Like We Thought, Trump Backed Down
But not for the reasons many figured he would.
We all knew he would eventually cave. Fortunately, he did — at least for now. A 90-day delay has been ordered on tariffs from most countries while the tariffs on China increased. Most of the stuff M’gidiots purchase, excluding big trucks, comes from China, so they will still feel the pain of increased prices.
There has been a lot of talk about how Trump and the team of sycophantic dummies around him made millions shorting the market. I am not going to speculate because I am pretty positive they did. I will accept that as fact, given how criminally sick this president and the people surrounding him are. The average administration official cares nothing about democracy, so why would they suddenly be honest about insider trading?
The is only one problem with chasing the smoke on this fire, though: Democrats don’t have a dog in the oversight race, so anything they do to focus attention on the corruption merely distracts away from more pressing and obvious matters. Pam Bondi will never investigate this because she, too, probably made millions. Democrats need to put this incident under their pillows and move on to the day when the vote fairy again puts them in the majority. Then, we can investigate and put people like Howard Lutnick and Marjorie Taylor Greene in prison — enjoy your freedom, cultists, and take up some hobbies like origami to while away the months you will spend in federal prison.
In the meantime, we need to understand the reason Trump caved. It comes down to a lovely and quite popular food in most industrialized countries: Sushi. If you have ever been to Japan, then you probably noticed the underlying sense of precision. Lines are straight for a reason. Lines curve for a reason. Lines become circles, too, for a reason. Everything happens for a reason, and chance is an irresponsibility left to the rest of the world. The overriding sense of functionality permeates everything. Exceptionally skilled at miniaturizing things you never imagined could be miniaturized, when they do something big, it’s big but quaintly small — you have to go to Japan to appreciate what I mean.
For all of the obvious functionality, the Japanese also like to hide functionality in plain sight. The only time I ever felt completely and totally lost in my life was when I exited the Japanese metro in the middle of a major station during rush hour. My hotel was 300 meters from the station’s exit, but there were at least 50 different ways to exit the station.
In the rambunctious flow of people, trying one direction meant pushing, prodding, and racing down long, brightly-lit corridors for five to seven minutes to get to stairs that took you the wrong way. Turn around, swim back against the flow of bodies, and start from the middle of the station again.
My phone didn’t work underground, so I couldn’t Google my way out. After an hour of the trial and lots of error, I finally saw the large Godzilla hugging my hotel from the steps leading out to the street. My hotel housed the IMAX theater, and Godzilla was playing (and from 7 to 11 in the evening, screeching to call viewers to the theater. Jet-lagged, I had no idea what was happening and was genuinely scared).
And so it is sushi (and sashimi), dear readers, which in my opinion is the epitome of precision, that scared Trump and caused him to back down yet again, making himself seem as stupid as most believe he is and the country as dysfunctional and weak as ever. When someone started dumping U.S. debt, economists began to imagine economic Armageddon. Trump’s fun and games and the criminally ignorant predictions of people around him predicting a “golden age” for the U.S. had crashed straight into a wall, and like an inadequate crash-test dummy, Trump panicked.
Governments sell bonds — essentially an IOU — to raise money from financial markets for public spending and in return they pay interest. The US does not normally see high interest rates on its debt as its bonds are viewed as a safe investment, but on Wednesday rates spiked sharply to touch 4.5%.
The rise came after Trump pressed ahead with sweeping tariffs on goods being imported into the US, while Washington’s trade war with China escalated further — although Trump on Wednesday did put a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for some countries (Trump Tariffs Spark Sell-Off).
Word on the street is that the Japanese began the sell-off. Imagine making sashimi with a spoon. The fish will be unpleasantly mushed up. If sushi were made so carelessly, the world would likely have never grown so fond of it. The world loves sushi, and many find visits to Japan interesting because of the country’s obsessiveness over being precise. Japanese baseball players have a methodical way of approaching the game. The way they hit, run the bases, and pitch is always a sight of near-perfection.
As loyal as the Japanese are to the United States, the chaos created by Trump broke them. The sell-off has been paused for now, but now, Trump and America are under the magnifying glass. Donald Trump said last week from the golf course that he “doesn’t care if prices go up.” His voters are suckers and they will never turn on him.
The Japanese, however, can’t let their sushi get ruined by an irresponsible, evil, bratty lunatic. They won’t let the collapse into fascism of their ally and a country they have long respected force them to shrug their collective shoulders and sing the Doris Day hit: Que sera, sera (Whatever will be, will be). Japan will always do its best to know what will be.
We’ve been warned.
Get my latest book here: “How Bro Culture Won the 2024 Election for Donald Trump.”
excellent piece. Images and wordcraft are about as instructional as any layperson could want. Should be required reading for anyone with a brain or care for the world.
Thank you.