Journalist Suffers Breakdown After Writing About Tariffs for 221 Straight Days

Mexico trade correspondent had emotional meltdown in newsroom, was hospitalized

MEXICO CITY — Caleb Calverston, a 34-year-old U.S. journalist based in Mexico City, suffered a nervous breakdown on Thursday when asked by his editor to write a story about tariffs for the 221st consecutive day, according to witness accounts.

Calverston, who worked until 3.a.m four nights this week typing up stories about the latest flurry of tariff deals, new tariffs, paused tariffs, reciprocal tariffs and Truth Social posts, began shaking and collapsed on the floor of the newsroom Thursday shortly after a phone call from an editor in New York, colleagues said.

Calverston has written the word tariffs some 4,500 times this year.

“Following the U.S.-European Union trade deal, an editor assigned Caleb to do a story about the history of tariffs dating back to medieval times and it seemed to rupture his last strand of sanity,” said a colleague. “He let out a primal scream, fell to the floor, balled up in the fetal position and began shouting out the letters T A R I F F S over and over again at the top of his lungs.”

A friend told La Chancla News that Calverston—who has written the word tariffs more than 4,500 times this year—was having recurring nightmares where he was attacked by human-sized versions of the letters T A R I F F S and was badly beaten on multiple occasions by the two FFs.

In Calverston’s recurring nightmare he is chased by the letters TARIFFS.

According to witnesses, Calverston later began sucking his thumb and wept on the newsroom floor for 45 minutes before being escorted from the premises and taken to a nearby hospital. Once calmed and following a nap in the hospital, Calverston received a call from the editor in New York to check on his health and ask when the draft of the latest tariffs story would be filed.

“After the call, Caleb’s eyes rolled back in his head and he just kept repeating ‘tariffs, which are are taxes charged on goods bought from other countries, tariffs, which are are taxes charged on goods bought from other countries,’ until we were forced to sedate him,” said a hospital nurse. “I think the worst part of the entire ordeal is that the poor guy is writing about something that will probably never even happen.”