WASHINGTON— Exhausted, berimed with salt, and haggard from his long sea journey, but nevertheless triumphant as he guided his fleet to port following the completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Barack Obama is said to have made harbor in Washington, D.C.’s anchorage Monday, his five sturdy galleons choked to the very gunwales with the finest silks, casks of redolent cardamom, and great cakes of vivid dye-of-indigo retrieved from the far Orient. “Come, ye gentles, ye merchants, ye noble tradesmen of America—witness the riches of the East and rejoice!” said the president from the quarterdeck of his flagship, the Laissez-Faire, as he cracked open a chest of cherrywood to display to his cheering welcomers dazzling jade and delicate urns of porcelain procured from the very rim of the world. “I have made commerce with the Mandarins of Far Cathay, and the brahmins of Calcutta, and yea, even with the savages of Java. And they did return my gifts of metal and glassware with great stores of enchanting spices, teas of all scents, the finest opium, and a vast wonderment of small brass trinkets shaped by the cunning hands of Siam’s artificers. And best of all, before God and my fellow man do I declare that I have received promises and guarantees of safe trade and passage for our likes o’er the entire expanse of the great Eastern Ocean!” The president also confirmed that his largest vessel was packed brimful with the latest low-cost computer chips and imitation handbags.

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