The man amuses me. Or would if what he does wasn’t so bad for his country.

One thing politicians try very much to avoid is making policy on the fly. For Donald Trump not thinking things through seems to be a way of life.

Monday he announced that the United States was going to make a deal with Belarus for the potash it needs for its fertilizer. Anything to avoid having to trade with Canada.

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of geography would tell you that shipping potash to the USA is going to cost astronomically more than shipping from Canada. That higher cost will be borne by the American consumer.

But since Canada won’t bow to King Donald the First, someone else has to provide the nation’s potash. Costs to America be damned.

Maybe he has managed a sweetheart deal that really will be cheaper. It seems unlikely, given that president of Belarus has said his country has no potash to spare. They already have markets for their entire production.

If trump follows through with his threat, Canada’s potash producers will find new markets. There will be short term pain, but eventually a new equilibrium will be reached. And the US consumer will likely be stuck with higher prices.

There is also the question of optics. Leave Canada out of the equation completely. Ask yourself how a deal between the USA and Belarus looks to the world.

You see, potash production in Belarus is directly controlled by the state and President Alexander Lukashenko, primarily for their support of Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine. Canada and other nations have sanctioned the president and his associates. For Canadians, buying Belorussian potash would be illegal.

Until earlier this year that would have been true for the US also. Suddenly though the sanctions have been lifted. No other country has followed suit.

How convenient to have the sanctions lifter just as Trump wants to make a deal. Mind you, they wouldn’t have mattered to him anyway.

Trump doesn’t care about the law. Kings are above the law, at least in the US. The Supreme Court has said so.

How does it look to the other nations of the world when the United States, which frequently preaches about what other countries should do, sets aside its principles for the sake of expediency? Does the word hypocrisy come to mind?

The whole thing is just another example of how the US has become a laughingstock in the eyes of the world. And the American president doesn’t care.