Bitcoin doesn’t care about tariffs

“The problem is not tariffs, interest rates or the choice of the favorite economic variable. The problem is that there are a handful of people capable of pronouncing a few words and causing global chaos.”

Jameson Lopp

The main problem that society has faced throughout history is how to defend against potential ravages that politicians can cause. All democracy is articulated around this problem. For this, the empire of the law was created, the separation of powers, the alternation, concepts that seek to stop the abuse of power and mitigate the potential negative effects of their decisions.

However, the facts show us that, even within these supposed limits, there is sufficient room for arbitrariness. Regardless of the good or bad intentions, and even within the borders of law, politicians can make decisions that are devastating for freedom, and, in the case that is responsible in this article, for the economy. Nevertheless, Today we have one of the counterweights – factual, not conceptual – More useful that has existed in history: Bitcoin.

It is for or against, it would be blindness to contradict that the tariff war initiated by Donald Trump unleashed chaos in the markets.

Tariff ads, such as the “Day of Liberation” of April 2, 2025, caused historical falls in global bags. Wall Street registered its worst week since 2020, with the Dow falling 2,200 points and the S&P 500 losing 6% in a single day after China’s response with tariffs of 34%. Asian bags, such as Tokyo Nikkei, fell between 2%and 5%, and European markets, including United Kingdom, Germany and France, reported losses greater than 3%.

Changes in tariff policies are not bad in themselves; Well implemented, they can be an intelligent strategy. But the way they were willing suggests more an expression of pride than the result of a well thought out political and economic calculation.

As if they were not public issues that affect the population inside and outside the US borders, but rather a company of their property, Trump announces tariff changes through social networks, and uploads tariffs with the greatest lightness. This comes to his epitome in his dispute with Xi Jinping, president of China, with whom he has been measured in arbitrariness, competing against the other to see who imposes the most absurd and pernicious rates.

The 90 -day pause in tariffs (except for China) announced on April 9 generated a temporary rebound, with ups to 10% in Wall Street, but the markets did not recover the levels prior to the conflict, losing approximately 10.6 billion dollars in value since January 2025

Tariffs, which reached levels not seen since the 1930s, have raised uncertainty, increasing fears to a global recession. Goldman Sachs economists estimated a 45% recession probability in the next 12 months, while JPMorgan raised his 60% estimate.

Tariffs have increased import costs, which translates into higher prices for consumers, especially in the US. This could aggravate inflation, a key factor in global economic discontent. In developing countries, the indirect effects of commercial contraction could be “catastrophic”, according to the International Trade Center, with a possible reduction of world trade between 3% and 7%.

This offers us a perspective on how the will of a single man or a small group of people can have A serious impact on the lives of people around the world. Everything points to the cost of living and loss of purchasing power.

One of the most significant use cases of Bitcoin in its sixteen years of existence has been to serve as a lifeboat for people living in failed economies. Before Bitcoin, who lived in hyperinflationary countries and/or with exchange controls, had no choice but to sink with the ship and see their savings drained by the issuance of cantillonarios. Today, for the first time in history, People have a tool to make Opt-outdischarged from the economic shipwreck and coins devalued by the arbitrariness of politicians.

In countries such as Venezuela, where inflation reached 1,000,000% in 2018, or Argentina, with rates greater than 100% in 2023, Bitcoin has allowed citizens to preserve their wealth or at least not succumb so hard to inflation. Being decentralized and not depending on banks controlled by the State, people turn their bolivars or pesos in bitcoins through peer-to-peer platforms, protecting their devaluation savings without requiring intermediaries. Its resistance to censorship ensures that neither governments nor banks can block these transactions.

This reality is not limited by the imaginary borders of a country. Bitcoin too It is a way of making a short to the arbitrariness of the world’s politiciansinside and outside your country. Leaving the dollar, yuan or any Fíat currency, and changing Bitcoin’s wealth is the best way to tell politicians that you do not agree with the policies they implement. Do not wait for elections to penalize the bad decisions of politicians. Bitcoin serves as an expression without mediations of popular will.

Yes, as long as the State continues to have the monopoly on violence and can threaten people with enclosing them if they do not obey their arbitrariness, tariffs imposed by governments will continue to affect companies and people. You will have to pay the cost of maintaining that limited freedom. But, at least, the inflationary impact on purchasing power can be mitigated. And, even more importantly, changing the national currency or treasure notes for a politically neutral asset sends a message to politicians about distrust in their decisions.

It could be refuted that the BTC price was also affected by Trump’s shares (although, interestingly, it was less volatile than the S&P 500). But this would be to lose the forest for concentrating on the tree.

Bitcoin’s knowledge is still asymmetrically distributed, with most people in the world even ignorant or indifferent about what makes it valuable. This includes investors, who continue to trade it as if it were a risk asset and not a value reserve. It is by ignorance that the price of Bitcoin is volatile. It is because of ignorance that the price of Bitcoin is not millions of dollars. And yes, in the short term, that is the reality we face. The good news is that Bitcoin is not its price.

Bitcoin is a counterweight to the power of the State. Not from one government or another, but of the State as a political form, thanks to its neutrality. All companies in the world are affected by politicians’ decisions because they have to fulfill their mandates; Bitcoin has the potential to be an island in which people take refuge in the face of arbitrariness. All raw materials are affected by politicians’ decisions because they determine supply chains, their commercial agreements manipulate prices and their sanctions restrict free flows of goods; Exchanges in the Bitcoin network remain incensurable and unstoppable, there is no one who can stop the entire network operation.

This is something that even the governments have noticed and that is why they already seek to accumulate their quota of the scarce, neutral and unstoppable Bitcoin. Because, although they subtract power, they know that their progress is uncontrollable and it is better not to stay out.

Bitcoin is the best solution we have so far for the problem of political arbitrariness in the economy, a problem as old as human societies. Therefore, The separation of money and the State is positioned as a new element in the classical idea of ​​powers of powersno longer giving its exercise to another corruptible human, but to nature and mathematics.

The history of democracy in modernity, even more after the separation of the Church and the State and the fall of absolutism, has also been the history of decentralization, of progressively disconcentrating the power accumulated in a single person or a group of people, that every time individuals have more space, voice and freedom. While the future of history is never linear and homogeneous, and there have been guns and goings regarding this evolution, the struggle in general remains to gain more autonomy and individual sovereignty. Bitcoin is the inevitable step to gain ground in the monetary field in the face of political arbitrariness.