Schlump and the Galactic Trade Debacle

Ronald Schlump slumped into his battered platinum throne in the Oval Office, the weight of his body torturing the heavy, reinforced bolts. His breath rattled in his chest; fat jowls shaking as his stubby fingers battered his phone screen.

“I’ll teach them not to question the great Schlump, King of America!” he muttered, flecks of spit catching on his lower lip.

He hit the “SCREAM” button on his Truly Antisocial app. He leaned forward, pupils dilating as the Blind Agreements appeared. Refresh: one hundred likes. Refresh: two thousand. Another refresh and ten thousand! His grin stretched wide enough to show his yellowed molars. A masterpiece! Everything he typed was a masterpiece! Millions of patriots were about to prove it!

THE ENEMIES OF OUR NATION SAY OUR TARIFFS ARE DANGEROUS! THEY SAY MY TARIFFS STARTED A GLOBAL RECESSION! I DID NOT START A TRADE WAR! ALL I DID WAS LEVY TARIFFS ON THE ENTIRE WORLD! AMERICA HAS SUBSIDIZED THE REST OF THE WORLD FOR TOO LONG! STARTING TOMORROW, ANY NATION THAT CRITICIZES THE KING WILL FACE HIGHER RETALIATORY TARIFFS!

The comments flooded in:

Schlump is the best!

Nobody wins like Schlump!

The King knows what he’s doing!

Schlump rocked in his chair. He delighted in the stream of strangers chanting his name on the screen.

The phone on his desk rang, and he stabbed at the buttons with a greasy thumb. “Yeah? I just finished telling America my latest plan to make it successful again!”

“Superb work, sir,” came a flat voice. The vice president, E. D. Panse. His tone was mechanically reverent.

“Of course it was excellent. What was your favorite part?” Schlump preened.

“I didn’t read it,” Panse admitted brightly, “but everything the King of America writes is self-evidently awe-inspiring!”

Schlump wheezed a laugh. “Exactly! Last year alone, we collected ten trillion dollars in tariffs! Have you ever seen such a big number?” he grinned idiotically down the phone.

“Some fools disagreed, sir,” said Panse, shaking his head. “The head of the Bureau of Economic Spin claimed imports were only two and a half trillion, making ten trillion impossible. Don’t worry — I fired her.” Panse reassured.

“Good. We don’t need liars. I am doing the best work America has ever seen! What do you want, Panse?”

“Putoff is on the line. He demands to speak with you immediately.”

At the name, Schlump’s small eyes glittered with slavish excitement. He glanced at the photo on his desk: President Putoff, bare-chested, astride a rhino, sunlight gleaming off his pectorals. The Photoshop work was dreadful — shadows in the wrong direction, the rhino’s feet blurred into grass — but none of that mattered. Putoff was a man’s man. Seven feet tall, if not taller. Bear-wrestler. Conqueror. Dictator. Schlump’s hero.

He’d heard the whispers: that Putoff was a stunted man, pale and trembling in a Moscow bunker, barking orders to the last starving remnants of his army. Schlump dismissed such lies with a snort. The real Putoff stood no less than seven feet tall, a titan who wrestled bears before breakfast and strode into battle bare-chested, unstoppable. Schlump needed it to be true.

He pressed the button with both palms as if entering holy communion. “President Putoff! How is the peaceful expansion of your glorious empire?”

“Fine,” Putoff said, his voice low and icy. “Another city joined us peacefully. Only three thousand protesters this time. But that is not why I called, minion…” — He caught himself. “President Schlump.”

Schlump blinked, too flattered to notice the slip. “How can I help you, President Putoff?”

“I need the last sanction lifted. They hinder our peacemaking.”

“I thought I already did that.”

“You said you would. Three days later, you denied having said it.”

“I never denied it!” Schlump denied as his cheeks ballooned. He slapped the desk hard enough to rattle the Schlump Tower paperweight across from him.

“Comrade, I saw the video,” Putoff growled.

“Fake, leftist AI! We should ban all AI — ban the media, ban television, maybe even ban the—”

“Enough,” Putoff snapped. “What about the sanctions?”

Schlump wilted. “Fine. I’ll lift them. For you. And for our dear friends in North Korea.”

“Excellent. No tariffs either? You put them on everyone else…”

“No tariffs. Russia doesn’t pay tariffs. Russia is special.”

“Good boy.”

Schlump’s chest heaved. “When can I see you again? Remember Alaska? I still have the red carpet. I could arrange the best air show — only with planes that look like yours, of course.”

“Later,” Putoff cut in. “Hang up now.”

The line went dead. Schlump lingered, staring at the rhino picture, his stubby finger tracing the outline of Putoff’s muscled arm, as if touching greatness itself. His friend always put things off until later, but one day he promised himself. One day.

---

A certain science-fiction show - and the endless creations it inspired - insists that space is the final frontier. That proves you can’t take metaphors at face value. A “frontier” implies something lies beyond it. What lies beyond space? More space? Another dimension? But aren’t dimensions just more space?

Some claim the beyond is where all the lost socks live, along with the pens that vanish from locked office drawers. Those are the same people who say the Earth is flat, or that the U.S. government will one day repay the deficit.

Space is not a frontier; space is a marketplace. Alien races across the galaxies turn vast regions of void into trading fairs, centennial carnivals of commerce. You could buy anything there: next-gen starships, time machines, terraforming kits, even moon-molding devices. The only thing you couldn’t find was a reliable contraption for balling a melon. Civilization after civilization had tried. None have succeeded.

The latest fair took place on Planet X — which was not a planet. Planet X was a retired mobile weapons platform the size of an asteroid, refitted into a tourist trap. Imagine someone converted a moon into Las Vegas, then stripped out the taste but kept the neon. Its attractions included a replica of Old New Pluto with its Seven-Headed Accountant of Doom, the pyramid-shaped Moss Easily Cantina of Pivot Plotis, the frozen giants of Niftyhelm, and even the jagged spires of Xerrn, land of lawyers. The whole bizarre collection glowed like a carnival in heat.

At Planet Starbowl, Planet X’s most celebrated bar, travelers gathered to watch the 534.7th Intergalactic Star Bowl flashing across the five-dimensional wall.

Allexterazzdfasntoristalorozeron — Alexter to anyone without three tongues — sat at the counter, ignoring the replay. He had never understood the appeal of tossing star-gazelle skin balls into miniature black holes. What a waste of fine star-gazelle skin.

He sipped the silicon-blue drink before him, grimacing at the gritty tang, his third eye squinting shut in disgust. Around him, patrons screamed and hollered at the screen as if they expected their excitement to affect the outcome of a game happening 20 light-years away. A six-armed Therian sprawled across two tables, his giraffe neck draped over them as he yelled. A couple of turtle-shelled Excrites squabbled. Neither team had yet scored a point, but that didn’t stop them.

Alexter turned to the blue-skinned figure beside him. “Emmen, how do you think the Earth is shaping up?”

Alexter could pass for human if you ignored his blue, scaly skin and the third eye. But not so for his companion. Emmon was a mantis-like creature with the head of a bull. “Earth is shaping up to be a real shithole!” Emmen sighed, moving a blue glass away that had traces of a vile-smelling purple goo.

“I thought the Galactic Trade Council decided they’d finally crawled far enough out of the mud to reason with?” Alexeter frowned.

“Technically, yes. But look at this.” Emmen flicked his fingers and a data-table shimmered in the air, mites of blue light swirling into columns.

“Remember your history texts? Most member worlds previously had tariffs before joining the Council. Primitive stuff. On Earth, though? Tariffs everywhere. It started when the so-called leader of the Free World slapped tariffs on everyone. Now it’s endless. America tariffs a country with a leaf on its flag and coffee shops named after a Dr Seuss character; the Leaflanders retaliate; America doubles down; the Leaflanders do the same. America tariffs the United Kingdom; the UK retaliates; round and round it spins. They even put tariffs on a nation whose chief exports are small brown birds and magical rings. Naturally, those tariffs came back doubled. It never ends.”

Alexter’s jaw dropped. “But tariffs are the stupidest economic policy in the universe!”

“Not to Earthlings. They love tariffs.”

“I thought they were smarter than that.”

“Apparently not. Try telling them tariffs are just a tax on their own people. They’ll laugh in your face and elect another tariff-peddler.”

Alexter rubbed his forehead ridge. “And these are the people we want on the Galactic Trade Council?”

“I think not. If they don’t understand tariffs, they cannot possibly understand rational economics. They’d probably slap tariffs on anything that entered orbit.”

“Earth importers would pay the tariffs! We sure wouldn’t!”

“Yes, know that. Don’t bother explaining tariffs to them! They won’t buy it.”

Alexter frowned. “How did they get this way? A century ago I visited a land called… Amerryicon?”

“The United States of America, yes. That’s the one.”

“Are you sure? They seemed so dedicated to freedom.”

“They were. Until they started electing freedom-hating lunatics. They crowned this orange-haired bulldog in a suit. Ronald Schlump. Half the country thinks he is their Messiah. Sold half his country to the Russians. Now the Land of the Free is the Land of the Cult.”

Alexter groaned. “So the ‘leader of the Free World’ is the biggest fool of them all? So much for the Free World. I think we had better stay away!”

Emmen scowled. “We were going to sell them the formula for everything. Even share eternal life. Forget it. I’ll recommend the Council squash the deal.”

“Shame. They’ve got minerals and other resources. Beautiful oceans. Could’ve been a prime tourism hub.”

“Yes. Pity. Earth is gorgeous. Its people, less so.”

Alexter drained the rest of his silicate soup and stood. “Come on. Let’s report to the Council. The universe might be finite, but opportunities are limitless.”

Emmen nodded. “Time to get down to business!”

They left the Starbowl together, the 534.7th Star Bowl still blaring behind them, lights flashing across the five-dimensional wall. At that moment, Old Earth scored the first point of the game against New Pluto.

---

Later that week, Ronald Schlump was playing golf with Panse. His golf-ball body wobbled as he swung, grunting, his Golf of America cap slipping over one eye.

CLANG! The ball bounced off something invisible in the air ten feet away.

“Panse! Is someone messing with me? It’s the Democrat assassins!” Schlump barked.

“I would not think so, sir. This course only allows Republicans.” Panse frowned, glancing around. Might assassins ignore things like club rules? Perhaps!

“Go check it out!” Schlump thrust his club forth like a scepter.

“Shouldn’t the Secret Service—”

“PANSE!” screamed Schlump, his voice flashing crimson.

Panse muttered as he shuffled forward. “One day this buffoon finishes his third term, and then I’ll be king.”

“What was that?” Schlump called.

“Er—your shot was magnificent, sir!”

He reached out, smacked an invisible wall, and blubbered in pain. A silver saucer shimmered into view, parked squarely on the fairway.

A hatch hissed open, spilling stereotypical mist across the fairway, and two tall figures stepped out with deliberate slowness.

“The Democrats!” Schlump fumed.

Emmen raised a hand, and Schlump and Panse froze. “King Schlump, we are emissaries of the Confederation of Endless Worlds. Your planet was on the verge of joining us. Imagine—immortality, cures for every disease, even keys that never get lost,” said Alexeter. “But then you started a trade war. The Confederation has no interest in that kind of nonsense. So… no thanks.”

“Pity. But, Schlump, this is your fault. We thought you should know that. I hope you can live with that. Trade wars are not good for anyone. Why would anyone trade with you? You’re determined to screw yourselves and everyone else. We don’t need that nonsense. So, no thanks!” Emmen shook his head.

“That’s enough. Let’s go.” Alexeter raised a hand. The two turned and headed back into the saucer. A metal panel snapped shut behind them. A moment later, the saucer shot skyward and vanished.

The invisible grip loosened, and Panse and Schlump found themselves able to move again. Panse rolled his shoulders, wincing at the stiffness, before asking, “Who were those two?”

“See? It was a subversive, Democratic, demonic plot!” Schlump screamed.

“They didn’t look like Democrats to me, sir…” Panse ventured.

“Democrats are devils! They can change shape!”

“Ah—of course. The Devil.” Panse nodded dutifully.

“Get Husk on the phone!”

“Sir, he’s busy running with that pack of dogs he insists are his advisors.”

“I don’t care! Get Ebony!”

Panse sighed, dialed a number and handed Schlump the phone.

“Sir!” came the voice of Ebony Husk. “I was on my way to court! Those Far Left Communist bastards claimed I only saved $40 this week! It was $60! That is hate speech. Right?”

“That isn’t important right now, Ebony! I need a hyper-drive! At once!” Schlump roared.

“Hyper-drive? Uh… sure. We’ll have that ready next year. Definitely next year. I’ll go on Twithub right now and start hyping it,” babbled Husk.

Schlump was already hammering at his own phone. “INVEST IN SPACE-Z! HUSK IS DOING HYPER-DRIVE! INVEST IN SPAZE-Z! AMERICA WILL BE A GALACTIC POWER!”

Panse rolled his eyes as he read what Schlump had posted on Truly Antisocial and Twit.

“Then we’ll put tariffs on those damn aliens!”

“But, sir, they’re not trading with us…”

“Two hundred percent tariffs! Four hundred! TARIFF THE MARTIANS! TARIFF THE MEXICANS! NO MORE DRUG SHIPMENTS FROM JUPITER!” bellowed Schlump.

Panse discreetly dialed another number. “Yes. He’s slipped into Random Tariff Mode again. Better get his favorite executive order pen ready. But it might take considerable time — this golf game is going to run long.” He sighed and hung up.

Meanwhile, Schlump ranted himself purple. “Tariff the sandbanks!”

“Yes, sir,” said Panse. He guided him toward the ball like a handler with a deranged circus ape. One day, Panse thought he would be king. Until then, more holes demanded to be played. Countless more bloody holes, he thought, trying not to gawk at Schlump’s head…