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In the grand buffet of problems explaining President Trump’s abysmal approval ratings, reserve a tray for Mexican food.
Americans are rightfully frustrated with the myriad consequences of the war with Iran he plunged us into, the rising cost of living, his pharaonic obsession with monuments to himself and his overall doddering state of mind.
But as this president afflicts the country with a prolonged civic bout of Montezuma’s Revenge, Mexican food’s role in the overall mess Trump has left us with is notable.
One of this country’s most popular cuisines has inadvertently spent this summer embarrassing Trump in fundamental ways — and I’m not just talking about TACO, the acronym referring to how Trump Always Chickens Out on his most bombastic claims and threats. The most prominent — and disgusting — example has been outbreak of foodborne illness traced back to popular Mexican restaurant chains that have sickened tens of thousands of Americans while Trump has shrugged and effectively told us to eat frijoles.
In the annals of four-letter words and acronyms Donald Trump has long hitched his political fortunes on, the word “taco” may be easy to overlook.
The Food and Drug administration traced an outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a parasite-born intestinal disease, to contaminated lettuce grown in Mexico by Salinas-based Taylor Fresh Foods that made its way to Taco Bell. The world’s biggest Mexican fast food chain quickly put out a statement that it removed all suspected lettuce from its restaurants and that “we encourage all relevant restaurants, retailers, and foodservice operators to do the same.”
If only the Trump administration was as proactive in caring for the well-being of Americans as the creators of Doritos Locos tacos and Crunchwrap Supremes.
It turned out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network told state inspectors last year that they were no longer required to report to the agency any instances of the parasite that causes cyclosporiasis they found in this country’s food supply. This was part of massive cutbacks at the CDC that reduced its staff by a quarter and cut billions of dollars in funding.
When reporters confronted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with these facts, he responded that such criticisms were “invalid” and that the cyclosporiasis outbreak was “under control.”
Make America Healthy Again? More like Make Americans Heave Always.
On Aug. 4, the Food and Drug Administration revealed that a salmonella outbreak traced back to contaminated jalapeños imported from Mexico had left hundreds of Americans sick. But the feds were two weeks late to the news: By July 20, Chipotle had already removed all suspected jalapeños from its stores. Unlike the Trump administration, it had invested in food-safety tracking that quickly spotted the problem, a system implemented after the company suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in sales losses and a $25-million federal fine last decade due to repeated foodborne illnesses originating in its stores.
I’m no fan of Chipotle’s underwhelming hipster vibe or Taco Bell’s over-salted options, but they know what the Trump administration seems to not understand: Americans deserve to eat without worrying about whether they’ll get ill as a result. And they also know Americans especially like Mexican food, a cuisine dependent on exported produce that is now more expensive than ever because of Trump’s misguided tariffs and overall bellicosity to our Latin America trading partners.
You would think Trump himself would know: Remember the infamous photo he posted on Cinco de Mayo during his first term of him smiling at his desk appearing ready to chow down on a giant taco salad bowl?
