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Notes -
Reuters:
Trump orders sweeping freeze for federal grants and loans
Trump order set to halt supply of HIV, malaria drugs to poor countries, sources say
Apparently based on this memo (pdf).
This seems very... crude. The question is if it's purposefully crude, if there's some structural reason it can't be better implemented, or if the person in charge is incompetent.
Also, impoundment? We'll see?
The irony is that we're getting the worst of both worlds with Trump's brand of isolationism. On one hand, we have Bush lackey Pete Hegseth who thinks Iraq was a great idea. And then we're defunding basic, uncontroversial medical aid and possibly leaving Ukraine defenseless against the mongrels. There's no coherent policy other than doing the opposite of whatever Biden supported.
Of course there's a coherent policy, and it's mercantilist style gunboat diplomacy.
Trump believes that the US's greatness in that era was the fruit of that policy rather than merely coinciding with it. But you can't accuse the man of having no vision when he's even willing to make fundamental changes to taxation and doing landgrabs to align with it.
He was literally selling that vision on Rogan during the campaign, it's not like it's a mystery. How realistic that is in the modern world is another question, but it's unfair to say it's incoherent.
What's more interesting to me is that this has also been China's declared policy for a while. And whether it would be beneficial or not on the whole for the US to collapse their alliances to become another China. One needs to remember that the US proper and the Imperial infrastructure are two different political entities with nonoverlapping interests.
If he wanted to expand the American empire in an advantageous way, that would be one thing. But based on his appointments it seems like we'll be going on a crusade in the middle east rather than actually annexing any valuable territory or defending the West. The fact that he railed against the Iraq war in 2016 makes me think he has no coherent foreign policy or vision. I don't see how someone can flip-flop on that particular issue.
Trump was against the Iraq War during the early Bush years. His foreign policy vision has remained "America First". The Trump Doctrine is extremely legible and coherent, I think trying to deny this is just equivalent to not liking it. Note that Hegseth did not get appointed to lead a new Iraq War (and Trump is not a doddering susceptible who does whatever his last conversation told him). Hegseth got hired to purge the military of political officers, because he will be the first SecDef in a generation who isn't from that class.
Trump is 78, was showing visible signs of mild cognitive decline on the campaign trail, and was a notoriously low-detail President in his first term despite being younger. Personnel is policy to a greater extent than usual. (That said, Michael Waltz as NSA is more likely to be deciding who gets attacked than the SecDef - power under a low-detail President leaks to the EOP and not the cabinet).
I think this is an ignorant or helpless point of view: You can watch Trump live, you can see him in action. He'll sign executive orders for hours while answering questions from reporters, he'll be deeply knowledgable about each one. Then he'll go to North Carolina and have a press conference with victims of the hurricane, speaking totally spontaneous, he'll go to LA and meet with the mayor and argue with her and command the room. He's meeting with lawmakers and give speeches, he'll show up for a cameo at Vegas, he's constantly everywhere doing things in command of his faculties. He's in command everywhere he goes, nobody can keep up with him. The "evidence" of decline is a few edited clips taken out of thousands literally thousands of public appearances. Trump is not a pushover, he is not being lead around by his aides, and I think at this late date it's a little absurd to deny his vigor and obvious good health.
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