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President to Apply "Nutritional Facts Labels" to Foreign Countries

Americans put in danger by rash act to give every nation in the world a "freedom score"

By J.P. PragPublished 10 months ago 8 min read
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An example of a “Nutrition Facts Label” from a foreign country, namely Bangladesh. Photo on August 16, 2006 by Mamun2a, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

January 20th (Washington, D.C.) – As an emotionally drained and exhausted crowd looked on, the freshly installed President revealed the last of ten Executive Orders to kick off the new administration. People who had expected to attend a party celebrating the first independent leader of the free world since George Washington were shocked to find the Inauguration Ceremony cut short and themselves made witness to the President’s irreversible and world-shattering agenda, one that some are calling reckless and dangerous. But not even disarming America’s nuclear capabilities, pulling troops out of strategic locations around the world, or letting terrorists run free were as thoughtless and perilous as what happened with this final Executive Order.

Here, the President announced something that is sure to upset almost every world leader, put American citizens and soldiers in the crosshairs, cost job-creating businesses billions of dollars, and will have the government making underhanded decisions for the average consumer. Said the President:

We are going to apply something akin to a “Nutrition Facts Label” to every country in the world.

This unbelievable idea is based upon those little rectangles on the back of ketchup bottles that lets you know how many teaspoons you can “safely” squirt on your hotdog. In typical government overreach, the President intends to not only list out each nation on Earth and give it a rating on a yet-to-be-determined-and-defined scale, but then take that score and force companies to put them on their products. The President described this as a “Freedom Index” and said it will help consumers determine if the “area of origin” aligns to the government’s definition of liberty.

At this time, the President is claiming that they will not use this so-called Freedom Index to bar any company from engaging in free and fair trade. Yet you can see the blood libel coming because the President said:

The United States will not stop you from doing business with despots—like, say, Saudi Arabia—but the fact that you are should be known to the world at large.

Now, it should be noted that Saudi Arabia is one of our closest and most important allies in the Middle East, helping America keep terrorists at bay. More so, it is a country we depend upon to meet our energy needs. The United States government itself has plenty of commercial activity with Saudi Arabia. Will the government label its own programs poorly on the Freedom Index? Insulting Saudi Arabia in this way has already earned a strong rebuke from the Crowned Prince and caused gas prices to once again skyrocket over fears of retaliation.

So, as to the question of how this scale will be created, the President was, as usual, short on details and high on hyperbole. As “placeholder” names, the President chose four broad categories of where each and every country would sit. This starts with “Friends” that are, as the President described, “Representative democracies that try to give equal rights to all and pay living wages.” As some examples, the President listed the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Australia, Japan, and Israel.

The next layer down was “Frenemies”, a slang portmanteau from the last millennia that combines the words “Friend” and “Enemy”. Apparently, the President intends for our country to behave like it is a teenage girl in a clique. These outsiders we want to “hang with” but do not like consist of the aforementioned Saudi Arabia, Türkiye (formerly known as Turkey, a NATO ally that the President has gone out of the way to upset), China, and the Philippines. Basically, the President described these folks as ones that—although we do not have shared values—we will sometimes work with, and will in most situations try to avoid having a conflict with.

Coming up next were the “Neutrals”, a much more nebulous category for those who really could not fit in anywhere else. By the President’s definition, we do not like them, we do not want to be in bed with them, but we do not want to fight them either. A few potential “Neutrals” were Cuba, Libya, and Russia—the latter of which would have been a “Frenemy” prior to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Still, that act of aggression did not warrant the President considering Russia an “Enemy”.

Naturally, “Enemy” was the last category. So, who are the United States’ enemies? Well, these seem to be North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. When pressed afterwards aboard Air Force One for other examples, the President’s Communications Director explained that they were still working through the entire process, and that they will be releasing a complete list when it is ready. No one could give an exact timeline of when that might be.

The only thing the White House did say was that once the details are available, they will be focusing their resources on the countries in the “Friends” category because those are the ones that “are spreading ideals similar to our own.” When asked again for a defined set of “American values”, the President’s deputy responded without actually answering anything:

I think you can see based on the Executive Orders that came out today just what our ideals are.

Unfortunately, that is where the good vibes ended and the threats began. During the speech at the Inauguration Ceremony, the President laid out an ultimatum:

If you want to preserve or expand your relationship with the United States, you will only do business with us, not our enemies. Your choices are simple: either you are with us or with our enemy; you cannot be both. You must end relations with our enemies, or you will also be considered our de facto enemy, and we will cut you off in every possible way.

This ruffian talk was seen as a thinly veiled threat to Germany. German and U.S. relations were already showing signs of strain prior to 2022 due to the former’s close relationship with Russia to meet their people’s energy needs. Even after Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany stayed a major hinderance to completely cutting off Russian oil and natural gas supplies. After the war, Germany was quick to forgive Russia and even went so far as to certify and activate the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from the motherland, enraging then-President Joe Biden. Strangely, prior to the Russian invasion, Biden had waived all sanctions related to the pipeline that had been put in place by his predecessor Donald Trump.

Still, Germany in the past has shown that it is willing to bend its policies and behavior, even with close economic partners. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Germany was one of Iran’s top trading partners, despite the latter having heaps of western sanctions against them. In 2019, Major-General Hossein Salami of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), spoke at a widely publicized event in which he called for the destruction of Israel and even bragged about Iran’s capabilities to do so. When asked specifically at the time by The Jerusalem Post whether Salami’s words were antisemitic, the German government said they were merely “anti-Israel rhetoric” and brushed off all sincere concerns.

Yet, less than a year later, and under intense pressure from Israel and the United States, Germany relented and admitted the words and ideas espoused by Salami and the rest of Iran were actually antisemitic, causing a schism between the close partners. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas then told The Jerusalem Post:

Such statements are absolutely unacceptable. We strongly condemn calling for the annihilation of Israel, legitimizing terrorism, and spreading antisemitic content.

While this position reversal was easier for Germany since they were a continent away and had many other options to replace Iranian goods and services, that has not been the case for others in the area. Azerbaijan has a close relationship with Israel, one that is supported by the United States. But the country is next-door-neighbors with Iran and must not only live with them, but work with them in many ways in order to avoid war. While tensions have been steadily ratcheting up since 2016, Azerbaijan is careful not to push things too far. Although there have been tit-for-tat military drills on each other’s borders and other recriminations in international forums and the media, the two do have a well-established level of cooperation that cannot be dismissed. It is unclear how a country like Azerbaijan can heed the President’s unfair demands without endangering their own citizens and infrastructure.

These valid concerns did not seem to penetrate the inexperienced President’s sensibilities. While the President said this ratings system and the requirements that went along with them were not designed to punish people—that the United States did not have a problem with the citizens of these nations, just their governments—it is impossible to see a situation in which the people would not suffer. Summing it all up, the President told the world:

We don’t care about whatever it is you provide cheaply to the United States; we’ll figure something out, even if it is more expensive or not as good. The bottom line is that doing things the right way is better than placating despots.

Yet, ironically, the President seemed to disregard who may actually be the biggest despot of all.

The above piece is an excerpt from the speculative fiction novel 254 Days to Impeachment: The Future History of the First Independent President by J.P. Prag, available at booksellers worldwide.

Will the first independent President since George Washington be removed from office simply for refusing to be a part of the bureaucracy?

Learn more about author J.P. Prag at www.jpprag.com.

254 Days to Impeachment is a work of mixed fiction and nonfiction elements. With the fiction elements, any names, characters, places, events, and incidents that bear any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental. For the nonfiction elements, no names have been changed, no characters invented, no events fabricated except for hypothetical situations.

white housetradesatirepresidentpoliticspoliticiansnew world orderlegislationhumanityhow tohistoryfact or fictiondefensecontroversiesbook reviewsactivism
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About the Creator

J.P. Prag

J.P. Prag is the author of "Compendium of Humanity's End", "254 Days to Impeachment", "Always Divided, Never United", "New & Improved: The United States of America", and "In Defense Of...", and more! Learn more at www.jpprag.com.

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