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Notes -
So Trump had a fun day on the golf course.
While golfing yesterday, he got the news that Colombia will not be accepting two jets full of repatriated criminals. So he goes on TruthSocial and posts that, immediately, Colombia will get slapped with 25% tariffs, as well as visa revocations for ruling party members.
This causes an immediate reaction from Petro, the unpopular socialist leader of Colombia, who offers to fly convicts back to Colombia in his Presidential jet.
There is much celebration and dunking from Trump supporters.
Not so fast. It turns out Petro might have been drunk, because he later goes on to post this insane rant on Twitter and then threatens the U.S. with retaliatory tariffs.
Now the Democrats are celebrating (because obviously it's good to hurt Trump even if it's bad for America). We are driving Colombians into the arms of China! Who will work our coffee fields? That kind of stuff.
The evening goes on. Trump finishes golfing. Petro sobers up and probably gets some, um, interesting phone calls from prominent Colombians who will have to pull their daughters from American finishing schools. Petro apparently caves, as the White House posts this, announcing that Colombia will accept unlimited flights. No tariffs for now, but the visa restrictions remain in force until Colombia follows through.
It's hard not to see this as a massive win for Trump and for America as a whole. He accomplished more in a few minutes, while golfing, than a normal administration would in weeks. Sometimes you can just do stuff.
MSN reported it like this: Donald Trump starts massive diplomatic crisis with Colombia while playing round of golf.
This is really interesting. I'm not pro-Trump and I'm not anti-Trump, but I am anti-anti-Trump. But I will say that this sort of thing unnerves me a little bit.
Trump is clearly used to wheelin' n' dealin' big business, callin' the shots, callin' the bluffs, making bluffs, making quick decisions based on gut instinct and an innate knowledge of human behavior and (company) politics. People just aren't used to this in the POTUS. For most politicians, everything needs to be carefully carefully considered, because the cost of a mistake could be not just that quarterly profits are down, but rather global catastrophe.
I admire that Trump is willing to try this out for the US, and maybe it's what we need in some ways to get us to prosperity, but I also fear this and the consequences of what happens when a nation who's more dangerous calls his bluffs and his tactics. He could be doing the right thing by trying these tactics, or it could be sheer insanity and the result of putting someone in a position they're not really the right person for. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
What indication is there that he would try the same tactic with a nation that's more dangerous? I don't see any reason to believe that there was any bluff involved - being willing to impose tariffs that would be inconvenient for Americans but catastrophic for Colombians is a powerful tool of economic leverage that Trump seems willing to exert on a country that really has nothing they can do to meaningfully retaliate.
He is already trying this tactic with our allies, which is making them upset, and he doesn't care. Why should our allies care about what we want when we demonstrate such hostility?
Because they're completely and totally dependent upon the US economically and militarily. They have no hand they can play without being wiped out, and the previous administration has done far worse to them - preventing the Europeans from buying Russian gas is a hundred times worse for them than whatever Trump is doing.
Why do you think being hostile to our allies that are dependent on us with no regard for their reaction will not result in them gaining independence, not so very much unlike the origins of North America?
I honestly hope it does - I am not a supporter of the American Empire by any means.
But right now America has the whip hand, and the desperate circumstances of the ruling classes means that they're going to abuse the Europeans until they grow a pair (and a complete replacement for SWIFT, US financial markets etc). That might be a big problem for the America of the future, who will potentially regret this hostility when the Europeans break away, but that's not something the incredibly short-sighted people running the empire care about.
I agree with your opinion that Europe needs to gain further independence from North America, if only to aid in reducing its hostility. It’s dismal how many short-sighted people are able to effect America’s future at the moment.
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