MAGAts Confess They Cannot Compete with Penguins on a Level Playing Glacier

Trump is well on his way to causing, with his stupid tariffs, the same kind of economic damage as COVID did, but without a global epidemic as catalyst and excuse, just himself and the batshit advisors who refuse to tell him no.

At least some of Trump’s handlers hope this will lead one after another country to supplicate Trump, begging for favors. Depending on who you ask, that may have been one of the poorly considered and often conflicting goals.

But even before price hikes start to affect consumers, there are signs of pushback.

After the Senate passed a (thus far) mostly symbolic law sponsored by Tim Kaine reversing Trump’s emergency declaration for Canada, Chuck Grassley teamed with Maria Cantwell to propose restoring Congressional authority over such taxes. (Grassley did not support Kaine’s bill; Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul, and Mitch McConnell did.) See this Aaron Fritschner thread for an explanation of why this second effort might have more prospect of success: because the House has not yet stopped time with regards to the latest emergency Trump declared to accrue more power.

The pure insanity of Trump’s tariffs is best (ahem) personified by his inclusion of Heard and McDonald Islands, which are inhabited largely by penguins.

Two tiny, remote Antarctic outposts populated by penguins and seals are among the obscure places targeted by the Trump administration’s new tariffs.

Heard and McDonald Islands – a territory which sits 4,000km (2,485 miles) south-west of Australia – are only accessible via a seven-day boat trip from Perth, and haven’t been visited by humans in almost a decade.

[snip]

Like the rest of Australia, the Heard and McDonald Islands, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are now subject to a tariff of 10%. A tariff of 29% was imposed on the Norfolk Island, which is also an Australian territory and has a population of about 2,200 people.

Heard Island, though, is barren, icy and completely uninhabited – home to Australia’s largest and only active volcano, Big Ben, and mostly covered by glaciers.

It is believed the last time people ventured on to Heard Island was in 2016, when a group of amateur radio enthusiasts broadcast from there with permission of the Australian government.

Taken literally, Trump’s inclusion of two islands (over)run by penguins means that he believes American workers cannot compete with penguins without some kind of help — a 10% tariff — to level the playing field. A glacier field.

Right wingers who applaud Trump’s insanity are, effectively, confessing that their own industry and pluck is no match for a colony of penguins.

The penguins are useful for something beyond the MAGAt confessions that they are not as industrious as penguins. They help to identify how the Trump Administration came up with this hocus pocus.

James Surowiecki figured it out — the Administration took the trade deficit (Surowiecki later figured out it’s only the trade deficit in goods, not services) and split it in half.

This was largely confirmed when the Deputy WH Spox attempted to dispute Surowiecki’s description, only to confirm that’s precisely the formula they used (sorry, you need to click through for the pure dumber-than-a-penguin-glory).

So because the penguins have shown up as trading partners in a few different years, they’re included on here.

Russia is not. Russia, Belarus, North Korea. The Administration says that’s because sanctions effectively mean we have no trade with them, but we do — certainly more than we do with the penguins.

I guess Trump is more terrified of the Russians than he is the penguins.

This is a shit show. But it’s the kind of shit show that may disrupt the Republican lockstep in Congress. Whether the penguin tariffs were the cause, John Thune had to pull the first of the budget resolutions that were supposed to give legal sanction for Trump’s agenda (as well as massive tax cuts to the rich) yesterday. And Teddy Cancun Cruz has spoken up against the sanctions, calling them (accurately) taxes.

Even before constituents start to pay through the teeth, Republicans are beginning to accurately describe that these are taxes.

It’s unclear how this will end up, and billions of people will be hurt in the process (though, as with much else that Trump has done out of pique this Administration, China will likely find a way to capitalize on Trump’s idiocy). But this is the kind of disruptive event that presents opportunity to disrupt Trump’s power.