Does Trump read my blog?

Does Trump read my blog? For years I have been writing the following:

1. Drian the swamp by moving the Federal agencies out of DC. I even made suggestions as to where they could go. Now Joni Ernst has proposed the same thing only she says that at a minimum 30 percent of each agency’s workforce should leave DC. Why 30 percent?
2. I like Kash Patel’s idea of shutting down the DC headquarters of the FBI and moving all agents into the field. No wonder Patel scares the swamp denizens to death.
3. I also suggested that if a new regulation were enacted then an old one should be eliminated. Trump is now talking about a 10 to 1 ratio. Great idea.
4. I suggested limiting the number of pages in the federal register. Biden added over 90,000 pages last year which is obscene. I would enact a law either putting on an absolute limit of pages or saying that the number of new pages cannot grow by more than a certain percent. This would in and of itself limit the number of new regulations.

I wonder how many new regulations, especially environmental regulations have been enacted by Biden’s administration? I would bet that the number is in the thousands. Just in the environment alone I found the following: clean fuel regulations, emissions cap for certain sectors (oil, gas, aviation, railways), coal phase-outs, new energy efficiency rules for building (old and new), performance mandates for natural gas plants, regulatory hurdles to liquified natural gas exports, new and tighter vehicle fuel economy standards, subsidies to ethanol productions, electric vehicle mandates, subsidies to electric vehicles, subsidies to battery makers, carbon sequestration mandates, government purchases of electric vehicles. 

Luckily the president has an autopen to do all the signing.

Yes Trump has a lot to do. He says that he has 100 executive orders to be signed on Day 1. Only 100? He probably needs to sign several thousand to begin to undo all the damage done by Biden. There’s the environment, energy, DEI, trans, inflation, out of control spending, disastrous foreign policy. Get signing Donald!

Trump obviously hates Canada. I have no clue why. His tariffs on Canadian goods makes no sense. His excuse that illegals and fentanyl flow over the border is lame since 99 percent of both come across the southern border. Trudeau hastily put together a $1.2 billion border security plan but Trump has ignored it. Apparently, the border security excuse is just a ruse.

Canada is our largest trading partner and tariffs will likely plunge that economy into recession and significantly raise the price of energy, dairy, energy, steel and lumber to American citizens. So what does Trump really want – other than to humiliate the Canadian government? We import around $450 billion in goods from Canada while we export around $350 billion. That’s 77 percent of Canadian exports and 63 percent of all Canadian imports. Obviously, tariffs will severely hurt the Canadians. 

Surely Trump isn’t trying to balance the trade budget, is he? That would be even more stupid than the tariffs since Canada is much smaller than the US, being not that much larger in population than California. But no one ever claimed rationality for Trump. In fact he has said “We’re spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. Why should we have a $200-billion deficit?” Of course, the trade deficit is $100 billion but hey what’s a $100 billion among friends?  Trump says that we do not need Canadian automobiles, lumber or dairy products. Trump also said “They make 20 percent of our cars. We don’t need that. I’d rather make them in Detroit.” 

Note that he left out the major good we import from Canada – oil. A tariff on oil would raise the price of energy in the US. Didn’t I say once about tariffs throwing Trump supporters under the bus? Also Ontario Premier Doug Ford has threatened to cut off the electricity exports to the northern tier of US states in the Eastern interconnection power grid. Once again, an imposition of tariffs would violate Trump’s own trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. Trump apparently doesn’t care – and neither should anyone else who has to deal with him.