The law of unintended consequences is a frightful thing.
It's possible, with things lining up the way they are, that Wyoming populists are about to get the biggest economic dope slap in the state's history.
Of course, the rest of us will get it too.
Wyomingites drank the populist kool aid and went back for more bucket sized additional helpings. Shoot, the average Wyoming voter was practically drunk on the stuff, having started imbibing about a decade ago. In going for Trump, they were voting for a return to an imaginary 1950s, sort of, combined with an imaginary 1930s, combined with an imaginary 1960s. Full employment for all "real" Americans, none of these Spanish speaking brown folks, a uniting of our economic extractive needs with a concept of science as we want it, not as it is, and the sexual morays of the mid 1970s, really.
Wyomingites don't really want to go back to the past as it really was, particularly on some of the things the way I feel they should be. Divorce isn't going to be hard to get, for example, and there's not going to be a criminal penalty for screwing around. No hyperinflation either, and no economic depressions.
Well. . .
The past so many envision, and there's some truth to the depictions, and what we imagine we want again, except with tattoos and only the laws we actually like and think we remember.
Donald Trump, fresh from his political recovery thanks to a Democratic Party that couldn't get a clue and the rise of malevolent populism is threatening to throw a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico and a 10% one on goods imported from China. Apparently we can p.o. the Chinese, but not as much as we can Mexico and Canada, safely.
Or maybe not p.o. the Chinese at all. During the campaign Trump talked about 60% tariffs on China. 10% on China combined with 25% on Mexico and Canada actually conveys a trading advantage on China, while raising the costs of prices at home.
The United States is the largest goods importer of goods in the world. China was the top supplier of goods imported into the United States, followed by Mexico ($454.8 billion), Canada ($436.6 billion), Japan ($148.1 billion), and Germany ($146.6 billion).
The United States is the world's second largest goods exporter in the world, behind only China. Canada is the largest purchaser of U.S. goods, around 17%.
That's probably about to change.
What do we import? Well, darned nearly everything, even food from Mexico.
What do we expert, darned near everything, including even petroleum.
We're going to be paying more for everything, and we're going to be exporting less of everything, as we get hit with retaliatory tariffs.
And that's assuming our neighbors are nice. They might not be. If I was the P.M. of Canada, I'd tell Americans living in Canada to pack up and go home. A lot of them are up there on business. And I'd end cooperation with the US on defense.
And oil? Well, the Saudis are seriously threatening to drop the price per barrel to $49.00, which would wipe out most U.S. production. Again, if I were the Canadians, and the Mexicans, both of which produce a lot of oil, I'd join them. They probably won't, but that's what I'd do.
So, Wyoming populists, even without retaliation, you are going to pay more for absolutely everything. We all are.
And a lot fewer of you are going to have jobs. Same for us all.
Well, at least you can be happy about deportation. . . and a lot of you will, at long last, be deporting yourselves to your own states. You'll have to. There won't be any work here.
