Who among us wants to be poorer? Who does not recognize the suffering that tariffs cause? The resurgence of punitive tariffs—imposed under the guise of economic protection—is, in practice, a regressive tax on working families and small businesses. These tariffs increase the cost of essential goods, destabilize international relationships, and disproportionately harm those with the fewest resources. They are, in every economic sense, self-defeating.

And yet, as we witness this policy—both economically misguided and morally troubling—it is easy to reach for anger, to arm ourselves with outrage, and to divide the world into allies and enemies.

A quote I return to in such moments reminds me:

“Day by day we all meet events that seem to be most unfair, and we feel that the only way we fight is with our minds. We arm ourselves with our anger and our opinions, our self-righteousness, as though we were putting on a bulletproof vest. And we think this is the way to live our life. All that we accomplish is to increase the separation, to escalate the anger, and to make ourselves and everyone else miserable.”

It is one thing to condemn injustice; it is another to let that condemnation harden our hearts and turn on our neighbors. Even as we call out damaging policies, and recognize moral failures in leadership, we must resist the reflex to meet aggression with aggression, contempt with contempt. The real work is to stand firm in truth and justice while staying soft toward one another.