With Trump going loco with his daily slapping of trade tariffs on every country, island or canal , the rest of the non-MAGA world is waiting to wake up from this unsettling nightmare. A redux of T. Rex , brought back to life like the Dire wolf, D. Trump is lumbering down like Tyrannosaurus clamping his teeth on big and small nations terrifying them with tariff hikes .
Being geographically challenged , Donald hadn't 'heard' of the Australian territory of 'Heard Island' or McDonald Islands uninhabited by humans but colonised by Penguins. He should be made to do the Penguin walk for putting tariffs on the unsuspecting creatures! The word McDonald must've evoked the vision of the Golden Arch and his fave Big Mac. And by putting tariffs on these territories his appetite for Big Bucks would've been whetted for sure.
One must remember though that trade wars have occurred throughout history. But what makes Trump guilty of wrongdoing is the fact that he has assumed emergency powers to issue his wanton trade diktats. In Trump's world--- rules? What's that word? Tariffs is the "sweetest" word in his lexicon.
Don's glee in seeing the world freeze in disbelief spurs him on to deliver punitive tariff percentages with lightning speed . Blinkit and Zomato must squirm in shame at this fast delivery. Perhaps a masterclass in the Oval Office with Trump could teach them a trick or two. Being self-obsessed ,and a self-appointed 'stable genius' the Don thinks he'll go down in history as a Presidential Messiah for the American people. He sure needs to be kept back in the stable for further grooming to learn much else beyond economics. His flip-flops in policy must be a surprise even to himself.
This trade warfare might have given Trump an adrenaline high but in the face of actual gains , he didn't realise that he was chopping the branch he was sitting on. The push back after the meltdown in financial markets, particularly the turmoil in the treasury bonds giving rise to fears of a global recession, coupled with advice from his chosen economic advisors made him press the pause button on his gladiatorial thrusts at nations.
And the pushback from Americans has made him blink though he dismissed the panic stricken anti-tariff folks as "Panicans". There is trouble in Paradise even with his "First Buddy " , Elon Musk, whose business interests are also being affected by these unpopular measures. Tesla is being tarred , burnt and branded as a Nazi product.
Trump minus his swagger is now trying to cosy up to his bête noir , China, by exempting tariffs on some key items like phones, laptops and chip machines etc. But China is refusing to play ball after being singled out as Enemy No.1 and mocked by JD Vance as a country of 'peasants'. China, proud of its ancient civilisation, and manufacturing prowess can perhaps play this tit-for-tat tariff game longer than America.
The trade war unleashed on social media through visual clips, cartoons, songs etc.is a meme-fest, even more potent than opinion pieces in print. DeepSeek AI is stealing a March over Grok AI. China, long regarded as a humourless nation with an inscrutable face, is beating the Yankees in humour and satire in the viral clips and cartoons online.
American highhandedness in tariff impositions is being openly ridiculed. Tik-Tok is abuzz with devastating humour with the Americans being shown as clueless in manufacturing sweatshops . And the American internet users are lapping up the stuff. Millions of American users switched to the Chinese platform Red Note as 'Tik-Tok refugees' when Trump had put a ban on Tik-Tok earlier citing security reasons.
Chinese trolling of American dependence on Chinese goods is splashed across cyberspace. Musk is no longer the fragrant 'Musk deer' but sold as a malodorous perfume tarring Elon Musk. The traditional fortune cookies at the end of a Chinese meal are being turned into 'misfortune' inserts predicting rack and ruin for the American economy. Remember the homespun idiom----That's the way the cookie crumbles!
Ushi Kak writes satire. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.