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Gustavo Gac-Artigas

United States: My Fellow Americans, We Are at War!

Translated by Priscilla Gac-Artigas


The bags in the supermarkets resonate, tractors grind in the south of the United States, appliances tremble on their shelves, loudspeakers will silence their voices in our homes, the photos of loved ones will become rarer just as love in wartime.

Every war has its own price. Remember, claims the commander in chief, we are running after the re-conquest of the 370 trillion of dollars of the deficit of our trade balance with China in 2017. We started by imposing tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, which we, I can quickly follow by taxes on another $16 billion of products. And in a delirious, warmonger speech he threatens China, and why not, with increasing tariffs on as much as $500 billion worth of Chinese products, and use this as a lesson to make the world tremble.

We will restore the supremacy of the United States, said the commander in chief, we launched the first attack right after the smoke of the fireworks was disappearing in the air. Our hearts still filled with patriotism we will bear the shrinking of our pockets as a consequence of this war.

This is not the first battle, as every war it began with skirmishes, the trade agreements with Mexico and Canada were checked, as were our trade relations with the European Union. It is total war, the world cataclysm yearned for by the commander in chief, a cataclysm of which we will emerge victoriously, he promises.

Victorious?

In a war of this kind, there are no victors, we are all losers, and we will be again the ones to pay for the reconstruction. We will be the veterans of a senseless war, defeated once again as we witness the advancement of a global rearrangement and of which the wretched of the earth will be left out.

China, in a movement that we have to acknowledge, defeated us even before launching the first shot. They strategically appealed to the World Trade Organization claiming that the US is not just targeting them, they are targeting the entire world, and that since we will all suffer the whole world must fight back the aggressor. The drums of war make us tremble from Taiwan to Chile, an era of bonanza is falling apart, over there, outside our borders, in here, in all the economic sectors, in all the states, in all the pockets.

In a global war that we all know is lost, a war that only a deranged mind eager of power can initiate (suffice to remember World War II) speculations on what the enemy’s response will be begin: China will respond by attacking the rural states, the ones who delivered victory to the current president. In my opinion, that is a shortsighted view; with his mind in the upcoming elections, the President can subsidize those states and prevent the immediate economic consequences of this war from shadowing his triumphalist warmonger and imperialist speech.

No, that possible response from Chine is skirmishes; it is not some states, some products, goods or services which are threatened, nor the desire to weaken the commander in chief and his desire to be re-elected. What is at stake is the relevance of the United States in a world that is changing. The intensification of the isolationism in which we are submerged can transform us into an erratic note within the global concert. It can accentuate the poor image that we showcase at the border –frontier of the human and the savage–, image that reflects our position with respect to the destruction of the planet, image that showcases the difference between being able to say, our heads high, that we are for world peace or not, that for the progress of humanity or not, that we are for the respect of others to be able to demand in exchange respect for us or not, the power to be able to proclaim that the times of aggression, of senseless wars, are over.

Today we are awakened by bugles calling for a new war, trade war they call it, a new war in which I claim my right to be a deserter, a deserter in this, your war, Mr. President.

As for you, my dear readers, I invite you to desert and join other trenches in the daily struggles against the war makers to restore the heart and sanity to the United States and open our minds and borders to the world.

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