YORKTON - While you might make a credible argument that common sense has never been a primary factor in terms of world trade, with Donald Trump in the president’s office in the United States the ridiculous is clearly at the forefront of world trade.
What Trump has done in his first couple of months in power is throw trade into a blender of turmoil, and the prospect is for things to likely get far worse before he is done.
It would be less disconcerting if one could see a plan in what Trump is doing – a goal he has in terms of an endgame – but unless you want to start to speculate in the realm of conspiracy – his goal seems little more focused than creating absolute chaos.
The scary element here is that as recently as the American election most would have doubted the storm cloud Trump would be to trade and frankly most elements of American life too – with even the most gloomy of prognosticators likely falling short of the already realized reality.
And that has to leave most shuddering at what comes next?
Certainly American stock markets seem confused by the turmoil, not that the American oligarchs who support Trump – think the equally wild card Elon Musk here – are going to suffer with millions no doubt ferreted safely away.
But with stock markets shaky, foreign workers in distress so crops are threatened and unemployment jumping as the Trump administration guts services, it's difficult to see how trade wars help the common citizen – although that likely just proves that Trump has little interest in helping the average American.
On the international scene Trump is simply abandoning most of what the U.S. has long cared about – being a guardian of democracy – even if at times their efforts have been somewhat jaded.
Now Trump is simply casting the U.S. as a villainous bully.
You cannot take the U.S. into protracted and damaging trade wars with your closest neighbours; Canada and Mexico, and at the same time lift sanctions against war-mongering Russia and be seen as anything but a villainous bully as a nation.
In spite of the nonsense from Trump that Ukraine caused the current war, it is Vladimir Putin’s desire to regain territory lost as country’s threw off Russian shackles in favour of self-determination, and Trump’s move to dismantle sanctions against Russia have him clearly in bed with a Russian leader who is a dangerous force in Europe.
The free world – which no longer seems to include the U.S. – Trump wants to thwart protests on campuses which flies in the face of long-held freedoms – needs to find a common strategy against the chaos the U.S. president is creating, because we are in for more ahead – likely beyond four years as there is a definite threat Trump will not leave the oval office easily.
