Trump Dump: Foreign Policy (Thread I)

[mr friendly guy]

Anyone want to comment on the fact that Trump accepts Israel's sovereignty over the Golan heights? Maybe he will accept Russia sovereignty over Crimea next.

Needless to say, it just ups tensions. On another note, at least there is one country that benefits from Trump's presidency.

[The Romulan Republic]

Anyone want to comment on the fact that Trump accepts Israel's sovereignty over the Golan heights? Maybe he will accept Russia sovereignty over Crimea next.

Needless to say, it just ups tensions. On another note, at least there is one country that benefits from Trump's presidency.

The usual interpretation seems to be that Dickless is trying to help Netenyahu's reelection campaign (he's facing a tough reelection bid while under investigation for corruption). So I guess he's decided to take a "pay it forward" approach to collusion/election interference.

[LaCroix]

Closing the mexcan border is a sure-fire way to fuck up a lot of industry in the south, I'd assume.

How much in terms of goods and raw material is moving over the border per day?
Enough to fuck up everyone.

[The Romulan Republic]

Closing the mexcan border is a sure-fire way to fuck up a lot of industry in the south, I'd assume.

How much in terms of goods and raw material is moving over the border per day?
Enough to fuck up everyone.

Oh yeah.

He will, of course, blame the subsequent economic disaster on immigrants, and his base will follow him blindly like the good little brown-shirted lemmings they are. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if part of the goal was "create economic disaster so we can blame it on the immigrants, justifying even more fascist measures that will cause further disaster, which we can blame on the immigrants, rinse and repeat..."

[The Romulan Republic]

A brief rundown of how fucked we'll be if Dickless closes the Mexican border. It starts with "The US will run out of avocados in three weeks" and gets much, much worse from there:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... r-avocados

US consumers would run out of avocados in three weeks if Donald Trump makes good on his threat to close down the US–Mexico border.

Trump said on Friday that there was a “very good likelihood” he would close the border this week if Mexico did not stop immigrants from reaching the United States.

But a complete shutdown would disrupt millions of legal border crossings in addition to asylum seekers, as well as billions of dollars in trade, about $137bn of which is in food imports.

From the avocados on avocado toast, to the limes and tequila in margaritas, the US is heavily reliant on Mexican imports of fruit, vegetables and alcohol to meet consumer demand.

Nearly half of all imported US vegetables and 40% of imported fruit are grown in Mexico, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Avocados would run out in three weeks if imports from Mexico were stopped, said Steve Barnard, president and chief executive of Mission Produce, the largest distributor and grower of avocados in the world.

“You couldn’t pick a worse time of year because Mexico supplies virtually 100% of the avocados in the US right now. California is just starting and they have a very small crop, but they’re not relevant right now and won’t be for another month or so,” said Barnard.

Monica Ganley, principal at Quarterra, a consultancy specializing in Latin American agricultural issues and trade, said that a border closure would inevitably hit consumers.

“We’re absolutely going to see higher prices. This is a very real and very relevant concern for American consumers.”

The US and Mexico trade about $1.7bn in goods daily, according to the US Chamber of Commerce, which said closing the border would be “an unmitigated economic debacle” that would threaten 5m American jobs.

The effects of a shutdown would run both ways.

Mexico is the largest importer of US exports of refined fuels like diesel and gasoline, some of which moves by rail. It is unclear if rail terminals would be affected by closures.

As changing palates have increased demand for fresh produce, and a greater variety of it, the United States has increasingly come to depend on Mexico to meet that need.

Imports have nearly tripled since 1999. In that period, Mexico has gone from supplying less than a third of imported produce to 44% today.

In addition to avocados, the majority of imported tomatoes, cucumbers, blackberries and raspberries come from Mexico. While there are other producers of these goods globally, opening those trade channels would take time, said Ganley.

So, major food shortages, spiking prices, a loss of 1.7 billion in trade per day, and potential loss of five million American jobs.

Or as Trump calls it, Making America Great Again.

[bilateralrope]

If he were smarter, I'd suspect that he doesn't want to be reelected.

[The Romulan Republic]

If he were smarter, I'd suspect that he doesn't want to be reelected.

Considering that he will be open to indictment for campaign finance violations over the Stormy payments (and possibly other things) the moment he isn't protected by DOJ policy of "We can't indict a sitting President"... yeah, he's going to do everything he can short of (and quite possibly including) starting a civil war to stay in office.

[Ralin]

Considering that he will be open to indictment for campaign finance violations over the Stormy payments (and possibly other things) the moment he isn't protected by DOJ policy of "We can't indict a sitting President"... yeah, he's going to do everything he can short of (and quite possibly including) starting a civil war to stay in office.

Tell that to Bush. Former presidents don't get arrested for crimes, much less convicted.

[bilateralrope]

How many crimes was Bush investigated for ?

[Ralin]

Exactly. And Trump hasn't done anything nearly as bad as Iraq.

[The Romulan Republic]

Considering that he will be open to indictment for campaign finance violations over the Stormy payments (and possibly other things) the moment he isn't protected by DOJ policy of "We can't indict a sitting President"... yeah, he's going to do everything he can short of (and quite possibly including) starting a civil war to stay in office.

Tell that to Bush. Former presidents don't get arrested for crimes, much less convicted.

Which is one of the great failings of America. But there's a first time for everything.

Exactly. And Trump hasn't done anything nearly as bad as Iraq.

In terms of lives lost, no. At least not yet: we'll see what happens if the cancellation of Obamacare and kicking hundreds of thousands off food stamps go through, and he keeps ramping up the ethnic cleansing on the border- or if one of these days, his penchant for nuclear diplomacy by Twitter threat finally bites him in the ass.

I do think that, while its obviously a harder thing to quantify, he does score higher on malicious intent than W, though- the only reason he hasn't done more damage is that he has not been permitted to fully act on his impulses and agenda yet. And if you don't believe me, remember this: for all his many faults, after 9/11, when the country was frightened and enraged and looking for someone to punish, and Bush had an approval rating most Presidents can only dream of, and you had people calling for the obliteration of Mecca in response and insane shit like that, Bush went out and explicitly said that the US was not at war with Islam. Now tell me: if it had been Trump in his place, can you imagine for one second that he would have done the same?

In any case, Trump has done things that a large number of powerful people in America care about more than Iraq, sad to say. Its easier to get people to care about someone fucking up their own country, than fucking up someone else's country, generally. That doesn't mean that its all a witch hunt and Trump should be let off- he absolutely should go down hard for stuff like breaking campaign laws, obstruction of justice, authoritarian attacks on the press and political opposition, and incitement to violence. Its a damn shame that Bush the Lesser didn't get the same level of investigative scrutiny that Trump is, but be careful not to use "Bush was worse" (true or not) as a way to deflect the conversation from Trump's crimes.

Like I said: there's got to be a first time for everything. If we want future Presidents to go down for trying to pull shit like Iraq, doing everything possible to make sure that Trump goes down now is a good place to start. If you want a world with absolute Presidential immunity... well, Trump skating by, and continuing to push his authoritarian agenda, is the surest way to accomplish that.

Edit: Another reason its easier to go after Trump, sad to say, is that there's a lot less Democratic culpability in Trump's shit than in Bush's. Prosecuting the upper echelons of the Bush administration for war crimes and crimes against humanity would have entailed asking some very awkward questions about why top Democrats supported the push to war on such flimsy evidence. In this case, there is no such impediment to nailing Trump to the fucking wall, however much his supporters try to pull "Both Sides" crap. But nailing Trump now will set a precedent that will make it harder for Presidents to abuse their power in the future, while letting him slide will make it vastly easier. Likewise, netting as much of his regime as possible along with him will clear out many of the worst players in contemporary American politics.

[bilateralrope]

Exactly. And Trump hasn't done anything nearly as bad as Iraq.

So how many investigations was Bush facing ?

I'm not aware of any. Which means that Trump is already looking more likely to get convicted.

[mr friendly guy]

Trump now wants to start a trade war with Europe after winning the trade war with China *

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/us/p ... riffs.html

By Ana Swanson
April 9, 2019

WASHINGTON — The United States and the European Union are preparing to impose tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s products, the latest escalation in a 14-year fight over government aid given to Boeing and European rival Airbus.

“The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 Billion of E.U. products!” President Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday morning. “The E.U. has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!”

The office of the United States trade representative said on Monday night that it was preparing a list of European products to tax as retaliation for European subsidies to Airbus, which the World Trade Organization ruled were illegal in May 2018. That prompted the European Union to announce that it was also readying a list of tariffs to counter American subsidies to Boeing.

The moves come amid tense trade relations between the United States and Europe, which are engaged in a battle of tariffs after Mr. Trump’s decision last year to tax European steel and aluminum. Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on European cars and car parts if the European Union does not agree to better trade terms for American products, and Europe has said it will retaliate on American goods if Mr. Trump follows through on that threat.

* actually by the standard Trump and US nationalists use "winning a trade war," they are kind of losing. Take the following goals and standards used.

1. Reduce the trade deficit with China.
I have said earlier, I don't think the deficit in and of itself means much, but Trumpist like to throw this out. Unfortunately for them, the trade deficit has hit record highs despite tariffs.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/ ... rd-1242498

By DOUG PALMER 03/06/2019 09:04 AM EST Updated 03/06/2019 03:21 PM EST
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
The U.S. trade deficit in goods with China set a new record during President Donald Trump’s second year in office, despite his efforts to rein in what the administration views as Beijing's trade transgressions. The trade gap rose to $419.2 billion in 2018, from the previous record of $375.5 billion in 2017, a Commerce Department report released Wednesday showed.

But lets be fair to Trump, I have read elsewhere that the trade deficit with China is only growing at the same rate as China's trade surplus with the rest of the world, whereas previously the US trade deficit was growing faster than this.

2. The other metric Americans, um Bloomberg loves throwing up is the stock market. Unfortunately when you use the stock market you can selectively count only good periods, where the US stock market was going up, and the Chinese one down and claim victory. But lets do it right now.

Tariffs came up on 24 sept 2018.

Dow jones on 21 sept 2018 (sept 23 was a weekend and stock market closed) was 26,743.50 and on 11 April it closed 26,143.05 ie DECREASE BY 2.2%
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history/.

As I write this, the stock market is most probably not closed on Friday 12 April due to time difference, whereas China's stock market has already closed, so I will be comparing China's on the 12 April.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history/

Shanghai Index on 21 Sept 2019 (sept 23 was a weekend and stock market closed) was 2,797.49 and on April 12 it was 3,188.63 and increase of 14%.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/000001. ... =000001.SS

I am no mathematical genius unlike the whizzes at western financial newspapers, but I am pretty sure +14% beats -2% any day of the week.


Now this is not me using my standards to judge who wins a trade war, its me using the standards the Trump administration and bullish journalists in the West themselves use to judge the outcome of the trade war.

[The Romulan Republic]

You can never have too many enemies- the Donald Trump theory of governance.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump proposes transporting illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities to punish them:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/201 ... ip-vpx.cnn

I think he misses the point of sanctuary cities, which is that they actually welcome immigrants, legal or otherwise. But the fact that we are now talking about the forced mass relocation of immigrants to specific cities or areas should send a chill through everyone. Warsaw Ghetto, anyone?

Trump also told the head of the CBP to break the law, and promised to pardon him if he did so:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/liv ... 46f07ee65c

This is dictatorship. This is ethnic cleansing. Its illegal, and it doesn't matter, because the President can't be indicted (supposedly), and Congress won't impeach, and Trump can just pardon anyone else who breaks (Federal) law. There is no law.

We need to put everything we have into crushing these monsters in the 2020 election, because the survival of our country, even the world, may depend upon it. But if that fails...

I do not advocate initiating violence, because I believe it is essential, if we are to have the support to prevail, that the other side start any armed conflict; that we not be seen by the Centrists, the military leadership, or the world as the aggressors. But now is the time to start stockpiling arms, and organizing defensive militias. Especially as it is entirely possible, even likely, that Trump will refuse to peacefully leave office if defeated, and he has too many allies in the military and law enforcement to assume that he can quickly or cleanly be removed when he does so.

[Ralin]

I think he misses the point of sanctuary cities, which is that they actually welcome immigrants, legal or otherwise. But the fact that we are now talking about the forced mass relocation of immigrants to specific cities or areas should send a chill through everyone. Warsaw Ghetto, anyone?

The point is that they believe their own propaganda and figure that if they give the libs a taste of their own medicine by sending a bunch of actual Mexican illegals to run wild raping and burning stuff that will get voters to see how bad the immigration problem really is.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think he misses the point of sanctuary cities, which is that they actually welcome immigrants, legal or otherwise. But the fact that we are now talking about the forced mass relocation of immigrants to specific cities or areas should send a chill through everyone. Warsaw Ghetto, anyone?

The point is that they believe their own propaganda and figure that if they give the libs a taste of their own medicine by sending a bunch of actual Mexican illegals to run wild raping and burning stuff that will get voters to see how bad the immigration problem really is.

That, and if he imports a bunch of "illegals" to Democratic cities, he can then say that they stole the vote when those cities vote Democrat.

[Ralin]

That, and if he imports a bunch of "illegals" to Democratic cities, he can then say that they stole the vote when those cities vote Democrat.

Huh. Yeah I guess that could be true. Seems a bit convoluted though, compared to Trump's usual strategy of 'declare that there was voter fraud.'

[The Romulan Republic]

That, and if he imports a bunch of "illegals" to Democratic cities, he can then say that they stole the vote when those cities vote Democrat.

Huh. Yeah I guess that could be true. Seems a bit convoluted though, compared to Trump's usual strategy of 'declare that there was voter fraud.'

Trump's actually pretty savvy about playing the media and political system. He's willfully bufoonish about a great many things, but it does not do to underestimate him as a con man.

[Gandalf]

Indeed. That media savvy got him some two billion dollars worth of free coverage during the election. All he needed to do was tweet and then cable news convened panels to repeat, discuss, and (most importantly) react to that content. Trump's message of the day got free promotion, and his base got to see liberals lose their shit.

[The Romulan Republic]

Roger Stone's defense team has argued that because of the Barr Report saying "no collusion", that makes it okay for him to lie to the FBI. They have also requested exclusive access to the Mueller report:

hhttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/20 ... 456745002/

Man, you can't make this shit up. Tells us another one, Roger.

[The Romulan Republic]

Trump just used the second veto of his Presidency to stop a bi-partisan bill to pull America out of Yemen's civil war (the first was used to keep the state of emergency at the border going).

He described Congress exercising its Constitutional authority to decide when the US goes to war as "an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities" and claimed that it would endanger American lives (because Yemen is a huge threat to the United States now, apparently). Of course, he's really doing this as a favor to his journalist-killing buddies in the Saudi government, and as a move against Iran.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-veto ... civil-war/

President Trump has vetoed a bill Congress passed to end U.S. military assistance in the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen. In a break with the president, Congress voted for the first time to invoke the war powers resolution to try and stop U.S. involvement in a foreign conflict.

Mr. Trump vetoed the measure Tuesday. Congress lacks the votes to override him. "This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future," Mr. Trump wrote in explaining his veto.

Congress has grown uneasy with the president's close relationship with Saudi Arabia as he tries to further isolate Iran, a regional rival. Many lawmakers also criticized the president for not condemning Saudi Arabia for the killing of a Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi who lived in the United States and had written critically about the kingdom. Khashoggi went into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October and never came out. Intelligence agencies said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was complicit in the killing.

The ongoing civil war has caused one of the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet. According to the United Nations, a quarter of a million Yemenis have been facing starvation.

Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, voted to end U.S. military assistance to the war, saying the humanitarian crisis in Yemen triggered "demands moral leadership."

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said that Mr. Trump's veto "shows the world he is determined to keep aiding a Saudi-backed war that has killed thousands of civilians and pushed millions more to the brink of starvation."

Kaine accused Mr. Trump of turning a blind eye to Khashoggi's killing and the jailing of women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia. "I hope my colleagues will show we won't tolerate the Trump administration's deference to Saudi Arabia at the expense of American security interests by voting to override this veto," Kaine said.

The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, acknowledged the dire situation in Yemen for civilians, but spoke out in opposition to the bill. McCaul said it was an abuse of the war powers resolution and predicted it could disrupt U.S. security cooperation agreements with more than 100 countries.

Mr. Trump issued his first veto last month on legislation related to immigration. Mr. Trump had declared a national emergency so he could use more money to construct a border wall. Congress voted to block the emergency declaration and Trump vetoed that measure.

"But Trump is anti-interventionist and will keep us out of wars, unlike Hillary!"

[Ziggy Stardust]

Didn't you know we aren't allowed to criticize anything related to Trump's foreign policy choices because George W. Bush lied about Iraq and something something Obama drone-strikes? How dare you, sir.

More seriously, this line jumps out at me:

McCaul said [the bill] was an abuse of the war powers resolution and predicted it could disrupt U.S. security cooperation agreements with more than 100 countries.

How could it be an abuse of the War Powers Resolution? Literally what is even the point of the resolution if this isn't an example for which it could be invoked? Of course, the resolution has been toothless since at least the bombing of Kosovo in the '90s if not earlier, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. I hope someday the resolution can be re-written to put more of a check on the executive. It is disturbing how easy it is for presidents to side-step the damned thing.

Also, 100 countries? How could Yemen possibly involve that many countries? Unless McCaul is basically implying that halting operations in Yemen would somehow bring the entire US international military order crumbling down, this makes no damned sense. I have a hard time believing literally more than half of all the countries on the damned planet are integral to US military operations in Yemen.

[Lost Soal]

If they can pull US operations out of Yemen against the presidents wishes then they can do it anywhere so no one else can trust the US to continue their operations in case some uppity congress-critters decide to pull the same trick.
The fact that no-one can trust the president not to lie about the fucking weather much less anything of importance is, apparently, immaterial.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, the idea that the US has any credibility left to lose is pretty questionable, at this point.

But this really does underscore how bankrupt the whole "vote Trump because Hillary is a militaristic imperialist" argument is. The only reasons to vote for Trump, the only reasons there ever were to vote for Trump, are if you're a bigot who doesn't care if the world burns as long as brown people/foreigners/Muslims/LGBT people/women/liberals/people with disabilities suffer first and most, or if you're a nihilist who just wants the world to burn.