Trump has decided I’m not paying enough for my avocados. I’m beginning to really dislike this president.
I’m currently paying around $3.25 for an avocado big enough to feed me and Anitra and fill us up with its rich, omega-3-fatty-acid goodness — whatever that is. Trump’s not happy with that. On Monday, June 10, he wants me to pay an extra 15 cents for any big avocado that comes from Mexico.
What with all the fires and droughts on this side of the border, “avocado” pretty much means Mexican avocado. You know that if Mexican avocados go up in price, so will California avocados. Supply and demand gets you every time.
According to Trump, the only way the 5 percent tariff will be canceled is if Mexico stops all illegal immigration into the U.S. over the U.S.-Mexican border. So, in other words, it won’t be canceled.
When the illegal immigration still hasn’t stopped by the end of this month — which it won’t — the tariff will go up to 10 percent on July 1. Then, when that doesn’t get the illegal immigration to stop, it goes to 15 percent on Aug. 1. Then to 20 percent on Sept. 1. Then to 25 percent on Oct. 1.
At which point Trump promises he’ll stop the tariff hikes. I guess he thinks that if he kept going like that indefinitely, we’d all question his sanity. This way, around about Oct. 1, we’ll all think, “How sane of him to let up now. What a fine, stable genius he is.”
With large avocados going for more than $4 by then, it might pay for California farms to hire a lot of extra undocumented immigrants to grow and harvest avocados.
I haven’t even started on Mexican limes, strawberries, bell peppers and tomatoes. And lemons, bananas and berries, oh my.
To be real momentarily, none of this may happen because it assumes Trump is a man of his word and does what he says he’ll do. Haha. But, anyhow ....
Speaking of fires and droughts — and while we’re talking about the sanity of Trump and his administration — let’s recall that time when Seattle was choking on wildfire smoke. It looks like we’re all set to have wildfires in Western Washington, thanks to an unusually dry year. So, naturally, the Trump administration is ending a federal program that provides for firefighter training.
I can’t even imagine what the thinking behind that is. I tried to figure it out by reading this quote from Sonny Perdue, the head of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA): “As USDA looks to the future, it is imperative that the Forest Service focus on and prioritize our core natural resource mission to improve the condition and resilience of our Nation’s forests and step away from activities and programs that are not essential to that core mission.”
I read that over and over again and all I could get out of it is this possible translation into non-doublespeak: “As USDA looks to the future, the Forest Service has to focus on improving our forests up until they burn down, and then step away.”
“... and step away from activities and programs that are not essential to that core mission.” Like fighting wildfires. Gee, what I’d give to be able to slather Sonny Perdue in honey and unleash Smokey Bear on him. I’d pay $5 per large avocado for the rest of my life. Although I suppose he’d enjoy it. All these people are freaks.
Part of the problem is that if a U.S. national forest burns, the fire doesn’t know to stay on federal land. Fires are stupid.
The smoke from the fire doesn’t know to remain over the federal land. Smoke is stupid.
And Trump is sure to do to us in Washington state what he did to California last year. When homes outside of the national forests are burning, he’s going to say that didn’t happen on federal land, so it’s the state’s fault. Like fire and smoke, Trump is stupid.
When my eyes are burning here in Seattle from the smoke of wildfires in the Olympic National Forest, and I use up all the puffs of my last asthma inhaler, he’ll say that’s a Seattle problem. Your liberal City Council is responsible for all that by not having the sense to build a smoke wall around the city, and making Mexico pay for it.
And, by the way, real men don’t have asthma.
Dr. Wes Browning is a one time math professor who has experienced homelessness several times. He supplied the art for the first cover of Real Change in November of 1994 and has been involved with the organization ever since. This is his weekly column, Adventures in Irony, a dry verbal romp of the absurd.
Read the full June 5 - 11 issue.
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