Bryan Zepp Jamieson
February 3rd 2025
When Donald Trump called me to tell me that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he was going to slap tariffs on me, I was nonplussed. Weren’t the price of eggs already too high? “Please, Mister Trump,” I begged him. “What do you want, Mister Trump?”
There was a pause. I was sure Donald knew what he wanted when he picked up the phone. But you know, he’s a very important man. Important things to see, important people to do. It gets confusing.
Time to avail myself of an opportunity to fill that void.
“Do whatever you want, but please, please don’t demand I give you Mar-a-Lago. Please. Anything but that!”
“Mar-a-lago, eh?” I heard him give a sly cackle. Clearly, he thought he had be over a barrel. “OK,” he said, “Here’s my offer. I won’t slap tariffs on you if you give me Mar-a-Lago.”
I whimpered convincingly, begging him to spare me. He hung up. I looked at my phone and chuckled.
A few days later, he announced the tariffs on me. He did it on a Friday because nobody watches the news on Friday. I nearly missed it myself.
By Monday morning, the stock market people were talking openly about a market crash. Market people don’t like to talk about crashes, you know. They don’t even like to admit such things exist. Usually if a broker mentions the word ‘crash’ it means he has jumped from the plane, fallen for ten seconds, and just realized he forgot his parachute. Meanwhile, the phrase ‘trade war,’ one hated by nearly all businessmen, was being bandied about. The whole world, it seemed, was mad at Donald.
He gave me a call. “This is your last chance. Agree to giving me Mar-a-Lago and I’ll consider dropping the tariffs.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it.” I hung up.
I turned on the stock-ticker channel and watched the meltdown proceed.
The phone rang. “Give me Mar-a-Lago and I’ll drop the tariffs for two weeks.”
“No good. I’ll tariff you right back.” I reminded myself to call the stock ticker channel and make the same threat. Should put the tech stocks in a tailspin.
I watched the cartoon channel. I didn’t mean to. It’s just a bit hard to tell Looney Tunes from Fox News. Ring!
“As you know, I am a top-flight negotiator, and I’ve given this considerable thought. I want to help you here. I’ll suspend tariffs for thirty days, only by the time a month has rolled around, everyone will have forgotten them. In return, you don’t mention tariffs to anyone. You give me Mar-a-Lago, and I’ll give you $3.5 million just to sweeten the deal and make it look legit for the tax people.”
I spent thirty seconds pretending to think about it. I could almost hear him sweating over the phone. I didn’t want to think what that smelled like.
“Donald, I think we have a deal. You truly are the world’s greatest deal-maker. I tell you this, sir, with tears in my eyes.”
I wondered if any of his flunkies would work up the nerve to tell him he already owned Mar-a-Lago and I had just sold him his own property to defuse a threat he wasn’t prepared to carry out.
The money arrived the next day in the form of a bearer bond. Which was good—I wouldn’t trust a check from that guy.
Pretty good day’s work, really. Think I’ll call him tomorrow and tell him all the people at OANN are secretly woke.
But first, call Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Presidente Claudia Sheinbaum. Tell them that if they want to avoid a trade war, they should tell him their respective countries won’t swap places on the map, and that Mexico might be willing to sell him Alaska while Canada might sell him Texas.
Just my little contribution to world peace, that.
