The first 24 hours of President Trump's Independence Day, which celebrates reciprocal tariffs to promote free trade, were anything but festive. Global stock and commodities markets plunged. The S&P lost -4.9 percent, the Nasdaq lost -6.0 percent, crude oil lost -7.0 percent, and gold lost -1.4 percent. Bond prices, meanwhile, rallied as investors sought a haven from the tariff storm.

While, in theory, free trade is the ideal, it might not be achievable. Moreover, even if successful, the cost of a trade war would be a Pyrrhic victory whereby the resulting market slaughter would be brutal to justify. Finally, it is unclear whether a not-so-free trading world is bad.

Since 1976, the United States has had an annual trade deficit. That means that every year in the past 49 years, the United States has imported more goods than it has sold abroad. According to President Trump, that is a very bad thing. Yet the S&P index was 107 in 1976, and even after the recent tariff plunge, is at 5400 today. The same sort of success happened in our GDP. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the GDP in 1976 was $1,873,400 M. Today, it is $29,184,900 M. So, the United States era of trade imbalance was also the era of the greatest wealth creation in history.

The idea behind free trade and tariffs is that the United States will have more and better jobs, not to mention a higher GDP. The GDP calculation is simple since it is determined by subtracting imports from the overall topline number. So it is likely to be higher. Nonetheless, the import industry also provides jobs. A U.S. importer needs warehouses, showrooms, offices, trucks, loading docks, warehouse workers, administrative staff, salespeople, and executives. And the money to support them is all spent domestically. These are not as many jobs as the factories we know today, but they are jobs that cannot be replaced by AI or robotics. Can the same be said for auto plants and chip manufacturers?

Understandably, President Trump wants to even the playing field for the United States, which is a worthy goal. But it brings to mind two street sayings that can't help but ring true. "If it ain't broke don't fix it." And "Who says life is fair?"