I should have known better than to try and predict anything about Trump’s presidency. Previously, I wondered what his endgame might be a couple weeks ago. In foreign policy, Trump is too impatient to do the real work of diplomacy. He is also far too dimwitted to understand or care about the long-term implications of his actions.
In just that time, he’s begun significant shifts in what passes for actual policy in his world. He has shifted from referring to Ukrainian President Zelovskyy as an unelected dictator. Now, he expresses open frustration with Putin for not signing off on his hasty brainfart of a ceasefire. As Ukraine became a bigger focus, the Israeli obliteration of Palestinians stopped being his shiny object. Additionally, all talk of the “Middle Eastern Riviera” disappeared with it. Never mind the callousness it takes to refer to the genocide in Gaza in terms of real estate development.
He waffled endlessly about what tariff levels he would impose. He was uncertain on which countries. He finally landed on widespread tariffs of random levels across most of the globe. These are to take effect on April 9th—for now (as if that even needs to be said at this point). He met Mark Carney, Canada’s new Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader. He even stopped the 51st state and governor trolling, for now. Either thing could, of course, change again tomorrow.
The only consistency so far is that the world’s richest man is still indiscriminately cutting and gutting the US government. He is also targeting Trump’s racist, unconstitutional border and immigration policies. Additionally, there is the randomness of his tariff “plan.” So, as opposed to wondering what his master plan may be, I will instead focus briefly on what is actually happening with these three things.
Immigration and the Border
Simple, but terrifying. Mass arrests, detention and deportation without due process, particularly after invocation of the Enemy Aliens Act. The actual number of deportations is down from the last year Biden was in office, but ICE has detained far more people without criminal records.
The news is also rife with stories about citizens of many countries looking to renew visas. They are taking part in peaceful protests and doing various other things. They are being detained sometimes for days or weeks. Afterwards, they are sent back to their countries of origin.
Gutting the US Federal Government
Elon Musk is gutting the federal public service under the guise of “efficiency.” Seemingly based on nothing more than opinion and whim, at least 121,000 federal workers had been let go as of March 28th. This includes 100% of those employed by USAID and over 50% of the workforce at the Department of Education. You can see the full breakdown here. This has had dire consequences for social security payments, international aid, veterans affairs … the list goes on. In detecting waste and fraud, Musk’s DOGE boys have made many errors and been forced to try and hire back many employees fired by mistake. It’s a massive clusterfuck.
Tariffs – Governing by Grievance
The main thing I want to touch on is the Canadian (and all) tariffs, which have been characterized by such ineptitude it boggles the mind. I doubt I need to do much review here, but here goes. Canada and Mexico were early targets. Particularly with Canada, the excuse of fentanyl and illegal migrants crossing the border fell apart fast. The talk then shifted to annexation. There was a thinly veiled coveting of our resources (in spite of claims that America doesn’t need anything Canada has). There has been no consistent messaging about how much they would be or when they’d take effect, and stock markets responded to the uncertainty as markets do, by tanking. Nonetheless, the “border” tariffs of 25% on all goods from Canada went into effect March 4th, and have remained since.
After well over a month of near-daily threats, additional tariff rates were finally unveiled on April 2nd, to take effect April 9th. This announcement saw no additional “reciprocal” tariffs on Canada as had widely been expected. The only exception was a previously announced levy of 25% on all aluminum and steel products coming into the US. Canada was hoping this would be reduced or eliminated, since the US is our primary aluminum and steel market. There were also further tariffs on all cars and light trucks from outside the US. Somehow Canada escaped additional tariffs levied on imports to the US from countries all over the world, but is facing crushing tariffs on all goods, plus steel, aluminum and automobiles made in Canada, with an exemption for USMCA compliant goods. The full head-spinning timeline can be seen here.
Now the really absurd part to show just how inept the Trump administration really is …
In other words, they seem to have come up with nothing concrete or no repeatable formula, so they just made stuff up and pulled numbers out of thin air. Trump’s claims of trade deficits, subsidies the US supposedly provides or how much America is being “ripped off” by trading partners are all either the extreme edge of rates that are never applied, or complete fictions. All he does is bellyache about everything all the time. He’s a miserable fuck and absolutely loves that he’s able to fuck everything up with every word uttered and every stroke of his pen.
No More Wasting My Time
It doesn’t matter which aspect of this administration regime you focus on; nothing matters at all. It’s just deeply inexperienced, inept and unserious people fucking around and not caring enough to find out. There is no master plan or strategy, aside from flooding the disinformation space with so much garbage, that no one can keep track of anything, and I’ve decided writing about it is a complete waste of time. Maybe he’ll cause recessions in Canada and the US, or maybe even a global depression. Maybe he’ll cause World War III or just perpetuate the Ukraine-Russia war and the Gaza genocide for another few years. He’ll most certainly cause mass layoffs, further government firings and untold damage to regular peoples’ physical, mental and financial health. He’ll remain surrounded by enablers who encourage his worst impulses and lie with impunity on his behalf.
I’ll still have opinions but it’s not worth publishing them ever again, because talking about him is all he cares about.