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At this point you really have to notch the theory up from 4D to 12D chess in order to reconcile Trump's words and actions with those of a functional president.
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On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all.
the loss of the softpower was caused by trump, not something that happened to trump. it's not something that made it harder for him, it's something he made harder for himself and everyone else.
and the reason they don't make an argument along the lines you say is it doesn't work with trump, he doesn't even understand the topic well enough to make plausible deals with, and you can't make deals with him anyways as he's too unreliable. also, in all likelihood they did make such arguments, and were ignored.
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On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all.
That's pretty utopian.
The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests.
This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas.
Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter.
You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream.
I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection.
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On April 06 2018 08:47 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 08:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 06 2018 08:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
market is gonna be ugly tomorrow. "the time to buy is when there's blood in the streets." Don't think people aren't getting rich off the whole ride down and the way back up too. I know I will be! My plan is to stock up on Amazon
Unfortunate that you'll end up with the same share as the rest of us when we appropriate to the people 
Good luck to you, but it'll probably be folks thinking that which are going to supply a lot of the money the people I was talking about extract.
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On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection.
I'd say we do get things done if it isn't just us Europeans. If there's a gentle push from the US the EU tends to get in line or at least it used to be that way and I think it would be the same in this situation if you replace Trump with literally any of the other people who ran for preisdent. That's been my point. Not that there's a better way to go about this but that because Trump is who it is and how he acts in regards to other nations it's so much more impossible for him to get anything done outside of the US.
Maybe I shouldn't have picked the EU as an example as I do agree the EU blocks itself way too much (looking back at the disaster that was the tradedeal talks with Canada for example) but again, my point was mostly that it's hilarious that in principal it's something people agree with (again, ignore him and how he goes about it) but because he is who he is and because he does things this way it only becomes more impossible for him to achieve anything he wants. At least outside the US.
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On April 06 2018 09:54 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection. I'd say we do get things done if it isn't just us Europeans. If there's a gentle push from the US the EU tends to get in line or at least it used to be that way and I think it would be the same in this situation if you replace Trump with literally any of the other people who ran for preisdent. That's been my point. Not that there's a better way to go about this but that because Trump is who it is and how he acts in regards to other nations it's so much more impossible for him to get anything done outside of the US. Maybe I shouldn't have picked the EU as an example as I do agree the EU blocks itself way too much (looking back at the disaster that was the tradedeal talks with Canada for example) but again, my point was mostly that it's hilarious that in principal it's something people agree with (again, ignore him and how he goes about it) but because he is who he is and because he does things this way it only becomes more impossible for him to achieve anything he wants. At least outside the US.
Of course the EU gets things done. And of course the EU used to work well together with the US, generally because their interests interlocked.
I misunderstood then i guess, you're of course correct in saying that trump pretty much gambled most of the political capital away that was built over decades beforehand. And to be fair, who could blame anyone, that's the US' cross to carry now for what, two more years or something.
edit: calling btw threats of tariffs if not falling in line in the next two weeks.
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The Scott Pruitt news has been coming in fast, but this seems to summarize how abusive he has been with his position. At one point he demoted an agent who refused to use the sirens on the car to cut through traffic. The man has also demoted people for disagreeing with him.
And his landlord it getting hit with fines for renting out the condo for $50 a month without the proper zoning for a rental.
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On April 06 2018 10:32 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/982002851789639681The Scott Pruitt news has been coming in fast, but this seems to summarize how abusive he has been with his position. At one point he demoted an agent who refused to use the sirens on the car to cut through traffic. The man has also demoted people for disagreeing with him. And his landlord it getting hit with fines for renting out the condo for $50 a month without the proper zoning for a rental.
The tweet sounds like stuff I would expect for someone in government trying to screw over the people would need/justify to protect themselves when anywhere near them.
That doesn't sound like abuse, just prudent protections. The stuff about demoting people for disagreeing (like the guy from Hooli or whatever) and the land lord thing don't sound that sketchy either.
No shortage of problems at the EPA before he got there and he's exacerbated nearly every one of them and added a whole new list, but none the stuff in the tweet/post really seems abnormal to me.
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On April 06 2018 10:01 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 09:54 Toadesstern wrote:On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection. I'd say we do get things done if it isn't just us Europeans. If there's a gentle push from the US the EU tends to get in line or at least it used to be that way and I think it would be the same in this situation if you replace Trump with literally any of the other people who ran for preisdent. That's been my point. Not that there's a better way to go about this but that because Trump is who it is and how he acts in regards to other nations it's so much more impossible for him to get anything done outside of the US. Maybe I shouldn't have picked the EU as an example as I do agree the EU blocks itself way too much (looking back at the disaster that was the tradedeal talks with Canada for example) but again, my point was mostly that it's hilarious that in principal it's something people agree with (again, ignore him and how he goes about it) but because he is who he is and because he does things this way it only becomes more impossible for him to achieve anything he wants. At least outside the US. Of course the EU gets things done. And of course the EU used to work well together with the US, generally because their interests interlocked.
Their interests are still interlocked. The issue is that democracy seems to be crumbling as a system in the present-day. A general voting public makes bad decision-makers. In the US, it led to Trump getting elected. In Europe, voters would apparently rather spite Trump than act in their own (and the world's) interest.
[To be clear, I don't mean to absolve Trump of blame here. He's played this horribly. And I totally agree he's a terrible president and potentially exclusively responsible for the failure to obtain European support.. But it's important to separate the person and the policy. The underlying strategy here is what's needed given the circumstances.]
This sorta worked okay when there were no competent authoritarians around, but it's a real problem today. China (more specifically the CCP and their mass-propagandized populace) is being massively overlooked as the largest threat to worldwide human rights since the beginning of the post-WW2 era.
If you think the world's leadership has been bad under the US, you're going to have a hell of a next few decades if the current trends continue. At least half of the US populace gives a shit when they think the US government is acting immorally abroad, and politicians have to answer to them somewhat. China's rulers have no such constraints and have clearly demonstrated that their number one priority is establishing dominance under their (rapidly increasing) sphere of influence.
Imagine if you took US military adventurism, removed the press's ability to report on it, the citizens' ability to vote on it, and rewarded the politicians in charge for bringing home the riches. Sound like an optimistic vision for the future? You can argue the US does this already, and I know some of you do, but even the biggest skeptic would have to acknowledge there are at least some checks in place to rein it in significantly.
If CCP can conduct human rights violations on Tibetans, Uighurs, etc. in their own country without significant resistance from the populace, what do you think the response will be when those violations are occurring in some far off foreign land?
Far into the future, I think the West's handling of China is going to be seen as a historic failure.
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On April 06 2018 10:32 Plansix wrote:https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/982002851789639681The Scott Pruitt news has been coming in fast, but this seems to summarize how abusive he has been with his position. At one point he demoted an agent who refused to use the sirens on the car to cut through traffic. The man has also demoted people for disagreeing with him. And his landlord it getting hit with fines for renting out the condo for $50 a month without the proper zoning for a rental.
So pretty much everything we knew about Scott Pruitt before, namely that he was willing to be nakedly corrupt because he was in bed with the energy industry, has proven to be true. It is now reported that the lobbyist whose apartment he was renting for $50/night had business before the EPA at the time.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5575395/Saudi-crown-prince-brags-Jared-Kushner-handed-U-S-intelligence.html
This IS the Daily Mail, so be skeptical.
but if what they are reporting is true, and it seems very likely that it is based on past reports of the JK/MBS connection, Jared Kushner is should be in deep deep trouble. Like, going to federal prison for a veeeery long time kind of trouble. Who wants to bet Jared followed ANY of the rules about disclosure of this stuff?
Giving an above-Top-Secret CIA briefing to a guy like MBS, is so horrible in so many ways that I can't list them all.
Also, more Manafort news
I did not previously fathom the amount of trouble that this guy seems to be in. He's already facing charges that would put him behind bars for the rest of his life and the feds are still executing massive search warrants on all his stuff due to matters "relating to ongoing investigations that are not the subject of either of the current prosecutions involving Manafort."
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I feel like every shift in the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar started with a visit from Jared Kushner. And I fucking love that quote from his attorney's spokesman, that Kushner is 'well aware of the rules'. Apparently not. The dude is being investigated by some of the most talented people in the FBI, but I wouldn't put it past him to keep committing crimes.
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On April 06 2018 13:04 Plansix wrote:
I feel like every shift in the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar started with a visit from Jared Kushner. And I fucking love that quote from his attorney's spokesman, that Kushner is 'well aware of the rules'. Apparently not. The dude is being investigated by some of the most talented people in the FBI, but I wouldn't put it past him to keep committing crimes.
I wouldn't even expect him to know all the rules. There are probably a huge amount of them and Trump just kinda threw him in there with 0 experience of anything he was doing.
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On April 06 2018 13:13 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 13:04 Plansix wrote:
I feel like every shift in the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar started with a visit from Jared Kushner. And I fucking love that quote from his attorney's spokesman, that Kushner is 'well aware of the rules'. Apparently not. The dude is being investigated by some of the most talented people in the FBI, but I wouldn't put it past him to keep committing crimes. I wouldn't even expect him to know all the rules. There are probably a huge amount of them and Trump just kinda threw him in there with 0 experience of anything he was doing.
You can't tell foreign leaders the information on the documents that say "Top Secret" on them. And you don't give them copies of it. And if this happened, it was in November of this year, so he knew what he was doing. He is trying to get them to give his family buisness money.
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United States43367 Posts
On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection.
Actually the EU does have a single universal trade policy as a bloc and does impose tariffs collectively. Meanwhile nations within the EU cannot make their own trade agreements or impose their own sanctions. What you said is the opposite of true.
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On April 06 2018 13:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection. Actually the EU does have a single universal trade policy as a bloc and does impose tariffs collectively. Meanwhile nations within the EU cannot make their own trade agreements or impose their own sanctions. What you said is the opposite of true.
You might want to read again. I have no idea what you're even talking about, or why you feel inclined to point out something so obvious.
edit: if it's the "not a coherent entity", it's not. Yeah, all tariffs and trade agreements are universal for all countries, but you have to get there first. You need a qualified majority in the council to get tariffs for something (not just a simple majority). That's why there aren't (or barely any) tariffs against steel dumping (the US tariffs that with 266%, the EU 13% and voted on 26% or something). Because it's not a coherent entity, countries follow their own interests. What i said is exactly true.
Sidenote, the very fact that i said "the UK blocked steel tariffs" should tell you that i certainly know that decisions are universal. The european steel industry is pretty much dead, not just in the UK - because the majority (qualified majority = 55% of member states with at least 65% of population) wanted, but couldn't impose, tariffs. If that's what you were talking about, it's a bit like arguing that this thread is a coherent entity. Or a school class. The EU is 28 individual countries, not a coherent entity. The decisions are made by 28 individuals that all have their own interests, some of which are shared - others are not.
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On April 06 2018 10:52 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 10:01 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:54 Toadesstern wrote:On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection. I'd say we do get things done if it isn't just us Europeans. If there's a gentle push from the US the EU tends to get in line or at least it used to be that way and I think it would be the same in this situation if you replace Trump with literally any of the other people who ran for preisdent. That's been my point. Not that there's a better way to go about this but that because Trump is who it is and how he acts in regards to other nations it's so much more impossible for him to get anything done outside of the US. Maybe I shouldn't have picked the EU as an example as I do agree the EU blocks itself way too much (looking back at the disaster that was the tradedeal talks with Canada for example) but again, my point was mostly that it's hilarious that in principal it's something people agree with (again, ignore him and how he goes about it) but because he is who he is and because he does things this way it only becomes more impossible for him to achieve anything he wants. At least outside the US. Of course the EU gets things done. And of course the EU used to work well together with the US, generally because their interests interlocked. Their interests are still interlocked. The issue is that democracy seems to be crumbling as a system in the present-day. A general voting public makes bad decision-makers. In the US, it led to Trump getting elected. In Europe, voters would apparently rather spite Trump than act in their own (and the world's) interest. [To be clear, I don't mean to absolve Trump of blame here. He's played this horribly. And I totally agree he's a terrible president and potentially exclusively responsible for the failure to obtain European support.. But it's important to separate the person and the policy. The underlying strategy here is what's needed given the circumstances.] This sorta worked okay when there were no competent authoritarians around, but it's a real problem today. China (more specifically the CCP and their mass-propagandized populace) is being massively overlooked as the largest threat to worldwide human rights since the beginning of the post-WW2 era. If you think the world's leadership has been bad under the US, you're going to have a hell of a next few decades if the current trends continue. At least half of the US populace gives a shit when they think the US government is acting immorally abroad, and politicians have to answer to them somewhat. China's rulers have no such constraints and have clearly demonstrated that their number one priority is establishing dominance under their (rapidly increasing) sphere of influence. Imagine if you took US military adventurism, removed the press's ability to report on it, the citizens' ability to vote on it, and rewarded the politicians in charge for bringing home the riches. Sound like an optimistic vision for the future? You can argue the US does this already, and I know some of you do, but even the biggest skeptic would have to acknowledge there are at least some checks in place to rein it in significantly. If CCP can conduct human rights violations on Tibetans, Uighurs, etc. in their own country without significant resistance from the populace, what do you think the response will be when those violations are occurring in some far off foreign land? Far into the future, I think the West's handling of China is going to be seen as a historic failure.
I don't think the analysis that the EU wants.to spite Trump is true. It's just that tariffs are an aweful way to achieve their goals and that Trump is obsessed with the trade deficit. There were already plans to cooperate on trade against China.
https://www.ft.com/content/5f0aad90-deae-11e7-a8a4-0a1e63a52f9c
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On April 06 2018 12:53 TheLordofAwesome wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5575395/Saudi-crown-prince-brags-Jared-Kushner-handed-U-S-intelligence.htmlThis IS the Daily Mail, so be skeptical. but if what they are reporting is true, and it seems very likely that it is based on past reports of the JK/MBS connection, Jared Kushner is should be in deep deep trouble. Like, going to federal prison for a veeeery long time kind of trouble. Who wants to bet Jared followed ANY of the rules about disclosure of this stuff? Giving an above-Top-Secret CIA briefing to a guy like MBS, is so horrible in so many ways that I can't list them all.
Someone on another forum discussing the same article mentioned that the UK has pretty tough defamation laws and if the Daily Mail doesn't have any sort of proof to justify the update to that article, they stand to lose a tremendous amount of money. That makes it very slightly more credible, I guess?
Given what we currently know, if we ignore how political considerations might effect any indictments or subsequent prosecution, I would not be surprised to see Kushner land in jail and Trump follow him for trying to protect him.
However, there are political considerations, so it's possible that Kushner has done exactly what he's alleged to have done and doesn't even get a slap on the wrist for it.
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On April 06 2018 14:55 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 10:52 mozoku wrote:On April 06 2018 10:01 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:54 Toadesstern wrote:On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection. I'd say we do get things done if it isn't just us Europeans. If there's a gentle push from the US the EU tends to get in line or at least it used to be that way and I think it would be the same in this situation if you replace Trump with literally any of the other people who ran for preisdent. That's been my point. Not that there's a better way to go about this but that because Trump is who it is and how he acts in regards to other nations it's so much more impossible for him to get anything done outside of the US. Maybe I shouldn't have picked the EU as an example as I do agree the EU blocks itself way too much (looking back at the disaster that was the tradedeal talks with Canada for example) but again, my point was mostly that it's hilarious that in principal it's something people agree with (again, ignore him and how he goes about it) but because he is who he is and because he does things this way it only becomes more impossible for him to achieve anything he wants. At least outside the US. Of course the EU gets things done. And of course the EU used to work well together with the US, generally because their interests interlocked. Their interests are still interlocked. The issue is that democracy seems to be crumbling as a system in the present-day. A general voting public makes bad decision-makers. In the US, it led to Trump getting elected. In Europe, voters would apparently rather spite Trump than act in their own (and the world's) interest. [To be clear, I don't mean to absolve Trump of blame here. He's played this horribly. And I totally agree he's a terrible president and potentially exclusively responsible for the failure to obtain European support.. But it's important to separate the person and the policy. The underlying strategy here is what's needed given the circumstances.] This sorta worked okay when there were no competent authoritarians around, but it's a real problem today. China (more specifically the CCP and their mass-propagandized populace) is being massively overlooked as the largest threat to worldwide human rights since the beginning of the post-WW2 era. If you think the world's leadership has been bad under the US, you're going to have a hell of a next few decades if the current trends continue. At least half of the US populace gives a shit when they think the US government is acting immorally abroad, and politicians have to answer to them somewhat. China's rulers have no such constraints and have clearly demonstrated that their number one priority is establishing dominance under their (rapidly increasing) sphere of influence. Imagine if you took US military adventurism, removed the press's ability to report on it, the citizens' ability to vote on it, and rewarded the politicians in charge for bringing home the riches. Sound like an optimistic vision for the future? You can argue the US does this already, and I know some of you do, but even the biggest skeptic would have to acknowledge there are at least some checks in place to rein it in significantly. If CCP can conduct human rights violations on Tibetans, Uighurs, etc. in their own country without significant resistance from the populace, what do you think the response will be when those violations are occurring in some far off foreign land? Far into the future, I think the West's handling of China is going to be seen as a historic failure. I don't think the analysis that the EU wants.to spite Trump is true. It's just that tariffs are an aweful way to achieve their goals and that Trump is obsessed with the trade deficit. There were already plans to cooperate on trade against China. https://www.ft.com/content/5f0aad90-deae-11e7-a8a4-0a1e63a52f9c
If Trump actually wanted some solidarity against China's trade power, I hear there was some trade partnership from some Pacific countries that wanted to do just that. I wonder what the Trump thinks of that?
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On April 06 2018 16:05 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2018 14:55 RvB wrote:On April 06 2018 10:52 mozoku wrote:On April 06 2018 10:01 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:54 Toadesstern wrote:On April 06 2018 09:42 m4ini wrote:On April 06 2018 09:17 Toadesstern wrote:
I would say the underlying issue is real to some degree (edit: that is, China not opening up their markets. Not talking about trade deficits) and it's a topic in the EU as well. I'll agree that his plan is bad and it wouldn't just be "oh you put 50billion tariffs on China? Awesome we'll do the same!" but maybe something else along the lines "yo stop for a second. That's just stupid. But beyond all that bullshit there's a point to be had. What do you say we work something out together?"
But the fact that the US has lost every ounce of political softpower it still had 2 years ago makes it so much harder for him. Hell, the Iraq war wasn't only the US fighting. Maybe had this 50billion tariff thing be proposed by Obama/Bush some nations would have joined in after all. That's pretty utopian. The EU isn't a coherent entity that just joins or declines a trade war. There's dozens of countries, each with their own interests. This was shown a while ago when pretty much everyone in the EU agreed that chinese steel is a problem, so legislation was drafted to counteract this by "measures" (i assume it was tariffs, can't remember). Turns out, the government that screamed the loudest about how unfair chinese steel is recently (the UK) and iirc two other countries simply blocked it. Doesn't stop them from still blaming the EU for destroying the welsh steel industry, but alas. Point being, no. A country, yes. The EU as a whole? Especially at the pace trump is tweeting/warmongering? Completely impossible. The only option would be to either "join" or "not join" the quabble, because you can't discuss stuff reasonably at the pace trump is just vomiting his verbal diarrhoea into twitter. You're acting as if the EU doesn't want to act, when in fact, it tried multiple times and lost to the interests of singular countries. You can argue that it's stupid (i'd disagree), but that's the way it is. You can't just announce something on twitter, implement it a week later and expect one of the biggest trading blocs, created out of dozens of countries, to just jump whenever trump has another feverdream. I'd honestly rather have the EU getting together with china by itself, with their own pace. Hell, catch them off guard by offering to let the weapons embargo go (which is retarded in the first place) in exchange for an open market/IP protection. I'd say we do get things done if it isn't just us Europeans. If there's a gentle push from the US the EU tends to get in line or at least it used to be that way and I think it would be the same in this situation if you replace Trump with literally any of the other people who ran for preisdent. That's been my point. Not that there's a better way to go about this but that because Trump is who it is and how he acts in regards to other nations it's so much more impossible for him to get anything done outside of the US. Maybe I shouldn't have picked the EU as an example as I do agree the EU blocks itself way too much (looking back at the disaster that was the tradedeal talks with Canada for example) but again, my point was mostly that it's hilarious that in principal it's something people agree with (again, ignore him and how he goes about it) but because he is who he is and because he does things this way it only becomes more impossible for him to achieve anything he wants. At least outside the US. Of course the EU gets things done. And of course the EU used to work well together with the US, generally because their interests interlocked. Their interests are still interlocked. The issue is that democracy seems to be crumbling as a system in the present-day. A general voting public makes bad decision-makers. In the US, it led to Trump getting elected. In Europe, voters would apparently rather spite Trump than act in their own (and the world's) interest. [To be clear, I don't mean to absolve Trump of blame here. He's played this horribly. And I totally agree he's a terrible president and potentially exclusively responsible for the failure to obtain European support.. But it's important to separate the person and the policy. The underlying strategy here is what's needed given the circumstances.] This sorta worked okay when there were no competent authoritarians around, but it's a real problem today. China (more specifically the CCP and their mass-propagandized populace) is being massively overlooked as the largest threat to worldwide human rights since the beginning of the post-WW2 era. If you think the world's leadership has been bad under the US, you're going to have a hell of a next few decades if the current trends continue. At least half of the US populace gives a shit when they think the US government is acting immorally abroad, and politicians have to answer to them somewhat. China's rulers have no such constraints and have clearly demonstrated that their number one priority is establishing dominance under their (rapidly increasing) sphere of influence. Imagine if you took US military adventurism, removed the press's ability to report on it, the citizens' ability to vote on it, and rewarded the politicians in charge for bringing home the riches. Sound like an optimistic vision for the future? You can argue the US does this already, and I know some of you do, but even the biggest skeptic would have to acknowledge there are at least some checks in place to rein it in significantly. If CCP can conduct human rights violations on Tibetans, Uighurs, etc. in their own country without significant resistance from the populace, what do you think the response will be when those violations are occurring in some far off foreign land? Far into the future, I think the West's handling of China is going to be seen as a historic failure. I don't think the analysis that the EU wants.to spite Trump is true. It's just that tariffs are an aweful way to achieve their goals and that Trump is obsessed with the trade deficit. There were already plans to cooperate on trade against China. https://www.ft.com/content/5f0aad90-deae-11e7-a8a4-0a1e63a52f9c If Trump actually wanted some solidarity against China's trade power, I hear there was some trade partnership from some Pacific countries that wanted to do just that. I wonder what the Trump thinks of that?
Countries Trump is aware of:
-China
-Mexico
-Korea
-Europe
-Kenya
-Canada
-Puerto Rico
-Russia
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EPT
