HOLY TARIFF TANTRUM
Trump Imposes Tariffs On The Kingdom of God
Heaven’s economy goes to Hell in a handbasket.
President Donald Trump has just imposed tariffs on goods and services imported from the Kingdom of God. His reasons were the same as those used to justify tariffs on Earth.
“Heaven is ripping us off,”¹ said Trump. “The United States exports lots of sins. We get only a little forgiveness from God. That creates a huge trade imbalance.
“Starting today, we’re gonna wean ourselves off imports from Heaven. To do that, I’ve imposed the following tariffs on products that are shipped from the up-above to the down-here.
- 10% on Blessings.
- 25% on Healing.
- 50% on Forgiveness of Sins.
- 100% on Eternal Life.”
God immediately dispatched a host of angels to negotiate with Trump’s representatives to eliminate the tariffs.
One might have assumed he’d send Saint Michael the Archangel,² the “chief prince”³ of Heaven. Or the Archangel Gabriel, his personal spokesman.⁴
Nope. God sent his best wheeler-dealers, including:
- Saint No Mountain High Enough;
- Saint Nothin’ Like The Real Thing;
- Saint No Woman Like The One I’ve Got; and
- Saint No Sunshine When She’s Gone.
Negotiations went poorly. It was because Trump’s tariffs made no sense.
“Heaven is too trifling to be tariffed,” said Saint Necessarily So. “We’re a remote spiritual kingdom inhabited by angels and cherubs.”
“So what,” responded Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. “Trump imposed tariffs on a couple islands near Antarctica whose only inhabitants are seals and penguins.”⁵
“But it doesn’t make sense to tariff imports from Heaven,” said Saint No Rest For The Wicked. “We don’t tariff anything Americans send us, not even their prayers.”
“It’s the non-tariff cheating that matters,” retorted Peter Navarro, counselor to the president. “Take Vietnam. It doesn’t place tariffs on U.S. imports. However, China avoids our tariffs by routing its exports to the United States through Vietnam.⁶ Heaven does the same thing. You don’t forgive Catholics directly; you route forgiveness through Confessionals. Why? Because we don’t impose tariffs on goods and services provided by Catholic churches,” said Navarro. “Not yet anyway,” he added under his breath.
“In that case, what’s there to negotiate,” exclaimed an exasperated Saint Misbehavin’. “You’ve said tariffs are a response to trade barriers; Heaven doesn’t have any. You’ve said they’re a response to cheating; Heaven doesn’t do that. What’s left?”
“We imposed tariffs because our balance of trade isn’t in America’s favor,” said United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
“Take the Kingdom of Lesotho in Africa. We hit them with our highest tariff: fifty percent. Why? Because last year the United States imported goods from Lesotho worth $237 million — mainly diamonds and denim used by American clothing manufacturers.⁷ We even imported Trump-branded Greg Norman golf shirts.⁸ But the United States exported only $3 million worth of stuff to Lesotho.⁷ There you have it: Lesotho ripped off America to the tune of $234 million!”
“Lesotho didn’t rip off America,” responded Saint That A Shame. “It’s one of the poorest countries in Africa. Its per capita income is less than a thousand dollars a year.⁹ A third of its people earn $2.15 per day.¹⁰ Of course there’s huge a trade imbalance: Lesotho’s people are too poor to buy American goods!”
“We don’t give a damn how our tariffs impact other countries,” said Greer. “Especially when it comes to ones like Lesotho which, as President Trump put it, ‘no one has ever heard of’.”¹¹
The tariffs stood. And as with all of Trump’s tariffs, American consumers paid the price.
- Fifty percent more for Physical and Material Blessings for good health, prosperity, and security.
- Seventy percent more for Emotional Blessings like joy, love, and hope.
- One hundred percent more for Spiritual Blessings like wisdom, patience, salvation, and eternal life.
God countered by halting Heavenly exports which he figured Americans couldn’t live without. Specifically, God refused to:
- “Give us this day our daily bread;”
- “Forgive us our debts;”
- “Lead us not into temptation;” and
- “Deliver us from evil.”¹²
Unfortunately for God, Americans no longer need him to do those things.
- “Who needs God to give me my daily bread,” said one consumer. “I can get it from DoorDash®.”¹³
- “I don’t need God to forgive my debts,” said another. “I can get a debt consolidation loan from National Debt Relief®.”¹⁴
- “I don’t need God’s help to avoid temptation,” said a third. “Wegovy®¹⁵ suppresses my temptation to overeat.”
- “I don’t need God to deliver me from evil,” said one more. “Streaming services¹⁶ like Hulu, Sling, and Disney+ deliver me from the most evil thing in my life: cable TV companies.”
God faced facts: he didn’t have the cards to beat Trump in the game of tariffs.
Unlike Satan.
It was after Trump imposed tariffs on sins imported from Hell. Trump did it, according to his executive order, “to protect America’s Sin industry, which is vital to our economy, and which has been undermined by imports which threaten the domestic Decadence industrial base.”¹⁷
Trump didn’t care that his tariffs:
- Made it ten percent more expensive for Americans to catch hell, raise hell, and let all hell break loose;
- Doubled the cost of being damn right, damn straight, or a damn Yankee; and
- Tripled the prices Americans paid to be in a hell of a hurry or go somewhere for the hell of it.
It cost too much to tell someone to shut the hell up. And people could no longer afford to give a damn.
But Lucifer had leverage, and he used it. He banned the immigration of Americans to Hell. This set off a panic among people who’d sold their souls to Trump, especially White Evangelicals,¹⁸ Republicans,¹⁹ the members of the current and previous Trump administrations, business leaders like Jeff Bezos,²⁰ law firms like Skadden Arps,²¹ and universities like Columbia.²²
“When we pledged our allegiance to Trump,” said an employee at Fox News, “we knew we’d never go to Heaven. But we figured that guaranteed us a place in Hell. Now when we die, we’ll have nowhere to go!”
[1]: “They’re ripping us off’: Trump’s long-standing grievance driving his risky tariffs”, ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/theyre-ripping-us-off-trumps-long-standing-grievance/story?id=120447216
[2]: “Who Is the Archangel Michael?”, Christianity.com, https://www.christianity.com/wiki/angels-and-demons/who-is-the-archangel-michael.html
[3]: Daniel chapter 10, verse 13, The Bible, King James Version, https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Daniel-10-13/
[4]: Luke chapter 1, verse 19, The Bible, King James Version, https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Luke-1-19/
[5]: “US defends tariffs on remote island of penguins and seals”, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce84jr5mvnno
[6]: “Trump trade guru Peter Navarro says Vietnam’s zero-tariff offer ‘means nothing’ because ‘it’s the nontariff cheating that matters’”, yahoo!news, https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-trade-guru-peter-navarro-011500965.html
[7]: “Lesotho Gears Up to Face Highest U.S. Tariff Rate”, InDepth News, https://indepthnews.net/lesotho-gears-up-to-face-highest-u-s-tariff-rate/
[8]: “Shocking: Trump hits Lesotho, Levi’s and Calvin Klein denim exporter, with 50% tariff”, USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/04/07/trump-lesotho-trade-tariffs/82971571007/
[9]: “With 67% of the population considered “poor”, Lesotho gears up to face highest US tariff rate”, People’s Dispatch, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/08/with-67-of-the-population-considered-poor-lesotho-gears-up-to-face-highest-us-tariff-rate/
[10]: “Macro Poverty Outlook for Lesotho : October 2024”, World Bank Group, https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099725210142433805
[11]: “Lesotho insulted after Trump says nobody has heard of the country”, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/africa/lesotho-president-trump-congress-int-latam/index.html
[12]: The Bible, book of Matthew, chapter 6, verses 11–13, King James Bible Online, https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/lords-prayer_bible/
[13]: DoorDash, https://www.doordash.com/
[14]: National Debt Relief, https://www.nationaldebtrelief.com/
[15]: Wegovy, https://www.wegovy.com/
[16]: “Best TV Streaming Services for 2025”, Forbes Advisor, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/l/tv-streaming/
[17]: “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Adjusts Imports of Automobiles and Automobile Parts into the United States”, The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-adjusts-imports-of-automobiles-and-automobile-parts-into-the-united-states/
[18]: “Trump sells Bibles; evangelicals sell their souls”, The Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/trump-sells-bibles-evangelicals-sell-their-souls/
[19]: “Trump is Satan”, Harvard University, https://wilson.fas.harvard.edu/files/jeffreywilson/files/jeffrey_r._wilson_22trump_is_satan_-_paradise_lost_in_washington_dc22_2019.pdf
[20]: “How to Succeed in Business After Selling Your Soul To Trump”, Erik Ballard, r/Political Humor thread on Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/1jrihsv/how_to_succeed_in_business_after_selling_your/?rdt=58209
[21]: “Bernie Sanders: law firms that cut deals with Trump administration sell out their soul”, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/bernie-sanders-trump-administration-law-firms
[22]: “Columbia University President Resigns After School Accepts Trump’s Demands”, Rolling Stone, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/columbia-university-president-resigns-accepts-trump-demands-1235306315/
