Trump’s Strategy: A Power Grab Masked as a Trade War Masked as a Public Health Crisis

At this stage of continual flux, of animated and polemical debates, and partisan news coverage, it is still a major challenge to get a clear focus on what is happening, and why. The main problem is that there is not much that makes sense in Donald Trump’s decision to use tariffs to launch a trade war against Canada, Mexico, China, and soon the EU, simultaneously. Every argument Trump has made, has been contradicted by another argument that he also made. Many commentators and critics are reacting against a specific premise, while holding the other premises to the side. We need more questions, and more efficient explanations.

The Main Question: What is Trump Doing?

The main question, at least for me, is a simple one: Why would Trump word his Executive Order in such a manner that it could be very easily contradicted and negated by his own statements, including statements made just the night before announcing the order?

A simple question, but not a problem that is easy to solve—and it may also be irrelevant if no states or importers directly challenge the EO in federal court and secure an injunction. But the question would remain as to why Trump would construct an action that would be open to potential legal challenges.

The night before announcing the EO itself, Trump indicated in comments to the press, inside the White House, that he was not seeking any concessions at all. He made it very clear—at that moment—that the tariffs were in response to both border issues plus a trade deficit. Trump specifically cited “trade deficits” with Canada and Mexico. Though the European Union does not figure in this EO, Trump included it in his comments to the press, and the comments of course included nothing about the borders, migrants, or fentanyl.

Trump is invoking the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which has never been used for across-the-board tariffs (it does not even mention the word “tariff”). To use that Act, Trump must argue that there is an “emergency”. In addition, the tariffs must be used for security reasons, not economic ones.

Specifically, Trump has essentially begun to declare a “public health emergency” by focusing on the influx of fentanyl and its impacts on Americans’ health. This is at the very top of the Executive Order, in the second paragraph:

“I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the sustained influx of illicit opioids and other drugs has profound consequences on our Nation, endangering lives and putting a severe strain on our healthcare system, public services, and communities” [emphases added].

Further on, Trump calls the problem for which the tariffs are a response, a “public health crisis”. He does so repeatedly in the document. In that document, Trump also refers to the National Emergencies Act, in sustaining his authority.

Another significant feature of Trump’s use of the IEEPA, rather than a variety of already existing trade acts, is that it allows him to move rapidly and without burdensome administrative procedures and congressional reporting. It also means he is getting ready to impose a universal tariff, on all imports from anywhere—because existing trade acts are for specific industrial sectors, specific products, and for specific proven reasons, for a limited time in some cases. Trump is clearly reaching for maximum latitude.

Thus we have answers to our first question already: the Executive Order is not for avowed economic purposes, rather it is framed conveniently as a public health emergency. With this, Trump can now claim vastly expanded emergency powers. Trump seemed to rather like the power, and the centralization of decision-making, that came with Covid and his Operation Warp Speed, and there is no reason to believe that he has forgotten that experience. For now, the prevailing assumption is that Trump’s trade war is for economic reasons (masked as public health), but that may obscure other reasons why Trump would be interested in a trade war, reasons that have little to do with either economic gain or public health.

The Second Question: Why Do It This Way?

All the while I have been assuming that “the next one” would come in the form of a virus spread between humans—and that too may well happen—but in the meantime this “emergency” was planted first. Indeed, Trump has been keen not to let a potential Bird Flu emergency get in the way: he instructed all federal public health authorities to stop reporting on the spread of Bird Flu.

If it is not already obvious, Trump is continuing in the vein of rule by emergency. What Giorgio Agamben warned us about, and long before him Karl Marx, was the prospect of governance increasingly based on the “state of exception”. Since 9/11, the Absolute Security State has been constantly expanding in power and scope of operations. Now everything is being redefined as an “emergency,” such that Trump’s supporters naively believe there actually is a fentanyl “emergency” involving the Canadian border. Trump has redefined America’s long-standing—decades long—problem of irregular migration through the southern border as an “emergency,” which defeats the established meaning of the word which is premised on an occurrence that is unexpected and sudden.

We know that in order to justify use of the IEEPA, Trump needs to invent an “emergency”. The excuse of migrants and fentanyl coming through the border with Canada, for example, is used to prove there is an emergency involving Canada—even if Trump himself has ordered no special or extraordinary measures to defend the US’ northern border. No Canadian border communities have reported the sudden appearance of masses of US troops. Many Americans, and some Canadians, ask what Canada has done to defend the US border (as illogical as that question is)—but they never get around to asking what the US has done to defend its own northern border. There was, as we know, absolutely nothing Canada could do to prevent Trump from imposing tariffs, because Trump needs the emergency itself even more than he needs tariffs. And in fact, all of Canada’s efforts to bolster border security, were for naught.

While Trump calls the influx of fentanyl a “public health crisis,” there is also no evidence that Trump has instituted any new measures, dedicated any new spending, or implemented any new programs to curb the distribution and consumption of fentanyl within the US itself. That is very remarkable. The President of Mexico referred to this very fact in her own speech announcing retaliation against the US for its tariffs.

While it now appears that Trump enacted this trade war for the sake of rule by emergency (and not the other way around as some might assume), there is nothing to say that Trump cannot be aiming for economic gain for the US. But there is reason to doubt that too, remarkable as that may seem.

Despite my best efforts to learn otherwise, it seems that Trump has done absolutely none of the painstaking, lengthy work of establishing the basis for import substitution. Prior to imposing tariffs, there is no evidence to suggest that Trump met and consulted with chambers of commerce, manufacturers’ associations, trade lobbyists, and unions, to prepare a line of companies to undertake investment in import substitution. Until his announcement, they would not even have known what to substitute.

Secondly, Trump has not identified or lined up foreign companies who might have an interest in setting up production in the US, behind tariff walls. Though we have heard in the press of some possible moves, it’s an expensive and timely undertaking—and it requires some assurance that their future US-made products will be commercially competitive. If the US dollar continues its current surge, it means the prices of their products will go up, and consumers in other countries will choose cheaper alternatives.

Trump is also apparently not working on pushing lawmakers to draft legislation to further protect domestic industries—so that the next administration cannot just cancel all tariffs. What guarantee is there for a company considering new investment, that its higher priced toasters and televisions will remain protected by tariff walls?

While this is still very early, and the validity of synchronic analyses in dynamic situations is limited, there is some evidence to suggest that, financially, the trade war is already producing the opposite of the effects that Trump avowedly seeks. This has to do with the plummeting value of the Canadian dollar, relative to the US dollar. It now means that US goods are even more expensive to buy in Canada. That means Canadians will be buying fewer US products. However, it makes Canadian products even cheaper in the US, thus offsetting the tariffs—thus negating their financial purpose. This means the trade deficit with the US will widen even further—the exact opposite of what Trump said he wanted. It is also as if Canada had just increased the tariffs on US imports, across the board, while adding a slew of other barriers, i.e., making it more expensive to vacation in the US. In addition, the US dollar needs to go much lower for the US to become an attractive destination for manufacturing. Now even fewer companies will be interested in the possibility of relocating there. In fact the US dollar is surging against almost all currencies, including many countries not subject to tariffs. This means US goods just became even less competitive—a big bonus for China, India, and others. Meanwhile, investment in Canadian gold mining and oil extraction just became more attractive to foreign interests. Trump’s complaints about both the trade deficits, and his long-standing complaint about the overvaluation of the US dollar, are problems that are both being exacerbated.

If national economic gain were the primary motivation for Trump, then a trade war—“the dumbest trade war in history,” as the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal called it—is not an obvious choice, especially not if it risks doing acute damage to the US, as a war against all would surely do. So why do it?

The Third Question: Why Subject the US Economy to So Much Risk?

We no longer hear repetition of the promises to lower grocery prices, and reduce inflation, because Trump clearly has no intention of keeping those promises. Instead, Trump is saying the opposite will happen with prices, and Americans have to bear them with patience.

At a time when grocery prices in the US continue to soar, Trump is putting tariffs on imported foodstuffs. At the very same time, ICE’s deportation raids are prompting America’s agricultural labour force to abandon their worksites—the same is true on construction sites. If the US continues on this path, it could be creating the conditions for a major food crisis. In addition, it is purging itself of a major consumer market and source of tax revenues, while eliminating the very cheap labour that allowed the US some competitive margin against China.

It is also possible that a trade war where the US pits itself against its closest allies—that contain its largest export markets and are key sources of vital inputs for US industries—a war then expanded to include China and the European Union, would have one special effect: a disruption in the US’s own supply chains.

And all of this may be the point: creative destruction. But if so, to what end?

I would agree with those that suggest Trump is doing this precisely because he wants chaos. Trump does not “disrupt” things just for the sake of disruption, like an uncontrolled nihilist and vandal (as much as it looks that way). Trump “disrupts” in order to maximize power, for himself first and foremost. Put simply, this is part of Trump’s power-grabbing agenda, and it can range from imperial expansion abroad to dictatorial usurpation of power and authority at home.

And this explanation is the most efficient and economic one, as it encompasses the greatest number of available facts. Examine what Trump is doing in purging the FBI; investigating the investigators at the Department of Justice; smashing USAID; attempting to buy off or otherwise scare away federal employees; trying to suspend federal spending programs, to realign them with his priorities—all of this compacted into mere days. Trump said he would not be a dictator, “except on Day One”...but he appears to measure a day in terms of weeks if not months. It is becoming impossible to keep up with the hundreds of Executive Orders being disgorged by his office. Some will try to placate their own worries by telling themselves that Trump is just trying to “break” the so-called “deep state,” and in a way he is—but so that he can install his own deep state, the Trump State.

If food shortages happen and supply chains breakdown, so much the better, because there is another purge that is waiting in the wings: purging American society of undesirables and deviants. If such actions eventually result in social disorder and armed violence, then that is also acceptable: it will allow the Trump State to impose martial law. In all of this the MAGA cult is slated for a special role: as collateral damage. MAGA cultists will first be frontliners, and then they will be flatliners.

In committing such acts against his own citizens, Trump might feel momentarily protected by the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that he has immunity for all actions conducted while he is in office. But that raises a very serious problem: how will Americans get justice if all hell breaks loose? The only option for them cannot be the courts, but something rather deadly for Trump, his family, and his cronies. Prompted by the movie Civil War, I am beginning to suspect that Trump’s sudden and very urgent, almost desperate desire to acquire Greenland immediately is not because it is vital to America’s national security, but because it is vital to his personal security. Where else on the planet would Trump be safe from the hands of Americans seeking retribution?

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