BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):
On Thursday’s WarRoom, Steve Bannon and Charles Benoit celebrated the President’s historic effort to re-industrialize America in peacetime—a feat not seen, according to Benoit, since the Napoleonic era. Benoit was bold, laying out how global elites and bad trade policy deliberately hollowed out America over decades. Now, Trump is flipping the script.

Short clip from Thursday:

BENOIT: We've never had a good president on trade until President Trump. @Charles_Benoit pic.twitter.com/auMb3BXqPb

— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) May 1, 2025

Here is what they talked about:

Reindustrialization in Peacetime? "Unbelievable.”

Charles Benoit, of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, joined the segment to give what Bannon described as "a 100-day assessment” of Trump’s economic performance.

"I was a cynic before President Trump,” Benoit admitted. "I thought we’d need a third world war to ever see re-industrialization again.”

He placed Trump’s effort in historical context.

"America industrialized once—after being cut off from European trade in the Napoleonic Wars. Now we’re doing it again… in peacetime.”

That, he said, is unprecedented. "You’ve got to give credit to President Trump right off the top for even trying to do what he’s doing.”

The Rot Goes Back to 1934

Benoit traced America’s industrial decline back not to Reagan or NAFTA—but to 1934.

"That’s Year Zero,” he said flatly. "That’s when Congress handed over tariff authority to the presidency.”

And until Trump, he said, "we’ve never had a good president on trade.”

The result? A slow bleed-out of American industry—steel, flatware, bicycles—all outsourced or destroyed, not just by bad trade deals but by deliberate policy choices.

"This didn’t start in the ‘80s. It’s been a 75-year bleed.”

Even agriculture wasn’t spared. "We’re now a net food importer. That happened under President Biden.”

Who Benefited from Selling Out America?

Bannon asked the blunt question: "Who benefits from de-industrialization?”

Benoit’s answer: Wall Street and global creditors.

"After World War I, we were a net creditor nation. But our multinationals and banks couldn’t get repaid—there weren’t enough dollars overseas.”

So what did Washington do?

"The Department of Commerce literally promoted imports to send more dollars abroad,” Benoit said. "That way, debtors could pay us back.”

Add to that the rise of labor unions and the multinationals’ lust for cheap labor, and the race to the bottom was on.

Trump Is Turning the Ship

Now, under Trump, Benoit says the game is changing.

He hailed Trump’s tariffs, energy independence push, and manufacturing revival as a "massive course correction.”

"It’s been generations since we had an America First president actually wielding trade policy for American workers.”

With energy expert Dave Walsh on board for the segment, the message was clear: industrial policy and energy security are the twin engines of national revival.

Final Word

Bannon summed up the urgency:

"We’re going to get to the bottom of this. It’s a big moment.”

Indeed, dismantling over 90 years of globalist trade dogma, the Trump administration isn’t just playing defense—it’s going on offense.

And if Charles Benoit is right, it might just be the dawn of an American manufacturing renaissance and the Golden Era for America.

Required reading for the WarRoom:

Benoit: Trump’s First 100 Days of Tariffs: The First Steps Toward the Golden Age of America

Appreciate the opportunity to talk tariffs on War Room, here's the link to my latest article in @amconmag on Trump's First 100 Days of Tariffs: https://t.co/ETCEtewx6D https://t.co/abvmWMyVXN

— Charles Benoit (@Charles_Benoit) May 1, 2025