Make a note of 13 February 2025, for this is the day that President Donald Trump outsourced tariff policy to his trading partners. In this announcement, he signed a Presidential Memorandum (no doubt with a very thick pen) directing U.S. trade agencies to calculate and propose tariffs that would mirror the rates imposed by other nations on American exports. The goal was to address what Trump described as “unfair” trade practices and restore balance in international trade relationships.
What, after all, is the point of the US International Trade Commission (USITC) and the International Trade Administration (ITA), located within the Department of Commerce, if tariffs are simply set according to the levels of trading partners? The USITC employs 437 people and the ITA 2 278. These 2 715 people can be cut down to three and here is what those three will do. The first will turn on Grok and have it analyse every country’s tariff book and compare it to the US. If their tariff is higher, Grok will prepare an executive order to increase the US tariff to that level, ignoring all tariffs which are lower than the US.
The second person’s job is to run to President Trump with a very large pile of executive orders. For reasons I struggle with, these are each placed in a separate black folder, which seems to be made of leather, no doubt from the mighty state of Texas. The more executive orders, the more cows are slaughtered to grow the GDP. Accompanying the very large pile of orders, will be an equally impressive box of thick koki pens (marker pens for those not from South Africa). A double espresso and a shot of meth (also local – from a caravan in the Appalachian mountains) later, Trump is off signing these orders. The US has quite low tariffs so the pile of increases will be big. Months later he will emerge from the Oval Office exhausted, in filthy clothes, sweat dripping from that magnificent dome, the bicep on his right arm bulging from all the signing. But the great man is smiling. He has saved the American people $777 million by cutting the staff down of the ITC and the ITA to three.
What does this third important person do? He (for these are obviously all men), sits at the end of great man’s desk, back turned to the President. The man has been chosen for the large bald patch atop his noggin. When Trump needs tariffs changed, which Grok has missed, because Grok after all is only human, he simply takes a spatula, from his days working the range at MacDonald’s, and give that shiny bald spot a hard smack. One for increasing the duties and two for pausing them.
No more economists, lawyers and accountants from the deep state to undermine America’s interests. This is how an efficient state works. Each slap on that shiny pate and things happen.
The lumpen proletariat adore the great man. Every tariff raised is money saved by Americans as these taxes are collected by the External Revenue Service (ERS). Don’t want to pay up? The tariffs will keep rising until you settle your debt! Keep refusing? The ERS will arrive in a gunboat (locally made) wearing locally made uniforms and a proud American smile, with a bald eagle perched on each agent’s shoulder. No one will dare oppose these patriots as they pillage the treasuries of shit hole countries (Wait. Stop. That sounds a lot like an empire, which America is definitely not). Those simple peasants will gladly hand over their gold, dug out of the ground with their hands because that is what people the world over do.
Today President Trump has been in office for exactly one month. Pack your valium before leaving home. 47 months to go.
PS: no not sure how many small African shit hole poor countries were harmed at the time of writing this drivel.
Want to understand tariff policy (the real kind)? Say hello at info@xagta.com if you want to know more