Donald Trump has been roaring through the week so loudly it shakes the stability of the American institutions. His month-old Attorney General William Barr declared him home free on all accounts after the Mueller investigation and let loose a tyrant. This is what POTUS untethered looks like, spouting the fire of oppression, bullying, and revenge. Trump has been testing his wings of unilateral command, much like the dictators in Russia, North Korea, the Philippines.
Given how the commander-in-chief operates in the moment without regard to the consequences, this time he may have gone way too far. The man sitting in the Oval Office delighted in directing his attorney general to sue to kill Obamacare with nothing to replace it out of spite toward President Barack Obama. He has been bullying his chairman of the Fed to cut interest rates. Now, he has threatened to close the U.S.’s southern border with Mexico — within a week.
Mexico is the third largest trading partner that the U.S. has. California exports over 17 percent of its wine there. Every day 70,000 vehicles and almost a million people legally cross at the ports of entry.
Trump also tried to bully our ally and economic partner, Mexico, at his latest rally, according to The Dallas News:
‘I’m not playing games. We right now have two big caravans coming up from Guatemala, massive caravans, walking right through Mexico. …Â If they don’t stop them, we’re closing the border.’
Never mind that his administration has not even begun to prepare for all of his grandiose plans. Privately, they comment they could not possibly execute closing the border within a week.
A White House official told Axios:
‘It’s being looked into, what it could and would look like.’
One Trump official said that 45:
‘…is definitely serious about (closing the border and) has talked about it quite a few times and wanted to do it several times.’
Hundreds of U.S. officials who normally screen vehicles and cargo at the ports of entry, where the drugs usually cross, have been reassigned. They work with the legal refugees from a violently impossible Central America.
One officer told Axios:
‘This is the result of a broken immigration system that fails the nation and fails to effectively promote any of the goals it should — economic prosperity, public safety and national security, protecting vulnerable populations, and welcoming legal immigrants.’
Mexican foreign minister Marcel Ebrand tweeted an angry response to Trump:
‘Mexico does not act based on threats. We are a great neighbor. As a proof, 1.5 million Americans have chosen as their home, the largest community of US expatriates living outside their country. For them, we are also the best neighbor they could have had.’
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said Trump’s “ridiculous threat” (would be) “economic disaster…Trade would crash to a screeching halt.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asked Congress for authority to send children from Central America who legally cross into our country back to their homes of origin:
‘We face a cascading crisis at our southern border. The system is in free fall. We have reached peak capacity and are now forced to pull from other missions to respond to the emergency.’
