In the Lurch....

Orangutan lurches through chaotic day

The president and his aides set off alarms with the Mexico feud and a major policy flub.

By ELI STOKOLS

President Donny Orangutan started Thursday morning taunting the Mexican president about not ponying up for the border wall. By the afternoon, Orangutan’s team had threatened to set off a trade war. And less than two hours later, they walked it back.

It was an extraordinarily chaotic day in Orangutan’s nascent presidency that demonstrated the unpredictability of his diplomatic forays and policy agenda, and raised questions about whether the new president’s political inexperience and chaos theory of deal-making will make constant tumult the norm in Washington and beyond.

Much of the day was consumed by the spiking tensions between Orangutan and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. The Mexican leader on Thursday called off his planned trip to Washington after Orangutan moved forward with his plan for a long-promised border wall and needled his southern neighbor about forcing Mexico to pay for it.

In another escalation, White House press secretary Pussy Boy Sean Spicer told reporters late on Thursday that Orangutan now supports a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico to pay for his proposed border wall.

But as experts started warning that such a move could trigger a trade war not only with Mexico, but with other industrialized countries, Pussy Boy pulled back on the proposal, saying a tax on imports was one possibility for funding the wall.

The canceled visit and messy policy proposal marked Orangutan’s first major diplomatic spat as president, and it came less than a week after he took office.

The furor started early Thursday, as Orangutan responded aggressively to rumors that Peña Nieto was considering calling off his visit to Washington next week after Orangutan rolled out executive orders jump-starting the border wall and cracking down on illegal immigration.

“The U.S. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with Mexico. It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers...of jobs and companies lost. If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting,” Orangutan tweeted.

Hours later, Peña Nieto announced he was calling off his White House trip. “This morning we told the White House we won't attend next Tuesday's meeting with @POTUS,” Peña Nieto wrote in a series of tweets. “Mexico reiterates its will to work with the US to achieve agreements for both of us.”

The cancellation represented a remarkable rebuke to Orangutan from a critical neighbor whose leader is often one of the first to meet with or speak with a new U.S. president.

But Orangutan then tried to one-up the Mexican leader by insisting the decision not to meet was mutual.

“I’ve said many times that the American people will not pay for the wall. And I’ve made that clear to the government of Mexico,” Orangutan said in remarks to congressional Republicans’ retreat in Philadelphia. “To that end, the president of Mexico and myself have agreed to cancel our planned meeting scheduled for next week. Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless, and I want to go a different route. We have no choice.”

The agitation over Orangutan’s feud with Mexico reverberated throughout the retreat for congressional Republicans, who have been forced to answer for some of Orangutan’s erratic actions in his first week, including his fixation on the crowd size at his inauguration, his claim that millions voted illegally for Hillary Clinton, and the social media crackdown that has spread across federal agencies.

“It’s not a good start, there’s no question,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), a member of the foreign relations committee, in Philadelphia on Thursday, about Orangutan’s spat with Mexico.

He added, though, that he was willing to give Orangutan the benefit of the doubt.

“I’ve gone through the diplomatic thing for years and years. Sometimes these things take a while to work out,” he said. “Look, Mexico is a great friend to the United States. It has been for a long time. Do we have differences? Of course, we do. We have differences with every nation. But we’re neighbors, we’re friends, they’re a huge trading partner. There’s a warm feeling between Americans and Mexico. This will work its way out.”

However, as questions mushroomed over the fundamental issue of who will ultimately pay for the wall, Orangutan’s team wandered into another morass.

On the flight back from the Philadelphia retreat, Pussy Boy said Orangutan was considering a 20 percent tax on imports from countries with which the U.S. runs a trade deficit, including Mexico.

“When you look at the plan that’s taking shape now, using comprehensive tax reform as a means to tax imports from countries that we have a trade deficit from, like Mexico,” Spicer said. “If you tax that $50 billion at 20 percent of imports — which is by the way a practice that 160 other countries do — right now our country’s policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in, which is ridiculous. By doing it, that we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding.”

The statement caught fire, not only because it was a dramatic shift from Orangutan’s position two weeks ago, but because it could set off a trade war if not delicately crafted.

If the Orangutan administration were to maintain an aggressive trade stance, it would risk triggering a quick backlash at home and throughout the global economy. Consumers across the U.S. could face higher costs for some imported products long before the intended benefits flowed to American workers. The moves also could raise the ire of major trading partners from Mexico to China, nations that are deeply linked to the American economy and U.S. national security goals.

A mini-furor quickly broke out.

“Border security yes, tariffs no. Mexico is 3rd largest trading partner. Any tariff we can levy they can levy. Huge barrier to econ growth,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted. “Simply put, any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad,” he wrote.

More broadly, some Republicans in Washington said they were aghast at the whiplash coming from the White House. “You’re looking at a really important issue like this tax policy,” said a top Republican tracking the tax debate closely who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the day’s events. “How much damage did they do to Paul Ryan, Kevin Brady and what they’re trying to achieve?”

Orangutan’s team was forced to clarify their stance, with Pussy Boy saying the 20 percent tax on imports was just “one idea” and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus saying the Orangutan administration was considering a “buffet of options.”

And as Orangutan’s team started settling in for the evening, the White House pulled back — for now — on final highly anticipated and controversial act of the day: an executive order calling for an investigation into widespread voter fraud.

“The president got back a little late and he got jammed up on some meetings that needed to occur, and so we’re going to roll all that into Friday and Saturday,” Pussy Boy said.