No doubt many people will be waking up this morning wondering, “How much money will I lose today?” or “How damaged is my 401K?” The plunge in the market last week that resulted in the evaporation of trillions of dollars of wealth was the direct result of Trump’s blunderbuss approach to tariffs coupled with the unexpected severe retaliation from China. It could get even worse this week if Europe decides to retaliate which, in all likelihood, they will. The DOW futures are already showing another ugly day ahead. It is staggering that one egomaniac with a pen using middle school math and economically irrational arguments, can cause so much damage. And what is even more staggering is that there are still Trump loyalists who continue to defend this nonsense.
Just to be clear, what Trump is doing is not based upon any sound economic theory. If it were based upon any kind of sound analysis, there would be no tariffs on territories only inhabited by penguins or on countries like Lesotho. The simple reason we have a trade deficit with Lesotho is that it is an extremely poor country in Africa whose population has little money to buy anything. However, the United States buys diamonds from them because the United States has no viable diamond mines. It just shows how idiotic this whole nonsense is. Policies based upon sound economic analysis are one thing. Extortion and listening to economic gadflies like Peter Navarro are quite another.
Anyone remember the infamous incident when the National Weather Service corrected Trump about the impact of a hurricane on Alabama and rather than admit he had misspoke or been in error, he used a sharpie to draw the ‘Trump path’ of the hurricane that was sheer fantasy just so he did not have to admit he made an error. No doubt when someone points out the ridiculousness of some of these tariffs such as the ones on the islands inhabited only by penguins, Trump will get out his famous sharpie pen, show a map of those islands with stick figures drawn on them to prove that he was right to impose tariffs on the island. The lunacy of this administration knows no bounds.
Merriam-Webster defines extortion as: “the act or practice of extorting especially money or other property; especially : the offense committed by an official engaging in such practice.” That is exactly what is going on with these tariffs. It is also what is going on with the threats to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state.
Trump sees dollars signs all over Greenland from mining and oil exploration. Despite what he says, it has nothing to do with national security. We already have a US military base on Greenland and if national security were really the issue, we could certainly sit down with our NATO ally and work out an agreement to expand the US presence or cooperation with Denmark. But it’s not about national security. It’s about dollars! The same is true with Canada. Trump just sees Canada as a vast territory to be plundered of its natural resources. He doesn’t give a damn about the Canadian people. It’s about dollars.
Is retaking control of the Panama Canal about national security – of course not! If Trump’s administration were to take control of the Panama Canal, I would bet huge sums of money that American ships would pay little or no fees and fees for other countries would increase. That would violate the neutrality principle under which the canal is supposed to operate. The act of trying to extort higher fees from other countries such as China for using the Panama Canal could easily precipitate a war. Trump doesn’t care. The Trump doctrine is really ‘all is fair in love and the pursuit of dollars.”
Once people understand that the primary driving force behind almost all decisions Trump makes are primarily focused on dollars and amassing more of them, not for the country, but for Trump and his oligarch buddies, what is going on begins to make sense in a perverted sort of way. Yes, Trump likes power. But the reason he likes power is because it allows him to extort more money.
We are witnessing the United States of American becoming nothing more than a protection racket presided over by Trump and his goons. It’s really that simple. Since Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education, perhaps he should replace it with the Department of Extortion, since that seems to be the new core policy of the United States.
