With Donald Trump continuing to rail against trade deals via his own brand of virulent protectionism, while Theresa May paints a blurry picture of a post-Brexit Britain becoming a ‘global trading nation’ precisely in order to make itself great, at first glance it might seem like the two leaders are separated by more than an ocean.
In fact many of the same ideas slosh haplessly around in these heads. Both have risen to prominence on a platform of nationalism, both happily sneer at a half-conjured liberal elite, and while May can boast of a more compliant media, they both thoroughly despise everything about refugees and immigrants.
Whether trade is perceived as a starting point or a must, who better to do business with than those who share our closest cultural values? And what values are closer to us than the English language which we utter and the milky whiteness which adorns our blithe but swiftly tanned faces?
That’s why in a gesture of firm friendship and unnecessary conciliation, as part of a deal impacting transport and defence as well as free trade, the United States and the United Kingdom are set to construct an epochal causeway akin to a land bridge, grander than the Isthmus of Panama or anything across the Bering Strait.
And how will such a feat come with no cost to the taxpayer? Because we will all hop to and fro upon the heads of dead refugees. Having abandoned the Dubs scheme in aid of unaccompanied young migrants, Theresa May has made her predilection for dead children quite clear, while Donald Trump prefers those from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, although give him any dead Muslim and he will gladly make do.
Most of the deceased will be transported to the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean, though Trump also intends to scour the riverbanks of New York. The causeway will bring to fruition the longstanding ideal of transatlantic transit, but the brightest scientific minds behind the Trump administration admit they know little about the environmental impact, load-bearing capacity, nor how long the makeshift structure might last.
Still at least it’s cheap: try stopping this one in Congress! In an oppositionless House of Commons its passage is a fait accompli! Trump’s alleged ties with Russia had led to fears that he was attempting to penetrate the United States through the back door, but this agreement between old allies allows both parties to enter, with their eyes wide open, into what they declare will be an ever more prosperous future, at once forward and backward-looking, at least depending on the current.
