Trump Manages To Create Crises

Crisis management – contrary to the short-circuited thought processes of first felon Donald Trump – does not consist in creating crises yourself.

We are just exiting the Trump-generated crisis of what The Wall Street Journal called, “The Dumbest Trade War in History” with his first of February 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports.

Trump took his actions over a weekend. When the stock market opened Monday morning, it began a total meltdown. Several hours later, Trump put his tariffs on hold.

Stephen Collinson of CNN observed:

“As markets tanked on Monday morning, the potential consequences of a North American trade war were laid bare. The potential for tariffs to spike the grocery prices that Trump was partly elected to fix came into focus. There were fresh warnings that the auto industry – a cross-border concern – could seize up and that the price of a new vehicle could soon shoot up by $3,000.”

Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ ran a headline proclaiming, “Trump blinks,” an assessment shared by a Canadian MP.

“He blinked,” Canadian MP Charlie Angus told MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas. “He choked.”

HuffPost added, “Critics were quick to point out that the core of the Canadian concession had already been announced in December – before Trump even took office – and the amount of fentanyl entering the nation from the north is comparatively small anyway.”

Other reporters noted that, among the crashing stocks following the imposition of tariffs, were the crypto-currencies of Trump and third wife Melania, which lost 17% of their value before the president declared victory in his tariff war. He was his own collateral damage.

Trump has since announced plans for tariffs on steel and aluminum. Wait till he realizes his Diet Coke diet requires aluminum cans.

Yep, that astute deal maker managed to create a ridiculously unnecessary crisis. But it did give Trump the opportunity to insult Canadians – among the few folks in the world who did not already look askance at us.

Trump railed against TikTok for years. He proposed banning it in 2020 while still president. This helped gin up congressional animosity that culminated in a ban passed by Congress, signed by President Biden and upheld by the Supreme Court. Now, in his new position of Supreme Muckety-Muck Mogul, Trump has issued an executive order giving the platform an extension during which it can try to find a U.S. buyer.

Seems like, somewhere along the way, Trump realized that many of his own young followers were using TikTok for his benefit. So much for the overriding fear of Chinese collecting data on Americans – before DOGE can collect it for Elon Musk.

About a year ago, Trump began changing his opinion of TikTok for what today seems a very strange reason. He told CBS News:

"There's a lot of good and there's a lot of bad with TikTok, but the thing I don't like is that without TikTok, you're going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.”

Well, maybe Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, one of the honored oligarchs at Trump’s coronation/inauguration is not such an enemy these days.

Created crisis managed? Well, not yet.

And, lest we forget, on Trump’s first day back at the White House – while giving a green light to his red-hat goon squads to attack anyone he targets – he declared a crisis at the southern border.

If, on Jan. 20, the situation at the Mexican border was one speck worse than it has been this century, we must call it The Trump Border Crisis. It was candidate Donald Trump who demanded that his congressional disciples scuttle a bipartisan border bill crafted by Oklahoma’s Republican Sen. James Lankford, which the senator said “works to stop the illegal immigration chaos now and in the future.”

Among its provisions were no amnesty, no free work permits, build the wall, more ICE agents for deportations, more border patrol agents for arrests, more asylum officers to expedite hearings and deportations, double the number of deportation flights, more technology to stop drugs, ending “the cartel trick of trafficking children with adults” and so forth, etcetera.

Sooner state MAGAts condemned Lankford for trying to solve a problem that Trump was campaigning on, and Trump’s minions in Congress killed it last May. So, if there is a crisis at the border, the “stable genius” who created it is the current president who still uses the border as a campaign rallying point publicity stunt.

Earlier this month Context News reported that deportations during Biden’s four years were twice the number Trump registered from 2017-20. And, despite the photo ops and balderdashing ballyhoo, Trump’s deportations have not skyrocketed since he took office.

Furthermore, Trump’s gutting of U.S. foreign aid programs will inevitably exacerbate the border problem as Central Americans will see even fewer job opportunities in their home countries.

Trump has managed to create a fine crisis, one that he is nurturing to prolong his bellicose braying. This is not managing crises, it is barely managing to make them even worse.