Donald Trump’s sick deal
By the time you read this, brothers and sisters, you’ll know for sure something I don’t know right now. It is this. Did Trump announce a trade deal with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
It’s 5 am, as I write this in England. In 10 hours from now, 10am Washington DC time, Trump is going to announce “a trade agreement with the UK, according to a person familiar with the matter, which would mark the first deal for the White House since it imposed sweeping tariffs against trading partners last month,” according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
If anyone is listening, I have an answer for Trump, and I think I speak for most of the nation. The sane part, anyway. It is this: The answer is NO. We don’t want you. We don’t need no stinking trade deal with America right now. We would prefer to rejoin the European Union, make solid trade with other European nations and a loose confederation with China. Frankly, Trump can take his trade deal and stick it up his ass.
Unlike most of the rest of the world, our latest election last Thursday did not end in a definitive repudiation of fascism. While it’s true that the loathsome Reform UK Party only garnered five seats in Parliament, which is hardly a takeover, they did make considerable headway in local governments. Many Conservatives in local governments are abandoning ship and joining Reform UK. This is deeply worrying.
Reform UK advertises itself as a “populist” party, which is exactly what you think. These days whenever you see “populist,” read “racist.” It’s headed by the perfectly awful bigot Nigel Farage, a bosom buddy of Trump.
Making a trade deal, which is tantamount to making common cause with the United States, is exactly what Farage wants. He wants to get into lockstep with Trump so he can help turn Britain into a mirror of the US with Farage as a Trump mini-me. Just as Trump wants to gut Medicaid, Farage wants to destroy the British National Health Service, get in bed with the medical insurance companies and become a billionaire himself.
Farage has visions of sugar Trumps dancing in his head. We want no part of him or Trump or a purported trade deal. When the United States recovers from its sickness and elects someone sane in four years we can talk. Meanwhile, no. No trade deal. Your people are welcome here, your government is not.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.