Tariffs are back on the table – and this time he’s using forced labour and poop lettuce as excuses. Here’s everything you need to know from Trumpworld this week
Donald Trump continues to find new and innovative ways to threaten his global rivals. Tariffs are back on the table – and this time he’s using forced labour and poop lettuce as excuses.
Meanwhile he’s trying to shoehorn the world’s most hated man into a job at the body tasked with fostering world peace. He’s slapping his name on things again – but maybe he’s kind of got a point this time.
And he’s threatening war crimes against Iran, in what has become a distinctly costly war.
Here’s all the wild, alarming and downright bizarre things that happened in Trumpworld this week. Buckle up.
Infanti-no
Donald Trump is proving himself to be the world’s worst job recruiter.
Not satisfied with trying to make a man who was under investigation for child sex trafficking (Matt Gaetz) his attorney general, or putting a man whose brain has been partially eaten by a parasitic worm (RFK JR) in charge of the health department Trump wants a man who is hated by literally everyone in the world to run the organisation tasked with maintaining world peace.
That’s right: Gianni Infantino, the infamous President of FIFA, inventor of the FIFA peace prize, should be Secretary General of the United Nations, Trump reckons.
Now this is never going to happen, for two important reasons. First, Infantino seems to quite like the idea of retaining his position at the top of professional football so much that he keeps adding countries to the tournament in the hope that they’ll vote for him to stay.
Second, the United Nations has a process for picking Secretaries General which is so complicated it would make the electoral college blush. And at the end of it, the permanent members of the security council, which includes France and the UK, get a veto. And after the World Cup exits both countries have just had, you can bet your life they’d use it.
I’m sorry, the Iran war has cost how much?
Donald Trump – and now Marco Rubio – have doubled down…or is it tripled down now? …on their threats of war crimes against the people of Iran, warning the Islamic Republic any attacks on boats in the strait of hormuz will be responded to with bombing raids on bridges and power stations near Tehran. As we’ve covered before even threatening to do that is a war crime. But as we’ve also covered, it’s literally impossible to prosecute the President of the United States for war crimes.
But the most eyebrow raising moment in the Iran war this week was secretary of war Pete Hegseth’s admission that the US has already spent 37 and a half BILLION DOLLARS on the conflict. And with no end in sight, you can perhaps understand why Trump is getting quite so tetchy when he’s asked what the plan is.
And it doesn’t end there. Hegseth made the admission at a senate hearing where he was asking for MORE MONEY. Like a permatanned Oliver Twist he went cap in hand to congress demanding another $70 billion more to fund the war and replenish depleted weapons stocks – even warning troops could end up going without pay if Congress refused to stump up the eye watering bonus.
Trump swerves question about war crimes
While Trump seems to be perfectly comfortable making the threat of war crimes, he’s less keen on acknowledging that what he’s doing is a war crime.
Asked about it in the Oval Office on Friday, he refused to say whether he thought attacking infrastructure was a war crime, turning his fire on the reporter who asked the question. Again.
Make America Poop Again
There’s no way to sugar coat this. America is in the middle of a pooping epidemic.
An outbreak of cyclospora was linked to rogue lettuce in Taco Bells in Pennsylvania and beyond. This has been – sorry – bubbling for a couple of weeks so far. So you’d think Trump would havem ore to say about it.
Asked when it would be safe to eat lettuce again, Trump said last night that his government is “going to put a major tariff on tax on Mexico because of the **lettuce**.”
He wants to name another thing after himself
From an early age, Donald Trump longed to have things named after him. From Trump Tower, vodka and frozen steak, and then in office the peace institute, Trump Accounts, Trump RX, and (sigh) the Kennedy Centre and Palm Beach Airport, he’s slapped his name around like a cat marking territory.
The latest? Penn Station in New York City. Now, in this case there is actually a case to be made for changing the name, because there’s also a Penn Station in New Jersey, and another in Baltimore. And it’s pretty confusing.
But there’s no rule that says everything that gets re-named during a President’s term in office means they have to be named after him.
Tariffs are back baybee
Trump’s grabbed hold of his favourite stick to wave at other countries again this week – Tariffs.
And the timing is no coincidence. Trump’s global 10% tariffs expired at midnight on Friday. And Trump has been casting about for excuses to slap replacement tariffs on as many countries as possible.
For example Canada is being threatened with tariffs because of the wildfires blowing smoke south of the border. Some 60 major trading partners – including the UK – are being threatened with tariffs over “forced labour” practices.
And now, yes, he says he’s slapping tariffs on Mexico because that’s where the poop lettuce came from.
It is worth remembering that Trump’s entire tariff regime was struck down as spurious by the Supreme Court, and this is a clear attempt to circumvent that ruling. Trump has said as much. There is every chance that these tariffs never get enacted.