Donald Trump’s obsession with leveling haphazard, economically ruinous tariffs that enrich himself or his family continued last week with his announcement of tariffs on foreign-made drones. 

On Thursday, the president announced the tariffs he said were needed “to address the national security threat posed by imports of drones and their components,” saying the tariffs were fundamentally about “strengthening America’s drone industry and supply chain.”

The policy stands to benefit the president’s sons, who invested in American drone developers and forged bonds with the defense industry at the same time their father gained immense control over its funding. According to Forbes, the stock price of a firm that has Donald Trump Jr. on its board spiked following the president’s announcement:

Another U.S. drone maker, Unusual Machines, saw the biggest bump, with its stock soaring more than 14% to $31.13 in early trading. The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., joined Unusual Machines’ advisory board in November 2024, and at the time he praised the company for bringing “drone manufacturing jobs back to the USA.” Trump Jr. was awarded 200,000 shares in the company for joining the board, and a month before that he had purchased 66,000 shares and 66,000 warrants in a private placement.

While the death toll from Trump’s disastrous war with Iran rises — and the president browbeats Americans about the economic sacrifices they’ll supposedly need to make so he can continue said war — his family is taking advantage of the bloody affair to line its pockets. 

I’ll note here Trump’s comments to Fox News last month, in which he suggested the economy was doing just fine despite the war because the stock market, and particularly defense companies, was performing well. “We’re making a lot of money,” Trump said. That would appear to include the opportunists in his own family.

This kind of shameless self-interest is contributing to Trump’s historic unpopularity. For qualitative evidence, consider that even some MAGA-leaning influencers seem repulsed by some of the president’s and his allies’ money-making schemes. Quantitative evidence, in the form of recent polling, indicates the broad majority of Americans think that Trump “has gone too far” in pursuing his personal business interests and that he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most pressing issues.

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