Inside the golden palace of Washingtonium, the public interest had been located beneath a stack of previous tariff proclamations. Remarkably, it bore a striking resemblance to the Emperor’s personal preferences.
Trumpius Caesar, Conqueror of Foreign Price Tags and Supreme Protector of Emotionally Injured Exports, immediately ordered a fresh decree. Its mission: revise the previous tariffs while preserving the sacred imperial finding that everything had been perfect all along.
The target remained Canadium, the northern maple kingdom accused by the palace of mistreating American automobiles. This was a grave offense. A vehicle manufactured in Americanum naturally possessed the constitutional right to feel welcome everywhere, while foreign merchandise needed to explain why it existed.
Earlier in the imperial season, Caesar had raised his golden tariff hammer. Then came a brief pause after Canadium allegedly promised better behavior. Then the pause ended, the palace declared the behavior insufficiently improved, and the hammer returned to active service.
Diplomacy now consisted of politely reading the invoice before swinging.
But fresh wisdom had arrived from the Emperor’s senior officials. After reviewing information, opinions, recommendations, and presumably one another’s expressions, they reached a historic conclusion: the tariffs were working beautifully.
Changing them would work even more beautifully.
Trumpius nodded. Finally, experts who understood science.
“My tariffs were perfect,” he announced to a marble wall that had never contradicted him. “That’s why I’m improving them. Nobody fixes perfection like I do. Other emperors need a problem first. Very limited people.”
Under the new proclamation, certain goods from Canadium would escape the additional tariff, while others would newly receive the imperial surcharge. The details resided in the annexes, those sacred administrative chambers where ordinary readers enter with questions and emerge needing a customs broker.
For importers, commerce became a magnificent game show. Behind Annex A stood relief. Behind Annex B stood a border legionary holding a collection plate.
The Emperor called it trade policy. Business owners called their accountants.
Other applicable tariffs would remain stacked on top. In Americanum, an import duty did not become less patriotic simply because another duty was already sitting on the same shipment. Every additional layer offered further protection against the dangerous possibility of an affordable purchase.
Implementation fell to the Border Legions, the Treasury Chancellor, the Commerce Prefect, and the Imperial Trade Envoy. They could issue regulations, circulate instructions, consult additional dignitaries, and pass authority down the administrative staircase.
Soon, an empty truck approaching the border could expect to meet a fully loaded paperwork convoy.
The decree also prepared for legal turbulence. Should one provision collapse in court, the surviving provisions would continue marching. The proclamation had been granted a survival instinct that several affected businesses would have appreciated receiving themselves.
Finally, Trumpius applied his enormous signature and declared commerce rescued once again. Court chroniclers applauded. Customs officers sharpened their pencils. The public interest was carefully returned beneath the paperwork for future use.
Across the imperial marketplace, merchants studied the revised rules and discovered the true genius of the arrangement: every change produced another victory for Caesar, while the invoice retained their address.
In the Empire of Trumpius, the customer was always right—until the Emperor needed someone to pay for being wrong.
