USDA Inadvertently Reveals Trade Partnership With Wakanda

A Black Panther panel in 2017 (photo via William Tung’s Flickrstream)

This week, the USDA inadvertently tore the lid off the greatest cover-up of all time: the existence of the so-called fictional land of Wakanda. The US Department of Agriculture launched an online tariff tracker that listed the nation of Wakanda among our many trade partners. It seems that we primarily trade in live animals with Wakanda, which is consistent with the Wakandan policy to limit the spread of its valuable vibranium-powered weapons technology. As we all remember, back in 2018, a coup staged among Wakandan royalty threatened to destabilize international relations, when a challenger to the throne attempted to implement an open trade policy regarding military-grade vibranium.

In light of such tense trade relations, it should be no surprise that the USDA quickly removed Wakanda as a trade partner, claiming its presence was merely a “test file” — but I think we know the truth in our hearts. This is obviously a ploy to continue to obscure the influence of the world’s most powerful nation, followed by a squeeze play to attempt to force their hand in opening vibranium to the free market. The dollar value of Wakandan wealth is unknown, because, as Quora user Conrad Mashiloane has noted, GDP is not used in Wakanda.

“Wakanda is highly developed intellectually and therefore stopped using GDP about 50 years ago,” write Mashiloane, who somehow finds time to dabble in fictional economics, despite also apparently being an OB/GYN. “The reason is that the economist in Wakanda dumped neoclassical economics which focuses on supply and demand and profit maximization to developmental economics which focus on human capability and uses the Human Development Index (HDI) to measure economic performance. GPD measures the prices of all economic transactions and has no relationship to human wellness and development, whereas HDI determines human wellness and function.” This is an evolved take on economics, befitting the most evolved example of human civilization: Wakanda.

Other fictional economists have argued that the Wakandan trade embargo is an attempt to enforce Antitrust Laws, in light of the powerful entertainment monopoly presented by the 2009 merger of Disney and Marvel corporations. Together, the entertainment empire has almost the entire global supply of pixie dust, an aggressive percentage of talking animals, and a statistically significant portion of princesses ruling land, sea, and air. One hopes impeachment proceedings will not distract our brave and embattled nation from the real conspiracy here: the violent trade politics of entirely imaginary places.