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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Does the Demented Don really want to remake the United States of America into a third world banana republic?
Last week, the White House Squatter-to-be proclaimed that, on Day 1 of his reign, he would impose a 25% across-the-board tariff on all products imported from Canada, Mexico, and China, and that they would stay in place until those countries halted the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States.
Now riddle-me-this: what drives drugs and immigration? Could it be American consumer demand? Could it be American-supported multinationals slashing living-wage jobs in the U.S.? Could it be American political policies gutting economies and creating vast numbers of homeless in other countries?
China appears to have mostly ignored this pontification. Even as El Presidente-que-Viene threatened to hold them up for an additional 10%.
They have their own economic problems and what can you say about a madman?
Plus, their exports to the States dropped 20% last year anyway, so they are well on their way to curing their own American-consumer addiction. And it will be the American consumer who will get Pooper-Trooper’s policy up the ass and out their pockets.
So will the American businesses that depend on electronics and other components from China to keep their prices low; ergo consumers here will face significant sticker-shock across a panoply of industries, including from that most quintessential of American manufacturing – auto manufacturers.
Repercussions across the board will probably drive the Beleaguered Boor to frantically take a leaf from the playbook of other banana republic despots, granting his buddies special waivers based on how much boot-licking and backroom exchange of favors and funds contributed to the Exalted-One’s own empire.
Political patronage gone rancid.
The wholesale round-up of immigrants – illegal and suspected – will eviscerate a significant portion of the underlying workforce on which the American economy depends. Not to mention taxpayers being slammed with the catastrophic costs incurred both to achieve and maintain such programs as well as the righteous imposition of sanctions from other countries appalled by the Sanctimonious Satrap’s human rights abuses.
Whether arbitrary imposition of tariffs on its NAFTA/USMCA partners is even legal is beside the point. To the Knighted Narcissist, laws are clearly irrelevant.
From the southern and northern borders, response to the 25% tariff was far less muted.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s salvo was deadly and got right to the point.
“If even a small percentage of what the United States allocates to war were instead dedicated to building peace and fostering development, it would address the underlying causes of human mobility.”
Then she threatened to retaliate with tariffs on goods going to the United States – whoops, here come $10 avocados and… remember all those parts factories shipped over the border to benefit from cheap Mexican labor?
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau supposedly had a cordial call with the Khan-to-Come initially… but then he holds a huge ace in the hole. Over 20% of American oil demand is supplied by Canada – hello $10-a-gallon gas.
Still, over the weekend, he trekked south to the Mar-a-Lago kitchen court to try and teach the Tormentor-in-Waiting to “Down, Boy” – a command he has yet to learn. “Very productive” and “excellent conversation” when behind closed doors mean pretty much anything. Or nothing.
Even rabid Republican voters will suffer sticker-shock over their cars and consumer electronics not to mention spinning prices-at-the-pump. Albeit maybe not on guacamole. Or the price of tea from China.
What the Flagrant F*ker is bringing to the United States – high tariffs and trade wars – have flatlined economies from Argentina to Italy, from Hungary to Brazil, especially as mad martinets and their fascist flatterers increasingly allow business success to depend on connections, not competence.
As for the Monarch-Wanna-be, his legitimate beefs about fentanyl and the massive influx of immigrants might be better served by targeting underlying causes that might produce far better results.
Going after quality control in China’s pharmaceutical and other manufacturing industries would slash American (and Chinese) fatalities from fentanyl. Addressing the root causes of addictions here at home would sharply reduce demand.
Instead of incarcerating immigrants at a stupendous cost to taxpayers and driving consumer costs up further due to the inevitable cheap labor shortages, how about promoting policies abroad that would allow people to live satisfying lives in their own countries?
Like getting out of armament-providing profiteering and demoting the multinationals to steerage to allow indigenous enterprises to flourish and pay fair wages.
At home, a flatlining economy will turn off the tap of American job growth. With less disposable income reducing demand and driving further job losses, the Neurotic Nincompoop’s proposed protectionism plans will drain into an economic downward death spiral that will be difficult to reverse.
Furthermore, the deportation of illegal residents will hit hard at the operational capacity of his own government since illegals currently contribute almost $50 billion in taxes, more than half of which goes into Social Security and Medicare that most won’t be able to claim.
Even ejecting the 10% he calls felonious will remove basement-level laborers, and 10% of that $50 billion buys more than just peanuts…
According to a study by the American Immigration Council, published in October 2024:
For the same costs as pursuing a strategy of mass deportations of one million people a year, sustained over 10-plus years until 13.3 million people have either been deported or left on their own, the United States could:
- Build over 40,450 new elementary schools in communities around the nation.
- Construct over 2.9 million new homes in communities around the nation.
- Fund the Head Start program for nearly 79 years.
- Pay full tuition and expenses for over 4.3 million people to attend a private college for four years, or over 8.9 million people to attend an in-state public college for four years.
- Buy a brand-new car for over 20.4 million people.
A single year of a million-deportation regime, with its $88 billion price tag, would cost:
- Nearly twice the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health.
- Nearly four times the budget of NASA.
- Nearly three times as much as the federal government spends on child nutrition.
- More than the government gives out in the Child Tax Credit program.
- Eighteen times more than the entire world spends each year on cancer research.
What is a banana republic but a country with deteriorating education and social support, increasing homelessness, poorer and poorer health outcomes, and a tanking economy?
Or the Trump-trampling of the United States of America.
(Liz Amsden resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
