The Coming Gong Show Of Reciprocal Trade, Part 1

Well, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump-47 has his head screwed-on right with respect to War & Peace, the horrendous Climate Crisis/Green Energy claptrap, the bizarro world of DEI and woke and the need for restoration of free speech and de-weaponization of the machinery of justice.

Indeed, by unleashing Elon Musk and the DOGE boys he’s even sending a powerful anti-spending message to the electorate, tabling a cause that had previously been missing from his political vocabulary entirely. Goodness me, the Donald even advocated for a balanced budget in his address to Congress this week—an upwelling of fiscal virtue (whether he really meant it or not) unheard from a Republican president or candidate since Ronald Reagan.

But, but. He just can’t seem to shake his badly misguided infatuation with trade and “big beautiful tariffs” (BBTs) as the key to restoring the golden age of main street prosperity in America. He was therefore at it again today from the Oval Office giving praise to what was a pretty prosaic Jobs Friday report and promising boom times just ahead as his BBTs kick-in.

Of course, by now he has the heads of his own allies spinning as to what tariff on which country at what rate at which hour of the day and upon what day of the week he might be of a mind to tariff something. This yo-yoing has gotten so crazy that his own cabinet is apparently no longer sure about what this is all about or where it’s going. For instance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik told bubblevision yesterday that the on-again/off-again tariff on Canada wasn’t actually the product of a Trade War, anyway.

Actually, he insisted with straight face, it was in pursuit of a Drug War!

Then again, that surely can’t be the case. After all, two-way trade with Canada in 2024 was $917 billion, while the amount of Fentanyl seized at the Canadian border was 14 pounds, 2 pounds and 43 pounds for FY 2022, FY 2023 and FY 2024, respectively. So call it an average of 20 pounds per year at an average street value of $20,000 per pound.

Say what? That amounts to $400,000 per year of admittedly bad stuff, but it also represents just 0.00004% of two-way trade with our slightly socialist-leaning neighbor to the north. So we should have a Drug War about that?

To be sure, the Donald apparently wants to be the hero who slays the scourge of Fentanyl. But we have a better idea. How about making the production, distribution and sale of all drugs currently subject to modern day prohibition fully legal and available thru the existing peaceful channels of commerce?