The ‘Gulf of America’ — Trump’s New Monroe Doctrine

The Gulf of America — Trump’s new Monroe Doctrine.Let’s start with the Gulf of America. It was the Gulf of Mexico, but that was named in the 16th century before the Unites States of America even existed.So Gulf of Mexico sounds outdated to me. It’s time for a change. At today’s news conference at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump noted that “we have a massive deficit with Mexico and we help Mexico a lot. They’re essentially run by the cartels and I can’t let that happen. Mexico’s really in trouble.” He added: “We’re going to be announcing at a future date, pretty soon — we’ll be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. The Gulf of America: What a beautiful name.”So Trump basically said Gulf of America has a big beautiful ring to it.Sounds like his endorsement of one big beautiful budget bill to cut taxes and seal the border.Speaking of sealing the border, though, doesn’t sound at all like Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has yet done very much to help America seal the southern border — like with 25,000 troops that helped ensure President Trump’s first-term success of “Remain in Mexico.”He threatened a 25 percent tariff on Mexico if they don’t cooperate.Whatever happened to the Monroe Doctrine? Codified over 200 years ago, it made clear that America will not permit European interference in Latin America. And, when you toss in the Panama Canal that Trump also mentioned today, you should add that the United States cannot tolerate Chinese interference in America’s core interests.And then, as Trump also tossed in Greenland, the same core-interest principle applies with our adversaries Russia and China nosing around — not simply for rare earth minerals, but also building a stronghold for air forces and naval power.Trump also threatened Canada with a 25 percent tariff if they don’t cooperate on our northern border.Trump’s trolling of Justin Trudeau about Canada becoming the 51st state basically knee-capped the left-wing prime minister right out of the ballpark and into retirement.And finally, speaking of tariffs, a recent Washington Post article that Trump was pulling back on his universal tariff plans was, as the president-elect put it, fake news.Hat tip to the brilliant economist Larry Lindsey for pointing out that American imports run about $5 trillion per year. And that a 10 percent broad-based tariff would produce roughly $500 billion that would more than cover Trump’s tax cuts, and then some.Tariffs aren’t inflationary. Only excess money is inflationary.Meanwhile, the European Union has value added taxes, which are essentially tariffs, that run around 20 percent — and the world has lived with that for a long time.All this suggests to me that, just like with his big beautiful tax cut and border bill, Trump knows exactly what he’s talking about.From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

The ‘Gulf of America’ — Trump’s New Monroe Doctrine

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