Donald Trump hugs a flag, presumably without its consent.
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Donald Trump Thinks He Can “Hereby Order” American Companies to Do Stuff on Twitter

That's not how that works.
Image of Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane
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Published: Aug 23, 2019 01:34 pm

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Donald Trump was on one hell of a Twitter tirade Friday morning, tweeting his own approval ratings and retweeting Fox clips, while also ranting about his manufactured trade war with China. At one point, he declared that U.S. companies are “hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.”

Here’s the thing, though: That’s not actually something the President can do. He can’t force American companies to conduct business in a certain way (and he sure as hell can’t order it via Twitter).

Pretty much any time Trump tweets about the economy, something bad happens. Like how he’s been tweeting about Chinese tariffs (and lying about how those work) for a while now, and China responded by announcing a new round of retaliatory tariffs on American goods. So unsurprisingly, the stock market plummetted after Trump made his empty declaration. The DOW fell more than 400 points, the S&P 500 fell 1.7% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2%.

Also, didn’t Ivanka Trump just get a bunch of new trademarks approved in China for her business? I wonder if her father will bring that up …

Trump keeps praising his own economy, accusing “the Fake News Media, together with their Partner, the Democrat Party,” of “working overtime to convince people that we are in, or will soon be going into, a Recession.” He says Democrats are only doing this to win elections. Now, it’s true that the illusion of a strong economy seems to be Trump’s best weapon going into the 2020 election, but no one is hoping for a recession. A lot of people do see one on the horizon, and Trump’s lies aren’t going to stop it.

Trump has apparently decided the best way to avoid an economic collapse is to call the Federal Reserve Chair–a man Trump appointed–an enemy of America.

Trump desperately wants the Fed to cut interest rates–something he would not have to do if we weren’t actually on the brink of a recession–and Powell’s reluctance to make the dramatic cuts Trump wants has made him furious. He’s attacked Powell for his “horrendous lack of vision” and now he’s actually labelling him as an enemy to the economy and the country.

Both his attacks on Powell and his meaningless hereby declarations paint the picture of a man who truly does not understand how our government or our economy or, really, anything at all works. But he wants so badly to be a tyrant and doesn’t know how to respond to not getting his way with anything but a Twitter temper tantrum.

(image: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

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Author
Image of Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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