At a press conference held this morning, President Donald J. Trump clarified the motivations for his planned troop increase in Afghanistan. Contrary to his previous assertions casting the escalation as a necessary part of the War on Terror, Trump has now revealed that the action is intended to protect American trade, specifically that of the, long suffering, coverlet industry.
“I kept looking at Afghanistan, I mean really looking and all I could see were these.” He then produced, from behind the podium, a brightly colored afghan blanket. “They are flooding the market with these, poorly made, cheap blankets and I mean cheap. Not good. So I said, we make blankets here. We make the greatest blankets. Really, spectacular, like the ones made by those..uh…,” the President seemed to struggle for words, “…um…those weirdos with the outdated clothes and the beards and who don’t watch television…”
“Hipsters?” offered one reporter in the crowd.
“Maybe,” said the President, “the point is they make some pretty great quilts and they ought to be able to sell them without dealing with unfair competition from these cheap afghan manufacturers. So we are going in there to see that these illegal blanket factories are shut down, once and for all, making room for hardworking American corporations to squeeze a little more money out of the system. That is what I campaigned on, and that is what I am now going to do!”
Asked if he was aware that most blankets, in fact most textiles, were produced in foreign countries such as China, the President retorted, “Fake News! In China they make China. That’s why they named the country that!”
The President then unveiled a plan for a multi-tiered aggressive foreign policy approach to the defense of other American industries. Plans, Trump said, are currently underway for an invasion of Syria in order to “liberate the little people who live in our iPhones,” as well as preemptive Thanksgiving maneuvers in Turkey.
At this point, the President draped the Afghan over his shoulders and was led, gingerly, away from the podium by Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
A reporter in the crowd then shouted out a request for comment on the ongoing Russia investigations. The President turned back to the crowd and said. “I’m looking into that, but let me just say that there are very fine people on both sides of the salad dressing debate.”
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