Via Occupy Democrats

BREAKING: “F*cking disaster!” A Republican family is forced to close their 95-year-old business due to Trump’s tariffs!

In rural North Carolina, where support for Donald Trump once ran as deep as the grain in a hardwood beam, a generational Republican family is watching the legacy they built over 150 years collapse — all thanks to Trump’s catastrophic trade war.

Mackeys Ferry Sawmill, a 95-year-old hardwood mill run by the Jones family for generations, is now silent. Not paused. Not slowed. Dead. Fifty workers laid off. A third of their business revenue gone overnight. And according to co-owner Wilson Jones, the cause is simple: Trump’s tariffs nuked their entire industry.

“This is a f*cking disaster,” one family member told Bloomberg, and that might be the understatement of the century.

Here’s what happened: For decades, Mackeys Ferry relied on exports to China and Vietnam as U.S. demand for premium hardwood declined. By 2017, up to 80% of their product went overseas. Then Trump — in his trademark “I alone can fix it” bluster — unleashed his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs. China retaliated with duties up to 125%, instantly making American hardwood impossible to sell.

Within weeks, the Jones brothers had to shut down the mill. One shipment worth $500,000 was literally on the water headed to China when Trump’s tariff hike hit — and the new duties were worth more than the lumber itself.

That wasn’t economic policy. That was a presidential demolition job.

And this wasn’t some liberal coastal company. This was deep-red rural America, the people Trump claims to champion. Wilson Jones voted for him — three times. His brother did too. Now Wilson says the decision feels “disgusting.”

“When I say ‘Liberation Day,’ I can’t put enough snark in my voice,” he said. “We weren’t liberated. It damn near liberated me from my business.”

By August, the mill was shuttered. By September, the last load of lumber came off the line. Only ten of the fifty workers found jobs at the family’s other mill, which is still somehow operating. The community — already struggling — will feel the loss for years.

And for what? A trade war that Trump promised would create a manufacturing boom. Instead, America shed 42,000 manufacturing jobs in just a few months.

The Jones family says changing consumer taste didn’t kill them — Trump did. His reckless tariffs. His ignorance of rural economies. His willingness to gamble with other people’s livelihoods for political theater.

When asked what he’d tell Trump today, Wilson didn’t hesitate: “You’re on a fool’s mission. You’re not helping a few. You’re hurting a lot.”

Rural America is finally waking up to the truth: Trump’s “America First” always meant America Last, and for some families, the damage is already irreparable.

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