Wall of Receipts, House of Cards

Musk’s fake budget cuts, Trump’s trade war, and the global retreat from MAGA economics.

Happy Tariff Day, America! That glorious moment when your president slaps a 15% import tax on practically everything and declares victory because apparently taxing yourself is patriotic now. While economists weep into their spreadsheets, Donald Trump celebrates with press conferences full of vague platitudes and “fine-tooth comb” metaphors, Elon Musk swims in a pool of imaginary receipts, and foreign leaders collectively ghost the United States like it’s an ex who still thinks you’re getting back together.

Let’s begin with the budget fantasy that started it all. This week, CBS News cracked open Elon Musk’s “Wall of Receipts,” that beloved shrine to Trump-era austerity, and discovered that Musk’s claim of $6.4 billion in taxpayer savings was, wait for it, 97% false. The real number? $165 million, mostly from COVID contracts that had already been fulfilled. It’s retroactively stiffing the waiter after you’ve eaten the steak.

Musk may have flounced out of D.O.G.E. (the Department of Government Efficiency, for those lucky enough to have missed this era of bureaucratic cosplay), but his nonsense lives on. And that nonsense included gutting the National Weather Service, which just got emergency permission to rehire 450 forecasters ahead of peak hurricane season. Because when you’ve fired hundreds of meteorologists to “cut costs,” realizing too late that storms don’t negotiate, you end up praying the radar still works.

The Trump regime tried to reallocate more than $4 billion in FEMA funds away from disaster protection, because why fortify coastal cities when you could subsidize the next crypto rug pull? Thankfully, a federal judge blocked the move after 20 states sued, with one Louisiana mayor literally begging on camera for funds to keep his city from washing away. The administration has since quietly backed off some of the federal workforce cuts, like a toddler slowly retreating after knocking over a vase.

Trump’s tariff blitzkrieg has officially detonated. The EU is furious. Japan and Brazil are forging new trade routes. India is cuddling up to Xi Jinping. Canada’s Prime Minister Carney is telling Trump he’ll call when he feels like it. And Australia is buying warships from Japan instead of the U.S., even though they cost more, just to avoid relying on Trump’s increasingly erratic regime.

And speaking of erratic, here comes the “peace plan.” This week, Trump sent real estate crony Steve Witkoff, who has no diplomatic experience, to Moscow for a cozy heart-to-heart with Vladimir Putin. Russian state TV treated the event like a public humiliation ritual for America. Trump then posted that “great progress” was made, followed by a call with European leaders, where he told them they wouldn’t be meeting with Putin, because he alone would broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky quickly issued a post thanking European allies and making it very clear, without naming names, that Trump was full of it.

And when pressed about his infamous “peace in 24 hours” promise? Trump now says it was “just sarcasm.” Like his Gaza promise. Like the Epstein file release. Just part of the comedy routine. You know, classic authoritarian dad joke energy: “I’ll end the war, I’ll fix the economy, I’ll cure cancer! Just kidding, folks. You fell for it again!”

European leaders are reportedly livid. But Trump, never one to back down from delusion, insists that Witkoff’s Putin field trip was a diplomatic breakthrough. Marco Rubio, doing his usual spin, suggested that “some outlines” had been discussed. Translation: there is no deal, no progress, no ceasefire, just the illusion of movement while Putin uses Trump as a human shield for more oil infrastructure strikes and future invasions.

House Republicans are busy subpoenaing Bill and Hillary Clinton over their ties to Jeffrey Epstein, a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the Trump administration’s own cover-up, redactions, secret deals, and that awkward secret Maxwell-Blanche meeting that remains unexplained.

So here we are: the U.S. is isolated. Allies are furious. FEMA was nearly gutted. The Weather Service is barely back online. Tariffs are live. Prices will rise. And the man in charge is claiming everything he’s said for the past three years was sarcasm. But don’t worry, Trump says we’re “cutting with a scalpel” right into the artery.

Meanwhile, north of the border, our once-reliable trading partner has officially had it. Canada, led by economist and former central banker–turned–Prime Minister Mark Carney, has issued the most polite but devastating diplomatic middle finger in modern history. Carney has made it clear: Canada can no longer tether its prosperity to the United States.

Trump’s tariff war, which just ratcheted Canadian steel and aluminum duties up to 50%, and auto tariffs to 35%, has triggered layoffs at Canada’s only aluminum plant and sent shockwaves through its automotive sector. Even General Motors Canada, a subsidiary of an American company, is cutting shifts. That’s not just shooting yourself in the foot. That’s emptying an entire magazine into your own economy and calling it “strategic clarity.”

As Popok laid out on Legal AF, this isn’t about protecting American jobs. It’s about punishing anyone who doesn’t flatter Trump’s ego, including Carney, whose sin seems to be knowing how economics actually works. The result? A global investment retreat from the U.S., an empowered European Union, and an increasingly aggressive pivot by countries like Canada toward self-reliance and alternative trade blocs.

Canada was, operative term was, America’s second-largest foreign investor and its single largest buyer of U.S. exports. That’s evaporating fast. Even though 85% of Canadian trade is still tariff-free under the remnants of USMCA (or CUSMA, depending on which acronym you enjoy mispronouncing), the other 15% includes critical goods: steel, pharmaceuticals, copper, autos. You know, stuff people actually need.

Carney’s solution? Invest billions into Canadian manufacturing and expand internationally where “free trade is a commitment, not a condition.” That line alone could be printed on the tombstone of American credibility.

Popok rightly compares Trump’s abuse of trading partners to the behavior of an emotionally abusive ex, and he’s not wrong. Trump’s tantrum economics may play well on MAGA bumper stickers, but the rest of the world is walking away from the relationship. Carney isn’t retaliating with fury, he’s retaliating with precision, insulation, and vision. Meanwhile, Trump’s response? Screaming about $600 billion “hostage payments” from countries like South Korea while financial markets begin baking in a 3–5% market drop before the end of September.

The tariffs haven’t even fully hit the shelves yet. Wait until Americans try to buy a Ford and find out it costs as much as a BMW because the president wanted to “own Canada.”

This is what Trumpanomics looks like in the wild: collapsing export markets, allies running for cover, soaring consumer prices, and a domestic propaganda machine boasting about fake savings while the Weather Service rehiring forecasters just in time for hurricane season.