Tariffs and illiberal regimes
Jean Charles
Can Trump’s tariffs be also a tool for ushering democracy in a world of illiberal regimes?
By Jean H Charles
With a stroke of a pen, President Trump eliminated worldwide the functioning of USAID. It was the software instrument of diplomacy with dubious effectiveness of its operations in almost most of the regions of the globe.
President Trump has used a letter as the vehicle to grant preferential or punitive tariff for goods exported to the United States. Canada and Mexico were punished for allegedly sending methanol in the country. President Trump should go further and use the tariffs as a tool to force the legion of leaders like the President of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara who at 83 is seeking a fourth term. There are legions of leaders in this globe who punished their citizens by rendering life awful for them.
The United States as the first nation in the Western Hemisphere has received a divine mission to teach the rest of the world how to develop good nations. That mission was on its way of becoming a reality when Toussaint Louverture the leader of the island of St Domingue/aka Haiti suggested to his friend John Adams that a leader has an obligation to bring happiness to his subjects.
That proposition intrigues John Adams to the point he was going to adopt that policy in his second term in 1800. But the election gave the nod to Thomas Jefferson dooming for the foreseeable future the idea of happiness envisaged by John Adams and Toussaint Louverture.
In 2025, President Trump has the possibility of going back to the policy envisaged by John Adams in bringing happiness to the citizens of the United States and to the rest of the world by sanctioning the illiberal governments and imposing stiff tariffs to them.
In a growing debate whether the tariffs are good or bad for the economy, only time will tell, but they will certainly good for the billions of people under illiberal regimes that condition their lives to misery.
This policy will for sure designate the President for the recipient of the Nobel Peace prize while bringing value to the economy and last but not least bring a cohort of new democratic regimes to the global political stage.
The USAID for years has spend billion of dollars in investment that bring very few return and for the recipients and for the donor agency. This new tool while costing nothing to the United States will be very effective in setting straight that old policy of corruption, nepotism and plain theft of natural resources.
As such President Trump will come back to revive the dream of John Adams and Toussaint Louverture to render all the citizens of their respective countries happy and all the citizens of the world happy in this