The Tariffman's Toll
Chapter I: An Arbitrary Regime
Wherein Policy is Scribbled, Principles are Absent, and the
Price of Tea Goes Unexplained
In saner times, a nation’s trade policy was a tapestry—woven with purpose, restraint, and some acquaintance with cause and effect.
But now! In this new and noisome era, the tariffs descend
like fog from a madman’s mountaintop—unannounced, unexamined, and entirely
untethered from logic, law, or ledger.
One day, steel is taxed to teach China a lesson. The next,
Canadian timber is punished for being insufficiently deferential. Soon after,
washing machines are sanctioned, not for their performance, but for their
passport.
The rationale is a carousel of contradictions:
- To
protect American jobs? The factories lay off.
- To
punish foreign adversaries? The allies blink, bewildered.
- To
balance the trade deficit? The numbers balloon.
- To
Make America Great Again? The groceries grow dear.
Let it be known that the instrument with which these measures are devised is
not a pen but a performance - a Sharpie, poised above a cable news chyron,
swirling declarations into decrees.
There is no consultation.
No analysis.
No plan beyond impulse.
Thus, the market quakes—not from foreign threats, but from
the whims of its own steward.
The
Cost of Uncertainty
Commerce abhors confusion. Contracts rely upon clarity. And yet, the business of the nation is now conducted under the flickering light of slogans.
Each sunrise threatens a new rule. Each whisper from the
Executive invites global retaliation.
Factories pause. Farmers fret. Retailers recalibrate. And
all the while, the price of breakfast climbs - eggs up, bacon up, toast
threatened by a wheat tariff still rumored but not confirmed.
Conclusion
This is not strategy. It is improvisation with consequences.
An arbitrary regime wherein tariffs are not tools of policy but talismans of
ego.
What was once governed by treaties, now turns on tantrum.
And so we begin, not with wisdom, but with whim.
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