The director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the nation's top weather and climate agency, reportedly gave a presentation at the Commerce Department where he floated the idea of removing "climate" from the agency's mission statement.
That's preposterous at face value, but what Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet called for replacing it with made me laugh my goddamn ass off.
NOAA’s mission, the agency says, is “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.”
But in a presentation at a Commerce Department “Vision Setting Summit” this month, Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, the agency’s acting administrator, suggested a change to that mission statement, as well as a new emphasis on tripling the size of the U.S. aquaculture industry within a decade and moving to “reduce the seafood trade deficit.”
NOAA is not a trade or commerce agency but, even if it were, the admiral can forget these delusions of grandeur that Trump has already shit on.
In retaliation for Trump's tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, China has responded by imposing tariffs on American seafood. More specifically, tariffs of 10 to 30 percent will be imposed on the northwestern seafood industry stretching from Washington to Alaska.
Once Trump escalates following China's response, I think we can expect to see China impose tariffs on the entire American seafood industry along with virtually all other American agriculture.
The only way this will end with a substantially lower trade deficit is if a recession dramatically cuts off American consumers' purchasing power.
This isn't necessarily funny, but come on.