Yes, He Said That
Yes, he said that.
Hard to believe. But, yes, he said that.
He said that tariffs will make America rich and that they are not at all mere bargaining tools designed to bully other countries — in this case Canada and Mexico — into supplication. He said that.
Then he changed his mind and said something else.
Something else entirely.
He said that he had made agreements to suspend the tariffs for a month because both Canada and Mexico had folded and conceded — hugely — to his brilliant stratagem of using tariffs as a bargaining tool. Which he had said he wasn’t doing.
It’s a case of “he said, he said”.
Oh, and he also said that America will take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into Atlantic City. Or something. But only after all the people there politely, and quietly, leave. After all Gaza is only their home. People leave home all the time. And for those who might feel a bit squeamish about this suggestion we need to be ultra-clear: this is not, absolutely not, ethnic cleansing. This is just two million people all deciding at the same time to move to somewhere where they have no affiliation, attachment, or other reason for being.
Yes, he said that.
What a week. And it’s only Wednesday.
The chaos that is Trump-in-motion is sweeping away decades of American respectability and revealing a sordid underside that ought to become the new way we all look at the place.
Welcome to the new America.
I exaggerate. Trump-in-motion is an overstatement. He is actually sitting in the White House and letting Elon Musk do all the motion. Musk runs the place while Trump is simply doing what he does best: photo-ops during which he blathers on and makes no sense. But it sounds bold. It sounds like America in a new golden age. Doesn’t it?
America the bully.
America the unreliable.
America the friendless. Except for Israel of course. But that’s different.
America first is now the operating foreign policy. This means, apparently, reneging on every and all agreements that might tie it down to something remotely “rule-like”. That vaunted system of international rules that America so proudly established and buffed through the years in order to spread its values hither and yon, and in order to benefit from the power it bestowed on it as the epicenter of that rules based system — yes that system — is now blown sky high. It’s a free-for-all now. With the American elephant breaking all the proverbial china.
Speaking of which. It’s odd, is it not, that China, that oft mentioned dire enemy of America on the world stage, has been subjected to much lower tariffs? Perhaps the existence of large techno-bro interests might have mitigated the blow somewhat? No! That cannot be.
Maybe it’s because China, being much larger and having a few good cards to play, cannot be bullied the way America’s friends can. After all, those friends made the mistake of signing a trade agreement with America and then acting as if America’s word meant anything. They forgot to look across the table and see who was representing America. Trump the perfidious. Trump the liar. Trump the … [fill in the blank]. Trump’s word means nothing. It never has. Just ask the workers in Atlantic City who were never paid after they spruced up his casinos.
Yes, he said that … and it probably means nothing. He lies.
Which means that America lies.
Please remember that.
It has been amusing, and disheartening, to watch all the clever pundits and analysts who have spent their lives building their respective castles-in-the-air based upon a foundation of American reliability and trust suddenly have to reappraise everything once basic power becomes the motivation for America’s alliances and friendships. What happened to a system of shared values? The convenience of those shared “values” hid the underlying force being applied. The bullying was muted and even acceptable when there were mutually agreed goals or objectives.
The iconic bastions of the so-called “free world” order are all looking a little silly now that their sponsor has turned on them and revealed itself to be nothing more than a brute-force bully.
It was always shallow water though. It needed a common enemy. It needed mutual trust. It needed willful ignorance of basic power relationships. But it bred complacency and thence laziness. America’s friends gave up their self-respect and a goodly portion of their sovereignty in order to huddle under the umbrella America held above them. They forgot that they have responsibility to their own people to protect them from all outsiders. Even, and including, America. Mutual defense and trade agreements are not worth anything if they are simply a form of empire building. All empires crumble in the end. And when they do they turn first on the most vulnerable. Their friends.
Hence the attacks on Canada and Mexico. America at war with its neighbors.
Yes, he said that.
What a week.
A week that marks the beginning of the end of American hegemony. The spell is broken. No amount of technocratic bluster can cover up the raw reality. America is in retreat from its own world order. It is withdrawing and leaving its friends exposed. That vulnerability will force a rethinking of how to behave. It will force previously distasteful ideas to become a lot less distasteful. New friendships will be forged. It will be difficult. It will take time. It will be uncertain. This interregnum will last a while.
Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Denmark, and Europe. Once friends and/or neighbors. All criticized and/or attacked. All demeaned and/or humiliated. All “un-friended”.
Welcome to the new America. Welcome to perfidy.
Addendum:
Later that same day …
I now learn that the US Army has officially banned all the social groups that have an ethnic or diversity element in them. They have not, however, banned religious groups. Odd that. I wonder why not? White Christian nationalism? Project 2025? Surely not. Not in America. Not in “the land of the free”. Never.
Yes, he said that.
