh Smith, the knifemaker from Montana, is not alone in his fate. He represents a growing number of American entrepreneurs who are realizing that they are working for a government that now has only one agenda: power, profit, and maximum self-enrichment. Trump’s tariffs are not the protective wall against globalization they are sold as – they are the guillotine that slowly and mercilessly beheads the domestic economy.

And as long as no one has the courage to resolutely oppose this course, the American dream remains exactly what it has become for many these days: a damn expensive illusion.

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