WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE OTHER SIDE FIGHTS BACK?
If It Ain’t Broke – Don’t Fix It . . . Is The Trade Imbalance Really That Broken?
DOES TRUMP EXPECT THE WORLD TO PAY-OFF AMERICA’S GROTESQUE DEBT?
Before You Get Pissed-Off With This Editorial, Do What I Do, and Think things Through. Ask Yourself Questions, Look for Answers, and Don’t Place your Blind Trust on the Word of any Politician or on the Word of Your Favorite Media.
Remember This . . . Everyone Has An Agenda. They All Lie, Either by Outright Fabrications, Spins on Reality or Facts & Figures . . . Or Real Information They Choose To Ignore Or Withhold.
They All Cover Their Own Ass . . . And Very Often The Ass Of Each Other.
LET’S START WITH THIS EGREGIOUS DISTORTION OF THE TRUTH:
America Is $36-TRILLION Dollars In Debt Because Of The International Trade Balance.
I’m Going To Go Back 8-Years . . . When Trump was President from 2017, America’s Debt was Approximately $18-Trillion Dollars.
In 2021, When Trump Ended His First Presidential Term, America’s Debt was Approximately $25-Trillion Dollars.
What Was The Reason For An Increase Of $7-Trillion Dollars In Just 4-Years?
Was It Trade? Was It Covid? Was It Reckless Spending? If it was Trade, How Could America Possibly be so Indebted because of a Trade Imbalance in 2017 of just a Bit More than $600-Billion Dollars. And Even at that, the American Economy Doesn’t Take the Hit for the Trade Imbalance as Much as Does Private Industry.
By 2020, the Last Year of Trump’s Presidency, the American Trade Deficit was at a Record-Breaking Amount of About $900 Billion Dollars. If we Do Simple Math, and Add $100-Billion To Each Year Of Trump’s Administration To His Trade Deficits, the Total Would Add up to $3-Trillion Dollars In 4-Years. But Trump’s Deficit was $7-Trillion Dollars.
So . . . Even If You were to Add the Entire Trade Deficit to the National Debt In 4-Years Of Trump’s Presidency (Which Is a Ludicrous Hypothesis) . . . How Would That Account For The $4-Trillion Dollar Difference?
There’s No Question In My Mind That Covid Had Plenty To Do With The Increase In The Debt.
But How Many Times Have we Heard from Neutral Economists that America Doesn’t Have A Debt Problem . . . That America Has A Spending Problem. And How Many Times Have we Heard the Horror Stories of Government Abuse, Incompetence & Mass Corruption?
In 2021 . . . The American Debt Was Roughly $29-Trillion Dollars – But at the Beginning of Trump’s Second Presidency in 2025, Under the Biden Presidency from 2021-2025 – the American Debt Grew to More than $36-Trillion Dollars, which was Another Increase of $7-Trillion Dollars In Just 4-Years, even After Covid Hysteria was on the Way-Out.
I Would Be A Liar & A Bullshitter . . . If I Suggested America’s Massive Debt Has Anything of Significance to Do with Trade Deficits . . . Which In A Very Back-Handed Way, The Trump White House Is Implying.
YOU CAN’T SUCK AND BLOW AT THE SAME TIME:
If It Was All About Trade Deficits You Wouldn’t Need DOGE. But America Really Needs DOGE, because America’s Horrendous Debt Has Virtually Nothing to Do with Trade Deficits . . . So What Is It?
I Love Being Able To Afford All Kinds Of Things Today, which we Couldn’t even Dream of Affording when I was Growing-Up . . . Simple Things Like a New Bicycle, A 60-Mile Drive For A Simple Getaway, that is, if we Could Have Afforded the Car to Take us on the Drive, a House of Our Own, New Furniture, a Black & White Television, a Stereo, And All Kinds Of Goodies We Now Take For Granted.
Do You Know How We Came By This Unbelievable Riches Of Luxury . . . It was Free Trade, Where Poor Countries were Able to Manufacture things we Could Afford to Buy. It was also Because Domestic Companies (USA – Canada) Found Cheaper Ways to Manufacture in Less Developed Countries, Which Were More Than Willing To Supply The Labor.
I’M NO GLOBALIST . . . BUT I’M ALSO NO ISOLATIONIST:
We Created An Intricate Global System Of Supply & Demand, which Answered the Needs of those who Could Afford . . . And Those Who Wanted To Be Able To Afford.
Trade Has Not Always Been Free, Fair Or Balanced, which is Where Negotiations Come-In, where Both Parties Have to Walk Away from Any Deal Feeling Good About the Outcome.
But What Happens When One Side with a Huge Advantage Over the Other – Bullies the Other Side into Submission, And A Deal Is Made Out Of Extortion Rather Than Mutual Compliance?
IN CASE YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IS A CASUS BELLI:
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary – A Casus Belli Is An Event Or Action That Justifies Or Allegedly Justifies A War Or Conflict.
At First – Where Canada Was Concerned . . . Trump Said that America Had to Tariff Canada because Canada was Responsible for a Huge Portion of Fentanyl being Smuggled Into America, and the Tariffs were there to Force Canada to Stop the Flow . . . That Was The First Casus Belli.
But When American Drug Agencies Reported that Canada Accounted for Less than 1% of Fentanyl Smuggled Into America, it all of a Sudden Became, because Canada was an Open Door for Smuggling Illegal Immigrants into America, but that was Also Proven to be Untrue by Homeland Security. That Narrative Changed Too.
So . . . From Fentanyl To Human Smuggling As Reasons For The Trump Tariffs . . . Now it’s because America is Being Ripped-Off by the Canadian Auto Industry, because of Canada’s Trade Surplus over America, because of Canada’s Supply Management Policies Vis A Vis Dairy, Eggs, Poultry & Pork.
Also . . . Because America Subsidizes $200-Billion Dollars in Canadian Welfare – And Because Canada’s Full Military Defense is Financed by the United States of America . . . None Of Which Is True. Except for the Supply Management Debacle that Pisses-Off Canadians as Much as it Does Americans . . . But In Reality Is A Miniscule Trade Issue Compared To The Bigger Picture.
But These Are Reasons Used By The Trump Administration – which Masquerades for why Canada has to Help Pay for Generations of Reckless American Government Spending . . . Which is Also the Reason Why Trump is Sending a Global Clarion Call, Claiming that the Entire World Has Been Ripping-Off America, Which Means America Has To Punish The Entire World With Debilitating Tariffs.
REBUILDING INDUSTRY IN AMERICA IS A GOOD THING – BUT NOT THE ONLY THING:
I Don’t Believe The Tariffs Have Nearly As Much To Do With Bringing Industry Back To America, Since America Has Been Doing Great for as Long as I Can Remember, as Much as it Has to Do with Taxing the Crap out of Americans to Help to Pay Down the American Debt, By Using The Ruse That Somehow Tariffing Foreign Countries Is The Patriotic Thing To Do.
And No One Will Ever Convince Me That Paying More For A Product Is Somehow Anti-Inflationary.
If this is all About Reciprocal Tariffs, Why is Israel Being Tariffed . . . Especially Since Israel Announced ZERO Tariffs On Anything American?
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TRUMP EXPECTED?
Maybe Trump Never Expected The World To Retaliate, because Trump has Bought-Into his Own Infallibility & Figured the Rest of the World Wouldn’t Dare Stand-Up to Him – And Would Simply Comply.
So What Happens If The Rest Of The World Doesn’t Take A Knee To Trump & Kiss His Ring?
I Think We Are Seeing It Now . . . as the American Stock Market Has Lost Many Trillions of Dollars, even Before the Trump Tariffs will Begin to Really Bite the American Consumer, and Other Previous Global Traders with America Start to Look Elsewhere for Products & Services which were Always Guaranteed to be American.
Even Canadians . . . America’s Best Friend In The Whole Wide World . . . Have Begun To Cut America-Off Cold in Terms of Cross Border Shopping, that Will Kill Tens of Thousands of Jobs in Many Hundreds of American Cross-Border Communities, Amounting To Substantial Billions Of Dollars In Lost Revenue.
Last I Heard & Read . . . Cross Border Shopping By Canadians To America Is Down By 70%.
WHERE IS ANY OF THIS GOOD FOR AMERICA?
Canadian Are Pissed & It’s Showing In Travel.
West Jet . . . Which Is Canada’s Second Largest Airline, Along with Air Canada & United, all Three Announced Major Changes to their Canada/US Destinations, because of a Lack of Tourist Interest in American Getaways . . . Where Canadians are Opting More for Stay-In-Canada Vacations, Vacations in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean Islands.
Let’s Hope I’m Wrong & Full Of Beans . . . But What If I’m Right?
Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov
19 Comments
The American bureaucracy is out of control with spending. George Soros, for instance, hacks the system by starting up NGOs that have a nice sounding name that fraudulently gets 1 million or two dollars from the government that eventually gets in his pocket for doing absolutely nothing. There are millions of NGO‘s, and tens of thousands of them are huge. Doge has uncovered 300 Billion dollars of fraud so far. The only complaints are coming from the fraudsters.
It is a gigantic fraud game. Sorry but on this I do no go along.
The next few weeks will shed light on many questions. For now hold on to your birches it might be quite a ride as we see the art of the deal play out. I have no doubt things will get tougher before they get better. Trump might be completely wrong but he is correct that the time is now to do something.
NO DOUBT! – Something Has to be Done. America Cannot Survive on this Ludicrous Path of Free-For-All Spending. DOGE is a Great Step & Killing the Spending Genie is Another Great Step. But Killing International Trade? – HG:
Looks like looting the treasury while Biden administration was still able to cover their tracks is the real problem for Trump to solve. No surprise that every means possible will have to be used to recover from the criminal pillaging and political corruption.
No one that I have heard/read from blames the debt on trade. The debt is from out of control government spending. Pres. Trump does blame the hollowing out of the middle class and jobs on trade deficits caused by unequal tariffs. Trump showed his increased tariffs are still not equal to the tariffs (about 1/2) charged U.S. exporters. Time to level the playing field is the goal. In the 70’s the talk was we were to become a service economy and let manufacturing go elsewhere. A change of plans now!
Howard, thank you for another top-notch excellent Editorial. You tell it like it is. In the words of folksinger/songwriter Phil Ochs: “It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself. Not what you win. Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That’s morality. That’s religion. That’s art. That’s life.” – Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
With regards to what America wants , something tells me this could have been handled in a much smarter way. President Trump is no politician , but he isn’t no economist either. He should have listened to some intelligent advice , instead of treating the rest of the world like peons while expecting everyone to bend over. It’s interesting how Fox news no longer shows the dow on their screen. They’re bigger cheerleaders than cnn. I’m sure most of their 401k’s are so huge it doesn’t
Howard you miss the point of what Trump is doing. This is not a time to panic, but, keep a cool head and let this play out. Due to our trade policies over the last 50 years America has been deindustrialized, while offshoring our mfg; especially critical ones like steel, shipbuilding, drugs, etc. Yet, we are ask to be the world’s policeman. Our small towns once part of our strong industrialization has been decimated and all that is left is boarded up towns and people on illicit drugs.
The Boston Tea Party was brought about by TAXES on goods provided by Britain. A good example of Taxation without Representation. The Tariffs are a way of leveling the playing field. WE are taxed by ‘others’ so THEY may make a PROFIT once THEIR products reach the US for us to BUY. We are a PURCHASER but we also have goods FOR SALE. Buy our goods, We buy yours. Reciprosity doesn’t (seem) to be ‘working’ for US. BUY ONLY WHAT WE NEED, NOT what we want.
Trump’s trade deficit justification for launching this trade war is simply… full of s**t. The tariff percentages he claims other countries are levying on US goods are flat out BS. The price will be paid by consumers who may stop buying and thus throw us into recession with inflation. Remember Jimmy Carter and stagflation? The consequences of this itiotic policy may be catastrophic and Donald Trump would be remembered for this – as the worst president in history, supplanting Carter or Biden.
As a dual CDN-AM citizen it pains me to see what is happening to relationships across the border as Canadians assume an “elbows-up” attitude towards American visitors. Canadians should keep in mind that Americans who voted for DJT mostly did so for reasons related to our porous southern border, his support for Israel, his disdain for DEI, and the fact that we don’t want males demoralizing our daughters on the playing field and in the locker room. Let’s all exhale and cut each other some slac
You are right. The trade debt is just a part of the debt problem. I know, we all know, federal employees who never go to an office, do nothing in the way of work , but collect a paycheck. We now know that thousands are collecting social security who are over 130 yrs. old – some over 300 yrs old!! We all know people receiving disability and workman’s com checks who are well and able. I saw one with a bad back putting a large canoe on top of his SUV – singlehanded. Thanks to Elon Musk
The answer to your title question isn’t just YES, it’s HELL YES. We cannot pussyfoot actions and expect the results we want and NEED. No, everyone is not going to be happy during this process. But we allowed this mess and we have to fix it. Trump & patriots have been working on this plan for a long time trying their best to cause the least harm with the most betterment for the whole world. If that isn’t clear to see, please do more home work & let the man work & white hats will win. FAIT
The us needs to come at the budget with a butcher knife. Slice by slice, line by line. The taxpayer is fleeced. We have max corruption thru out in the government. It’s time to dismantle the money schemes by gates,soros, the corrupt euro trash, islamic criminals, and china/Russia from all business and dems and repinnameonly. I saw paid demonstrators in lakeland fl. Pls remove this corrupt trash out of USA/Canada permanently. If not we are doomed.
I always read your editorials in order to get to the truths. I also believe America’s biggest problem has been, for far too long, acting as if money grows on trees. Spending is way out of control. I grew up in a home where we didn’t have much—I learned early on that I had to work to help the household and to get what I needed. I began working at age 12. I figured out how to live on a budget. That’s what needs to happen in America. I just hope we can mend our Canadian relationship.
With regards of what Trump is doing/saying, PLEASE watch & listen to Marc Levin [FoxNews – Sat. & Sun. 8 PM EDT]. He and his weekly guests have excellent answers on what Trump is trying to accomplish AND what is going on in other countries around the world. Example: Chinese Premier Xi is currently having a lot of problem that may have him removed from office.
Trump’s tariffs are his attempt to make America great again economically. That is the objective – not anything against others. It is another ballsy move to a strong America. Canada should react with its own economic plan – if only it had one. Carney’s re-action as usual is counter productive. Jews who vote for him should call a moving van at the same time.
I haven’t heard that Trump blames the deficit on the trade imbalance. But when you siphon hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy each year it has to have an effect on the growth of the US economy. Growth that would provide increased tax revenue without raising taxes. The tariffs we have now in the US weren’t exactly “negotiated”. It is time to re-negotiate them. Or as Trump suggests make them reciprocal or preferably 0. Then we would truly have free trade.
Trade deficit with Canada seems to be a floating number. One day 300B, next day 200B. Want to reduce that to near zero? Stop buying Canadian oil, sold to the US below world rates. If there is a US/Russia-China war it will be fought over Canada regardless of the CDN military: Canada isn’t protected by the US. Have you ever heard of a US trade deal where the US doesn’t come out ahead? OK, other than with China & s.e. Asia. Isn’t buy American anti free trade? Limits access to US markets.
Comments are closed.