BACK in 2017, the President of the US attempted to style himself as ‘Mr Brexit’. In the eight years since then Donald Trump remains as much a target as ever for ridicule by the elites.
It seems Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached fever pitch again. While guffaws abound in the media at the absurdity of inflicting tariffs on islands inhabited only by penguins, we the readers continue to be treated as wide-eyed children to pictures of grown men crying at trading desks.
In fact, to include outlying islands and remote territories in the application of international trade policy is not only sage but practical and effective. And if The Donald has shown anything over the years, it is that he is practical.
I asked ChatGPT about it and after several nudges (to scrub out the leftist bias of its coders) I got the following answer:
‘Not specifying carveouts for small, remote territories like the Heard and McDonald Islands when imposing tariffs offers significant administrative and political efficiency. It allows the executive to act quickly, minimizes the potential for congressional interference, and reduces the likelihood of legal challenges. It also simplifies the enforcement process for trade agencies. This approach avoids the need to draft complicated policies with exceptions, making it far more efficient, while maintaining the overall clarity and consistency of the trade policy. By focusing on uniformity, the administration is able to bypass the complex process of tailoring a policy to every possible exception, and it’s more likely to withstand scrutiny from both Congress and the courts.’
But the MSM see only what they have been programmed to. The gnashing of teeth around falls in blue chip indexed stock markets is led by the BBC in particular. A sarcastic moniker of ‘Liberation Day’ was posted by Sky to chime with leaders of the hair shirt brigade.
Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s Finance Minister in 1986 who is credited with the ‘Big Bang’ as an act of deregulation that transformed London’s financial markets, would have given Trump high marks if only for the boldness of such sweeping enactments. Since in Britain the executive leader is all but a patsy to the legislature and without any meaningful powers, Lawson and Thatcher might even have been a tad envious of Trump’s ability to elicit such cries of anguish with the stroke of a pen.
Perhaps Lawson would also have recognised that these tariffs could bestow certain benefits on British consumers and our stunted manufacturing base. In the last week or so many have cited a ‘Brexit dividend’ from the UK being spared the brunt of tariffs imposed on the European Union.
Commercial incentives to sell closer to home work both ways. It may not be merely coincidence that I have seen nicer cuts of meat in the supermarket lately. This may be a consequence of some producers preferring to sell their surplus product into the British market rather than paying freight and additional costs to ship to a market where profit margins are likely to be eroded or erased. Combined with the impact of Brexit (albeit poorly executed by our incompetent leadership), the effect could be Britain’s gain.
Perhaps I am being idealistic in also hoping for ripple effects from Trump’s market changes in the context of our social landscape. By this I mean that the unsettling could begin to trigger a dismantling of the last 50 years or so of insane policies that were designed to rip away our heritage. Could we find the courage to reconstruct the pride in Britishness that has been eroded in schools, for instance?
Though I don’t have much hope that we will follow the US example of making widespread cuts in federal jobs. Sadly such initiatives will never gain traction under the current UK leadership, and challenger parties such as Reform haven’t shown much progress despite gaining seats in Westminster.
At any rate, if Trump’s tariffs keep more of the British Macs and French cheese at my doorstep, you won’t hear me complaining!
