BEIJING – Among the surprises in the new trade agreement with China is the exchange of Meihekou, part of the Jilin Prefecture which borders North Korea, and Vermont, a small state in the northeastern section of the United States. Meihekou, like Vermont, has a population of about 620,000 people. “In terms of disruption to the lives of our citizens and those in the Vermont prefecture of the United States,” said Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. “President Trump and I agreed that around six hundred thousand individuals were a small price to pay for the first step in bringing our two countries closer.” President Trump agreed, saying “The people of Vermont are used to one party control of their legislature, so not much will change. Bernie will be very happy representing Vermont in the Central Committee.”



By acquiring Meihekou, the United States gets a weapons platform from which cruise missiles and nuclear artillery can be fired against North Korea. “We will no longer need to have the Pacific Fleet off the waters of Korea,” said Trump, “and China will no longer be flummoxed between their desire to stand by their Korean political cousins and their desire to make a lot of money trading with the USA.”

China sees the opportunity to remake Vermont through the simple expedient of increasing its population by an order of magnitude. “We think the actual carrying capacity of the Green Mountain State is more like 6 million people. While it will take a little over 2 years to fly 5.5 million people to Burlington, at the rate of 1 flight per hour 24 hours a day every day of the year, we are going to stretch that out to 4 years so that housing can be erected and infrastructure improved to meet the needs of our citizens,” said China’s lead negotiator, Liu He.



During the press conference, VT Digger reporter Anne Galloway asked if that buildout would include high speed internet access and high speed rail. “Yes to both,” responded He. “We will have the rail paralleling 89 and 7 by the end of 2020. “A lot of the steel will be brought to Vermont from China.”



“And that won’t count against our trade deficit!” exclaimed President Trump, “You can see what a great deal this is for the US!”



Xi laughed at the interruption and continued “As you probably know, the citizens of our country enjoy 5 gigabit service in our big cities, and we intend to do the same here in Vermont. The key is replacing the outmoded wood telephone pole system with much taller steel towers, many of which will have a power generating turbine on top. We think wind in Vermont will supply all the electricity our citizens will need. And another thing, all that steel will be manufactured in China and shipped to Vermont.”



“Not increasing the trade deficit! No increase!” the President of the United States gleefully exclaimed.



Christian Avard of The Vermont Standard, a Woodstock VT weekly, asked if Xi planned to exempt the Village of Woodstock, renowned for the fact that the Rockefeller’s paid to bury the utility lines that would otherwise distract from the beauty of the Village Green. “China’s intent is to preserve a handful of places demonstrating the traditional heritage of Vermont, but we are not sure Woodstock will make the cut. That town has a lot of very flat land with terrific bedrock for supporting skyscrapers, and we think it will prove to be ideal for the downtown of a city with a population in excess of 500,000 people.”

“And all those steel girders won’t count against the trade deficit!” shouted Trump.

Nadia Geddit is the nom-de-plume of a public official who lives in Windsor County.



