Four years of Trumpian chaos untenable

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/03/2025 (240 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a strange way, it seems like a quaint question from a long-ago time:

Should U.S.-produced spirits, wine and beer remain off the shelves of Manitoba liquor stores as tariff tensions created by erratic Trump-administration trade “policies” continue to escalate?

The simple answer is “Of course they should.” But the broader context that allows the response to be so direct is decidedly more complex and, thanks to its exceedingly fluid nature, almost impossible to fully grasp.

The notion of removing U.S. products from Liquor Mart shelves, in response to threatened tariffs on Canadian goods being shipped south of the border, has only been a topic of serious discussion for six weeks. But at a time when every Trump-perturbed news cycle feels like an exhausting eternity filled with petty grievances, bold-faced lies and spitefully self-injurious Oval Office orders, early February might as well be six forevers ago.

How are Canada, Mexico, the European Union and anyplace else targeted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s capricious tiff-making supposed to respond to the hostility he seems determined to direct toward any nation not ruled by a despotic thug he rapturously admires?

The only logical reaction is on a case-by-case, hour-by-hour, tariff-by-tariff basis, remaining mindful that every rationally reciprocal response will provoke a tantrum-fuelled overreaction.

In a commentary titled A Great Unraveling is Underway, esteemed New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman put it this way:

“You cannot run a country, you cannot be an American ally, you cannot run a business and you cannot be a long-term American trading partner when, in a short period, the U.S. president threatens Ukraine, threatens Russia, withdraws his threat to Russia, threatens huge tariffs on Mexico and Canada and postpones them — again — doubles tariffs on China and threatens to impose even more on Europe and Canada.

“Top officials of our oldest allies say privately they fear that we are becoming not just unstable, but actually their enemy. The only person who gets treated with kid gloves is Putin, and America’s traditional friends are in shock.”

Trump’s apparent obsession with recreating America’s so-called “Gilded Age” — a period during the late 19th and early 20th centuries marked by rapid population growth and massive accumulation of wealth by those who controlled the economic transition from pastoral-agricultural to urban-industrial — is an indicator of just how out of touch he and his enablers are with the interconnected 21st-century global economy.

The U.S. president seems oblivious to the fact the Gilded Age favoured only the wealthiest while much of the U.S. population remained mired in abject poverty; it also lays bare that he cares not a whit about the millions of working-class Americans whose votes he enticed by promising to make their lives more affordable “on Day 1.”

Trump’s continuing tariff crusade will only make things more expensive for Americans, many of whom will lose their jobs as factories close and trade markets evaporate. And on this side of what used to be the world’s friendliest border, the deepening dispute will mean tough times for every Canadian as our government — regardless of which party leads it six months from now — is forced to respond to the economic threat while continuing to fend off Trump’s unhinged “51st state” invective.

Should U.S. booze remain off the shelves? Yes, indeed. But the unavailability of a straight-up shot of Jack Daniel’s will be a trifling concern in the widening turmoil and anguish Trump’s aberrant agenda is destined to impose.

As Friedman rightly notes, “Four years of this will not work, folks.”