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No, Donald Trump Didn't Sell Rice To China, What The Hell's Wrong With You?

By Mike Redmond | Politics | January 4, 2019 |

By Mike Redmond | Politics | January 4, 2019 |


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I really need to delete Facebook. It went from an innocuous way to reconnect with exes, drunken acquaintances from college, and people you said all of four words to in high school to a goddamn terror machine of keeping up with the Joneses, pyramid schemes, and weaponized propaganda. But as a socio-political junkie, Facebook is also a non-stop 24/7 fix for seeing what new and spectacularly batshit things right-wing conservatives in my immediate vicinity (and/or bloodline) are swallowing whole and regurgitating at an alarming rate. I’m talking things so clearly implausible that you’d assume even the most baseline of human intelligence would reject them as untrue, but nope, they’re spooning it up with giant grins.

Case in point, this latest meme that’s been bouncing around:

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Obviously, nothing about this is true, but if you do a quick Facebook search for Trump sold rice to China, you’ll find a hoard of public posts where conservatives wholeheartedly believe that President Business just called up China and worked his Art of the Deal magic to make the entire country buy American rice. Naturally, that’s not how any of this works, but here’s the f**ked up part: If one of these people did the responsible thing and Googled this information before farting it across the social media, here’s the first batch of results that they’d see.

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Goddammit.

Of those five results, only the Reuters link provides the relevant information and in the proper context, but who’s going to click that when DCWhispers (???) is screaming, “Yup, it’s true. President Kickass did it again!”

Long story short, Trump’s moronically short-sighted trade war was the stupidest possible way to address trade grievances with China because President Xi can easily wait this whole thing out and force the United States to eventually cave. However, it behooves everyone to resolve this turd sandwich sooner than later, so China made a very small concession — of their own accord (Read: President Deals didn’t do shit.) — and has allowed rice to be imported from the United States. The move is entirely a goodwill gesture and will mean next to nothing to the American economy.

From Reuters (emphasis mine):

Rice makes up only a small portion of U.S. agricultural exports, which are dominated by shipments of soybeans, grain, tree nuts and meat.

U.S. rice futures had little reaction to the announcement, declining by 7 cents to $10.06 per cwt.

Hot damn, President Smoothtalks got r done!

In fairness, one analyst said this gesture “suggests an improving U.S. and China relationship.” But handing a child a cookie so he’ll stop freaking out in the cereal aisle also suggests an “improving relationship,” and then it’s Tantrum City again once you get to the register. So if you think that level of salesmanship is the “Art of the Deal,” let’s talk about how giving me the deed to your house will own the libs.

Here’s how it works: Liberals hate home ownership. It makes us start to want guns, Bible verses, and kneel-free American football…



Header Image Source: Getty