fiscal forecast (12. 818)

As the shutdown of the US federal government drags on and Donald Trump appears far more interested in razing the White House, betraying the ranching community that voted him back in office by touting Argentinian beef over domestically sourced (added to the bailout of the peso to ensure that the Trump crime family has a safe space for exile like Nazis in hiding) and uncharacteristically, charitably silent for a few hours perhaps embarking on another Weekend at Bernie’s, Washington and Ontario have suspended trade talks over an advertisement aired on social media at the behest of the province’s premier which excerpted a portion of a 1987 speech by Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs—counter-programming a series ran by Trump lauding their supposed benefits. Insisting that Reagan’s quote that “trade barriers hurt every American worker” was taken out of context and politicised (messaging also used by China), Marco Rubio, the secretary of state—charged with diplomacy but focused on economic issues and destabilising the government of Venezuela and who pointedly during the 2016 Republican primary debates called tariffs a tax on the American people—announced that negotiations have been put on hold, later echoed by the US president, calling the ad fake and fraudulent and declaring talks “hereby terminated.” Moreover the a group called the Reagan Foundation cried foul over the misrepresentation and is exploring legal options against Canada—to which Ontario released an extended version of the address—in the public domain—to differentiate it from Trump’s AI slop and distortions. This derailment comes ahead of the mandated six year reassessment of the NAFTA redux negotiated by Trump and the announcement of the Canadian federal budget, expected to emphasise a pivot away from reliance on its neighbour to the south.