this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Explanation: The Confederacy of the US Civil War in the South attempted to secede from the US in order to preserve the institution of slavery. One of their core strategies was to pressure Europe to intervene on their behalf in some way - as Southern cotton had been a very important part of the economy of the industrialized states of Europe.
The strategy was troubled from the start. First, the Union, also a major trade partner of Europe, was obviously not happy about any form of support given to the Confederacy. Second, the mood amongst European voters was decidedly anti-slavery by the 1860s. And third, once the war started, European states just started growing cotton in India, Egypt, and other colonies of suitable clime for cotton, rather than get involved in a whole-ass war with a serious military power just to buy cotton at slightly cheaper prices.
King Cotton was such a deluded economic concept that I'm surprised it hasn't displaced "eggs" as the thing people say in the phrase "don't put all your X in one basket."
In fact, Trump's pro-tariff policy is self-defeating in many ways similar to King Cotton: piss off everyone in the world simultaneously, belligerently assuming you're the only place in the world with a given commodity. Meanwhile, other nations will fill in the gap you left behind and leave you in the dust.
Republicans are the children who couldn't fit a square peg in a round hole, threw a temper tantrum, and broke the toy trying to shove that square peg in a round hole over and over.