Did you notice the steel lie? No, not the Steele Dossier but the lie about the national emergency about steel. On March 1, 2018, Donald Trump declared a national emergency and imposed tariffs on steel. On May 31, 2018, Canadian and Mexican steel were also subjected to steel tariffs. The problem is that Trump’s “emergency declaration” was a lie. A national emergency condition did not exist.
Donald Trump knew that an emergency did not exist. He said so when he proclaimed that “trade wars are good” and “easy to win”. Apparently they are no so easy to win and Trump’s core, the farmers are telling him to cut it out.
NAFTA 2.0, or the USMCA is stalled and unlikely to get adopted before the 2020 elections. That leaves NAFTA in place, although Donald Trump promised to get rid the “worst deal” ever. The thing about NAFTA is that the Republicans believe in NAFTA and thus are in no mood to end it, or deal with pushing the USMCA through.
The Chinese Trade War shows no indications that it will end soon. The Republicans believe in global trade and thus are very uncomfortable with the endless tit-for-tat tariff wars.
So Donald Trump is backtracking as fast as he can by ending the steel tariffs against Canada and México.
The first question you should ask yourself is what happened to the “national emergency”.
The second question you should ask yourself is why remove the steel tariffs now?
The answer is simple.
In recent days two courts have ruled that Donald Trump cannot keep his financial records from Congress. The North Korea deal has fallen apart. NAFTA remains in place. China is not playing nice with the Trump Trade War. Russia is laughing at Trump by flying bombers close to ADIZ. Iran does not care what Donald Trump has to say. The Democrats are getting closer to launching impeachment proceedings.
In other words, Donald Trump is desperate.
He is furiously hoping he can get the USMCA in place before the 2020 elections so that he can proclaim a win for his constituency.
Each day, Donald Trump gets closer to being impeached as he flounders unable to keep any of his promises to his constituency.
Every unfilled promise forces his staunchest supporters to question their vote for Donald Trump. That bodes well for the removal of Donald Trump from office, either through impeachment – my preference – or via the ballot box. Either way, the Trump legacy is starting to wind own.
