Customs Wars

This book is not a simple chronological account of the 2025-2026 trade hostilities. It is a near-forensic analysis of a systemic shift. By invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to declare a national emergency over a trade deficit, the Trump administration did not merely tax goods: it weaponized the very definition of "national security."

Across six chapters built as a cumulative argument, Youssef Briga dissects the "MAGA First" doctrine, not through the lens of political rhetoric, but through the cold reality of boardrooms and loading docks. Chapter One traces this worldview back to its roots in the 1980s. Chapter Two reconstructs "Liberation Day" and its aftermath hour by hour. Chapter Three lays out the complete phase-by-phase timeline, from January 2025 to February 2026. Chapter Four explores the global retaliation — China, Canada, the European Union, the WTO. Chapter Five draws up the economic scorecard and tells the story of the decisive turning point: the Supreme Court's February 20, 2026 ruling. Chapter Six closes the narrative on the aftermath — what survives, and what resumes under different legal forms.

Every chapter is grounded in figures and first-tier institutional sources — the Yale Budget Lab, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, court rulings — to separate political rhetoric from measurable economic reality: tariff revenue collected, lost purchasing power, affected exports, an unchanged trade deficit.

This book is written for business leaders exposed to international trade, supply chain directors, trade lawyers, customs consultants, and anyone who needs to understand — beyond the news cycle — how a forty-year-old doctrine reshaped the architecture of global trade in a single year.

The Supreme Court closed a door. It did not dissolve the movement that had walked through it. Customs Wars gives you the keys to understand what comes next.