By Darlington EHONDOR
“Tariffs,” Donald Trump says, is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” And he means that in a malicious, malevolent way. Note that he invokes this “beautiful word” with a sinister smirk.
That is not unexpected at all. Tariffs are Trump’s weapon, his invocation, for taking revenge against countries he generally unreasonably thinks have traded unfairly with the United States on the vast international market. It’s a weapon he’s been wielding with indiscriminate fervor, since returning, to the dismay of many, to the White House.
“Unfair trading,” however, is a smokescreen for Trump’s baser motivation – his expansionist designs on Canada.
As he said he would, Trump slammed 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 10 percent on goods from China. All three countries have now retaliated in similar fashion, imposing tariffs of their own on goods flowing in from the United States. While Canada and Mexico have each agreed to expedite action to meet some of Trump’s pretexts – not sensible justifications – for the tariff sledgehammer, earning them a one-month reprieve, an international trade war is well and truly underway.
Assuming Trump’s 30-day grace runs out and stemming the tide of the inflow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants into the US from America’s northern and southern neighbors hasn’t been achieved, it’s going to be a bloody war, with far-reaching economic repercussions not just for the United States but for its two neighbors as well.
Regarding Canada, however, Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs is, presumably, a precursor to embarking on his other psychiatric symptom – his outrageous intent on seeing that Canada becomes the “51st state” of the United States. Something so nauseating to contemplate! With a sparse, scant understanding of the economics of tariffs, Trump brandishes tariffs like a murder weapon. He lacks the mental capacity to distil – or he just doesn’t care about – the ricochet effect of tariffs: tariffs don’t hurt just the country they are wielded against, but – maybe even more forcefully – the country wielding them. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already sounded this alarm to the American people, warning them correctly that America’s auto industry, which depends heavily on imports from Canada, “will suffer.” Their groceries too, especially.
Trump’s appetite for territorial expansion and hegemonic imperialism, which has now been laid bare like an open sore, however, may be supremely more appealing to a large section of American voters than any dire prognostications about Trump’s tariffs. The tariff garotte, Trump hopes, will strangle and squeeze Canada so hard it will quickly buckle and break, collapsing at Trump’s filthy feet. So, he swings it indiscriminately this way and that, with a serial killer’s intent to bludgeon anyone to death, if they are not prepared to do what he wants.
What does Trump want? Simple, but sickening: he wants to “make America great again” – by which he means make enemies of the entire world to restore what he incorrectly sees as the diminishment of America’s global power and influence. Adolf Hitler wanted to make Germany great again. So, he invaded Sudetenland and started World War II. But, in the end, Germany was vertically sawed into two, as a consequence of Hitler’s misadventure and delusional misjudgements about Germany’s military capabilities.
Trump may be suffering similar delusions about America’s warrior abilities. It is not exactly clear whether he plans to acquire Canada by tariffs or by an all-out military expedition. Either way, the consequences for America are predictably dreadful. Donald Trump may be digging the grave for America’s eventual burial.
