The Dance of Trade Warriors: A Tale of Sleeping Nations and Paper Dragons

In the twilight of reason, where merchants and kings play their games of commerce, we witness yet another spectacle of the herd's eternal dance. The great nations of North America, these supposed bastions of strength, reveal themselves as mere paper tigers, growling at one another across arbitrary lines drawn in the sand.

A Canada Border Services Agency officer and narcotics detection dog Denver take part in a narcotics detection demonstration at the CBSA Lansdowne port of entry in Lansdowne, Ont., on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025.
Behold! The guardians of imaginary lines, with their faithful beasts, sniffing for poisons that flow like water through their fingers. How they pride themselves on their vigilance, yet fail to see that their very existence perpetuates the malady they seek to cure!

The land of the sleepers extends far and wide, where the masses drift in peaceful slumber, awaiting the proclamations of their merchant-king Trump, who holds above their heads the sword of tariffs. These drowsy souls, these Canadians and Americans alike, content themselves with numbers and percentages, with promises of retaliation and counter-retaliation, as if such childish games could mask the deeper decay of their spirits.

The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, dances the dance of uncertainty, speaking in tongues of "fluid situations" and "negotiations," while the true nature of power reveals itself through his master's capricious whims. "He's going to decide today," they say, as if tomorrow's sun rises solely by his command.

See how they cower before their self-made idol! These last men, who blink and say, "We have invented happiness," yet tremble at the stroke of midnight, when artificial boundaries might cost them a few coins more!

In this grand theater of the absurd, Premier Doug Ford, that self-proclaimed champion of the common folk, brandishes his own sword of retaliation, promising to "match President Trump tariff by tariff, dollar by dollar." Such is the courage of the last man - to mirror his opponent's moves, never daring to dance his own dance, to sing his own song.

Warren Buffett spoke out against Trump's planned tariffs over the weekend.

Even the sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett, that prophet of profit, speaks truth without understanding its depth: "They're an act of war, to some degree," he says of tariffs, yet fails to see that this war is but a shadow play, a manifestation of the spiritual poverty that plagues these nations of comfort-seekers.

Lo! Even the wisest among them speaks of tooth fairies and elementary economics, while the very foundations of their society crumble beneath the weight of their mediocrity!

The border security apparatus, with its impressive statistics of "90 percent drops" and "significant seizures," stands as a monument to the last man's obsession with measurement and control. They count their victories in percentages while the spirit of true commerce - the free exchange of value between free peoples - withers on the vine.

And what of these leaders, these supposed shepherds of nations? Trudeau promises "strong, unequivocal and proportional response," while his ministers wait like anxious children for the pronouncements from their southern neighbor. They have created a perfect system of mutual dependency, where every action begets an equal and opposite reaction, a perpetual motion machine of mediocrity.

Watch as they measure their strength in numbers - $155 billion in retaliation, 25 percent tariffs, 10 percent on energy - as if the spirit of a nation could be quantified in decimal points!

As the clock ticks toward midnight on this artificial deadline, we witness the perfect manifestation of the last man's paradise: a world where comfort is king, where risk is regulated, where even conflict follows predetermined paths. They have indeed invented happiness - a shallow, tepid happiness that tastes of ashes and smells of decay.

Thus do we stand at the precipice of yet another "historic" moment that will be forgotten as soon as the next crisis demands attention. The sleepers will continue to sleep, the counters will continue to count, and the spirit of true commerce - that wild, untamed force that once drove nations to greatness - will remain buried beneath mountains of regulations and retaliations.

Let them play their games of tariffs and counter-tariffs! The true war is not fought with percentages and proclamations, but in the hearts of those few who dare to wake from this collective slumber!

When the sun rises tomorrow, whether Trump's tariffs materialize at their full strength or in some watered-down form, the fundamental truth will remain unchanged: these nations, these mighty powers of North America, have chosen the path of the last man, seeking security over strength, comfort over courage, and predictability over possibility.