Understanding the US - Again

The Strategic Issues & International Relations Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to India's security environment, her strategic outlook on global affairs and as well as the effect of international relations in the Indian Subcontinent. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Philip
BRF Oldie
Posts: 21538
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: India

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Philip »

India " snubs " the US according to a media report today.Def.Min. NS said on Tuesday that negotiations for the S-400 deal with Russia were in the " last stages" , and won't be hampered by any US red-flagging the deal.
" We have. reached a final stage in S-400 negotiations.CAASTA cannot impact the relations, she said.Her statements came just a day after Mac Thornberry, Chairman of the US Armed Services, saying that there was a lot of concern in the Trump admin. of the S-400 being acquired by partner nations including India.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12065
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by A_Gupta »

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ng/562127/
In 1867, Gorman was elected president of the National Association of Base Ball Players, one of the sport’s first governing bodies. Gorman’s installation, the Ball Player’s Chronicle, was an effort to demonstrate that “sectional prejudices did not rule the fraternity of the North.” The installation of a white southerner was an explicit invitation, an effort to reconcile on southern terms, and to enshrine baseball as a national game—a game for a reunited nation. But if sectional prejudices did not rule baseball, it was because racial prejudices did.

It’s a story brilliantly recounted in Ryan Swanson’s When Baseball Went White. During Gorman’s tenure, the organization’s annual convention considered the question of race. “If colored clubs were admitted,” argued the NABBP’s secretary, “there would be in all probability some division of feeling, whereas, by excluding them no injury could result to anybody, and the possibility of any rupture being created on political grounds would be avoided.” Chadwick said the aim was to “keep out of the convention any subject having a political bearing, as this undoubtedly had.” The convention ratified a bar on any club with one or more persons of color—one of the nation’s very first Jim Crow rules. The galleries hissed, and an animated Gorman threatened to have them cleared.

To keep the game apolitical meant keeping it exclusionary; mollifying disagreements among white members required excluding blacks entirely. No injury could result to anybody, they argued, relegating the excluded to the status of nobodies.

Having done his part to segregate baseball, Gorman joined the effort to segregate the nation. He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Bourbon Democrat, intent on rolling back the halting racial progress made during Reconstruction. “We have determined that this government was made by white men and shall be ruled by white men as long as the republic lasts,” he thundered, echoing his political mentor. He made his name opposing protections for black voters in the South, and with a major push to systematically disenfranchise black voters in Maryland.
g.sarkar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4382
Joined: 09 Jul 2005 12:22
Location: MERCED, California

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/us/p ... nafta.html
Mexico Hits U.S. With Tariffs, Escalating Global Trade Tensions
By Ana Swanson and Jim Tankersley
June 5, 2018
WASHINGTON — Mexico hit back at the United States on Tuesday, imposing tariffs on around $3 billion worth of American pork, steel, cheese and other goods in response to the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum levies, further straining relations between the two countries as they struggle to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The tariffs, which were announced last week, came into effect as the Trump administration threw yet another complication into the fractious Nafta talks. Officials are now saying they want to splinter discussions with Canada and Mexico and work on separate agreements rather than continue three-country discussions to rewrite the 1994 trade deal.
Larry Kudlow, President Trump’s chief economic adviser, said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s “preference now, and he asked me to convey this, is to actually negotiate with Mexico and Canada separately.” Mr. Kudlow, speaking on “Fox and Friends,” said pursuing separate deals might allow an agreement to be reached “more rapidly,” adding: “I think that’s the key point. You know, Nafta has kind of dragged on.”
The Trump administration hit Mexico and Canada with 25 percent steel tariffs and 10 percent aluminum tariffs on June 1 as part of a campaign to pressure the countries to agree to America’s demands on a revised Nafta. The United States also imposed metals tariffs on the European Union, Japan and other countries as part of an effort to stop the flow of imported metals, which the administration has said threatens national security by degrading the American industrial base. The trade approach has only inflamed allies, including Canada and Mexico, which have threatened to strike back with their own targeted tariffs aimed at Republican states and areas that supported Mr. Trump. Mexico’s list was designed to hit at parts of the United States represented by high-profile Republicans, Mexican officials have said, including steel from Vice President Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana, motorboats from Senator Marco Rubio’s Florida, and agricultural products from the California district of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader.
Farmers, who are among those most vulnerable to the Mexican tariffs, said the tariffs would devastate American agriculture.
.....
Gautam
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12065
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by A_Gupta »

WTO judges are appointed by consensus. The US is refusing to agree to any new appointments; and sooner or later WTO won’t have the required quorum of judges.
https://www.voanews.com/a/wto-being-asp ... 13678.html
The Geneva-based World Trade Organization, founded in 1995, is the final arbiter for trade disputes between its 164 member economies and the main global forum for discussing trade.

Its appellate body normally has seven members, but because of the Trump administration's veto on new hires, only four of the posts are now filled. One judge is due for reappointment in September and two are due to leave next year.

Three judges are needed to hear any case, which means the court will cease to function altogether next year unless Trump lifts his refusal to fill vacancies.
g.sarkar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4382
Joined: 09 Jul 2005 12:22
Location: MERCED, California

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/p ... eting.html
Anger Flares Up as Group of 7 Heads to Quebec
By Michael D. Shear
June 7, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump will skip most of the second day of a summit meeting with allies this weekend, the White House said late Thursday, as he engaged in a contentious war of words over trade on the eve of a gathering that will underscore his isolation from the leaders of the world’s largest economies.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, announced that Mr. Trump will leave Canada at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, well before scheduled sessions on climate change, clean energy and oceans. He will attend an early-morning session on “women’s empowerment,” but he will be gone before any joint statement is issued by the other leaders. Earlier Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada lashed out at Mr. Trump for imposing tariffs on their steel and aluminum industries. They called it an illegal economic assault on their countries that is unanimously opposed by the other leaders of the Group of 7 who will gather Friday in a sleepy village in Quebec for their annual summit meeting.
“The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be,” Mr. Macron said Thursday in an especially acerbic tweet. “Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force.” Mr. Trudeau said at a news conference with Mr. Macron that “we are going to defend our industries and our workers” and “show the U.S. president that his unacceptable actions are hurting his own citizens.”
Mr. Trump responded with his trademark Twitter bluntness a few hours later, signaling that he has no intention of relenting on his aggressive trade demands and cares little about the diplomatic niceties that usually constrain public disagreements between the leaders of friendly nations.
“Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers,” the American president wrote. “The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out.”
He added, with a hint of sarcasm: “Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.”
Mr. Trump was scheduled to arrive Friday morning at the meeting for a gathering that traditionally includes a moment of global camaraderie — the “family photo” that captures presidents and prime ministers smiling for the camera.
This year, there will not be many grins.
Mr. Trump is the black sheep of this family, the estranged sibling who decided to pick fights with his relatives just before arriving to dinner. The dispute, Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, acknowledges, is “much like a family quarrel,” but with the potential for vast diplomatic and economic consequences for the world.
The anger of American allies, over Mr. Trump’s decision to impose tariffs, is palpable.
....
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... s-job.html
President Trump Still Way Too Lazy to Do His Job
By
Jonathan Chait
Donald Trump possessed less relevant experience and subject expertise for the job of president than any person ever elected to the job. Those deficits can be offset, to a degree, with dogged study and hard work. But rather than make up for his historical lack of qualifications, Trump has compounded the problem with historical laziness. He famously lounges in front of the television having “Executive Time” until 11 a.m., checks out early, refuses to read briefings, and otherwise disdains the most important parts of his job.
Three new reports highlight the laziness problem. First, Trump is acting cranky and resentful in anticipation of his journey to faraway Canada. “President Trump is planning to fly to Canada on Friday. He is not exactly happy about it,” reports the Washington Post. “Trump is a homebody president, preferring to sleep in the White House — or at one of his signature properties — than in hotels, so he is generally reluctant to take long journeys. Furthermore, he prefers visiting places where he is feted — such as on his trips last year to Beijing, Paris and the Saudi capital — over attending summits where the attending leaders are treated as equals.”
Apparently nobody informed Trump that the job involves foreign travel. He also has little patience with domestic functions. The Post obtained audio of his meeting with FEMA to discuss preparedness for hurricane season. You might think Trump would grasp the importance of the issue given that thousands of Americans died on his watch in the wake of a bungled hurricane response in Puerto Rico. You would be wrong. Trump was totally unable to concentrate on the task at hand.
......
Gautam
Lalmohan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13262
Joined: 30 Dec 2005 18:28

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Lalmohan »

donnie asks for Russia to be let back into G7 --> 8
Mort Walker
BRF Oldie
Posts: 10033
Joined: 31 May 2004 11:31
Location: The rings around Uranus.

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Mort Walker »

Lalmohan wrote:donnie asks for Russia to be let back into G7 --> 8
Russia is a white Christian nationalist country and DT will promote it where he can. At the same time he is diluting the influence of the UK, Germany and France - which is the good thing out of this.
rsingh
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4451
Joined: 19 Jan 2005 01:05
Location: Pindi
Contact:

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by rsingh »

Interesting thing I heard on Belgian Radio " There is going to be a meeting of 7 big world powers in Canada. D trump is insisting to bring Russia back to make it G8.....again. But Russia it seems has some other thoughts. Russians are trying to show that G7 is not worth attending as it does not reflect reality any more". Correspondent adds......Russia is trying to undermine G7 by encouraging and joining other multilateral organisation such as BRICS and Shangai bla bla .
Lalmohan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13262
Joined: 30 Dec 2005 18:28

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Lalmohan »

Russia is basically saying that they are back and badder than before
no secrets here, it has been their stated aim for some time
whilst bush jr and Obama resisted this, Donnie is facilitating it
Gus
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8220
Joined: 07 May 2005 02:30

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Gus »

trump promotes russia because they are white christian nationalists.

of course..it all makes sense :/
Rudradev
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4226
Joined: 06 Apr 2003 12:31

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Rudradev »

Futt Gayee Rey....

The Great Western Alliance unraveling! Read and laugh :D

BUT don't forget to pay attention to the underlying geopolitical implications.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-f ... rica-alone

Under Trump, “America First” Really Is Turning Out to Be America Alone
From trade to the Iran deal to NAFTA, the President has created the highest level of tension between the U.S. and its allies in decades.

By Susan B. Glasser

5:00 A.M.

The Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was less than forty-eight hours away from hosting the biggest diplomatic gathering of his career when I spoke with one of his top advisers on Wednesday afternoon. Trudeau’s team was searching for strategies to salvage the annual G-7 summit with the American President, Donald Trump, and leaders of five of the world’s other large democratic economies—all of them close allies of the United States, and all of them furious with Trump. “Look, he personally decided he wanted to be fighting with everybody,” the Trudeau aide told me, referring to Trump. “Maybe he thinks it’s in his best interests to be combative and fighting.”

For close to a year and a half, Trudeau and his counterparts have employed various strategies to try to head off conflict with the volatile American President, from flattery to stonewalling to hours of schmoozing on the golf course. But in recent weeks Trump has confounded their efforts, unleashing a tit-for-tat trade war with allies, blowing up the Iran nuclear deal over European objections, and walking away from a deal with Canada and Mexico to overhaul NAFTA, all while lavishing praise on the North Korean dictator with whom he hopes to reach an accord next week. Adding insult to injury, Trump even cited an obscure national-security provision to justify the tariffs, as if America’s closest friends had suddenly become its biggest enemies. As a result, the G-7 meeting that Trudeau will host on Friday and Saturday was shaping up to be the most contentious, and possibly the most consequential, since the summits began, in 1975.

Trump’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, told the White House press corps on Wednesday that this was all just a “family quarrel,” but, if so, it’s one ugly fight. As Kudlow acknowledged the rift, Trudeau and France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, were meeting to plot strategy, and everyone was wondering why Trump, who is often described as averse to face-to-face conflict, had chosen the weeks preceding the annual G-7 summit to punch his allies in the face. In the days leading up to the meeting, Trump had tense phone calls with Trudeau, Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May, and Macron, who has been especially humiliated by the series of adverse decisions after flying to Washington to lobby Trump personally. All of them appear to fix blame on Trump himself. “We’ve gotten used to unorthodox behavior from your President,” the Trudeau adviser said.

For his part, Trump seems to relish the confrontation he has unleashed and is spoiling for more. On Thursday morning, the President tweeted that he was “getting ready to go to the G-7 in Canada to fight for our country on Trade,” insisting, as he often does, that “we have the worst trade deals ever made.” But others involved in the summit were preparing for an America more alone than ever before, and now Trump faces the very real risk of allies teaming up against him. “The American president may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be,” Macron tweeted pointedly to Trump, in English, later on Thursday. Trump quickly fired back. “Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers,” the President tweeted. “Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.” Soon after that, the White House said in a statement that Trump would skip the second day of the summit entirely, and it seemed increasingly certain that the traditional joint communiqué signed off on by all seven leaders will be discarded because of Trump. (As of Wednesday, when it would normally be in the final stages of elaborate negotiations, the communiqué was not even being circulated.) Instead, the Trudeau adviser told me, the Canadian Prime Minister, as the summit’s host, was likely simply to release a “statement from the chair,” summarizing the discussions without requiring Trump to approve it. The American President has blundered his way into “opening a four-front-at-least war simultaneously,” the Trudeau adviser said, and now the goal of the summit has become unlike any other that preceded it: “to get allies together to try to contain the amount of damage he’s doing.”


Ever since Trump took office, America’s allies have desperately sought to avoid this moment. Over the last year and a half, though, many of them have come to realize, with growing dread, that it was inevitable. The rift between the world’s great democracies that Trump’s election portended is coming to pass, and it is about far more than Iran policy, obscure trade provisions, or whether Germany spends two per cent of its G.D.P. on NATO. Many senior European officials speak of it, as one Ambassador to Washington did to me recently, as nothing less than a “crisis of the West.


As Trump’s dramatic moves have played out this spring and hardened into a Presidential narrative of American victimization at the hands of free-riding allies, senior government officials in London, Berlin, and other European capitals, and in Washington, have told me they now worry that Trump may be a greater immediate threat to the alliance than even authoritarian great-power rivals, such as Russia and China. Equally striking is the extent to which America’s long-term allies have no real strategy for coping with the challenges posed by such an American President. Trump may be reorienting U.S. foreign policy away from its closest friends, such as Great Britain and Germany, and toward those with whom Trump is more politically aligned in Israel, the Gulf, and along Europe’s restive fringes, but his traditional partners have no real strategy for how to respond.

Last year, the German Foreign Office embarked on what two sources described to me as its first-ever effort to produce an America strategy aimed at answering that question, with the goal of producing a strategy document similar to those it has for adversaries. “Essentially, it’s an overhaul of German foreign policy,” a senior German official told me, “since the key assumption being called into question is the total reliance we have on the friendship with the U.S.” Work on the new strategy began after Trump’s Inauguration but accelerated last spring, after the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, returned from Trump’s initial foray into international summitry rattled by him and announced that “Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.” The painful realization, the senior German official said, was that “we might get to a situation where we see Americans not only as friends and partners but also as competitors and adversaries. We don’t want to do that. That is how we treat other great powers around the globe, like Russia and China.”

Until now, allies have been notably divided on how to handle Trump, largely settling on an approach that Charles Kupchan, who served as President Barack Obama’s senior director for Europe at the National Security Council, characterized as “limit the damage and run out the clock.” Trump’s recent confrontational moves, however, have made it all but impossible for allies to continue with their policy of “don’t give in but don’t give up,” as Kupchan described it. In interviews in Europe and Washington over the last week, I heard a new tone of anguish and concern as the extent and consequences of the rift have become more clear. “They cruised through 2017 and they thought everything was fine,” Julianne Smith, a former Pentagon official and deputy national-security adviser for Vice-President Joe Biden who now heads the transatlantic program at the Center for a New American Security, told me. “Now he is doing in 2018 what he threatened to do, and it’s ‘Oh, no, I feel the shock and awe’ and ‘What can we do?’ ” :twisted: :twisted:

Daniel Vajdich, who served as a foreign-policy adviser to the Republican Presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Scott Walker in the 2016 election, agreed. “There’s no denying that the transatlantic relationship is at a low point in the post-Cold War period,” Vajdich, who is one of two Republicans who defended Trump’s approach in a debate against two Europeans at a security conference in the Estonian capital of Tallinn last week, said. Initially, the session had been titled “Eighteen Months of Trump Foreign Policy: Right Direction or Wrong Track?” Organizers decided they had to change the title because no one could make the case that relations were on the right track after last week’s tariffs decision. :lol: Instead, Vajdich’s team was asked to argue that perhaps things were “better than they seemed” under Trump’s foreign policy.

When the reframed debate terms were announced at the event, they drew a laugh from the audience, which was composed largely of European security officials and experts. Constanze Stelzenmüller, the German debater on the panel, compared Trump’s foreign policy to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” and said the Europeans were the handmaids. As for Trump, she said, the American President seemed to be treating his allies like a girlfriend he could abuse, slapping her around as if that would make her more likely to accept his marriage proposal. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

When I went to Berlin after the Tallinn conference, I talked with several German officials who made similar references to personal and familial dysfunction. In their view, Trump’s decision to take on his allies on so many issues all at once is quite different from the standard-issue European policy disputes with the United States, such as the 2003 rift over George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, or Ronald Reagan’s early nineteen-eighties military buildup against the Soviet Union. Those were differing views over how to protect the alliance; now Trump is questioning the alliance itself. It’s like your parents questioning their love for you,” Norbert Röttgen, :(( :(( :(( the chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign-affairs committee, told me on Monday. “It’s already penetrated the subconscious.”



Nowhere in Europe has that subconscious been more rocked than in Germany, where its close relationship with the United States has defined the country’s remarkable resurrection after the Second World War. “It took Germany the longest of all partners to come to terms with someone like Trump becoming President,” the senior German official told me. “We were very emotional, because our relationship with America is so emotional—it’s more of a son-father relationship—and we didn’t recognize our father anymore and realized he might beat us.” :rotfl: Ohhh how low the mighty moral-posturing virtue-signaling holier-than-thou Oiropeans have fallen!! Do they have any idea how pathetic these "abused girlfriend/handmaid" and "parent-child" metaphors make them sound?? Really, it is every bit as wretched as the kind of language Congressi career-sycophants use for the Maino-Gandhi Family!! Only in recent weeks, he said, after Trump reorganized his foreign-policy team, replacing his Secretary of State and national-security adviser with the more like-minded Mike Pompeo and John Bolton and launching his trade war, did they finally get that “this is real. And still many people haven’t come to grips with the idea that Trump is not considering us an ally and as a son but maybe even as adversary.” ANOTHER "parent" simile. Germany was reunified in 1990 and has dominated the EU economically and politically ever since. Does it occur to them that Papa Trump wants his 28-year-old "SON" to finally move out of his parents' basement and git a damn JOB?

As we spoke, the latest controversy was reinforcing the idea that Germany was no longer America’s favored ally. Trump had named Richard Grenell, a Republican activist well known for his aggressive Twitter spats and dismissive views, to be the new U.S. Ambassador to Germany, and he, even before meeting his German hosts, had just given an interview to the right-wing Web site Breitbart praising the European far right; the headline suggested he saw it as his job to “empower” such leaders. Grenell later insisted on Twitter that his remarks had been misconstrued, but not before some German politicians called for him to be kicked out and the German Foreign Office asked for a formal clarification of his comments. :mrgreen: The fracas had a certain Trumpian irrelevance, but a more consequential rebuke came in a speech this week at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in Washington, where the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, A. Wess Mitchell, outlined a new strategy toward the Continent that suggested a shift away from longtime allies, such as France and Germany, and toward newcomers in Central and Eastern Europe, where Trump-style populism flourishes and democratic norms are being challenged.

Still, Röttgen, like Merkel herself, remains wary of outright confrontation with the Trump Administration over these policies, even as the German public becomes increasingly disillusioned. “We should choose the option of damage limitation instead of escalation,” Röttgen told me. “Trump might force us to become more confrontational, but we should try to resist.” How bad has it already gotten? A recent poll found that only fourteen per cent of Germans now believe the United States is a reliable partner, compared with thirty-six per cent in Russia and forty-three per cent in China.


A year ago, after Trump returned from his first Presidential trip overseas with deeply unsettled allies in Europe, his national-security adviser, H. R. McMaster, and his chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, teamed up to write a reassuring op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “America First is not America alone,” they promised. Neither of the two men still works for Trump. A few months after that, Trump himself made an appearance before the rattled global financial élites at the World Economic Forum, in Davos. “America First is not America alone,” he insisted. Now, increasingly, it is.
Last edited by Rudradev on 08 Jun 2018 23:31, edited 1 time in total.
g.sarkar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4382
Joined: 09 Jul 2005 12:22
Location: MERCED, California

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by g.sarkar »

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireSto ... a-55741021
Trump plows into G-7 summit, facing foreign critics
By CATHERINE LUCEY, ROB GILLIES AND ZEKE MILLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS LA MALBAIE, Quebec — Jun 8, 2018
President Donald Trump charged into a summit of major industrialized nations on Friday for contentious trade talks, injecting fresh drama into an already tense meeting by calling for the reinstatement of Russia, which was ousted for its annexation of Crimea. Trump made the comment at the White House Friday after hours of further escalating his rhetoric against longtime allies over U.S. trade practices.
"Why are we having a meeting without Russia in the meeting?" Trump asked. "They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table." Solidifying his solo status on the world stage, Trump also lashed out at longtime allies over their criticism of his trade policies. He arrived behind schedule and planned an early exit from the G-7 meeting.
Russia was ousted from the elite group in 2014 as punishment for President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. In the U.S., special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in a bid to sway the 2016 presidential election in his favor. Trump saluted Canadian Mounties as he was greeted at an airport at a military base in Quebec. He arrived Friday at the annual gathering, held this year at a picturesque Quebec resort, but will leave Saturday morning before the event is over, heading to Singapore for his highly anticipated summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The White House announced his travel plans after French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signaled they would use the G7 event to take a stance against new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
.....
Gautam
Gus
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8220
Joined: 07 May 2005 02:30

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Gus »

There is some truth to the argument that these 'allies' have benefited from trade with US, but US has regressed from their high and mighty position a few decades before.

but this 'break it down, and we can rebuild in our favor' technique has not yet worked out (yet) and it more and more comes across as just petulant with no real concerted and coordinated strategy or thought behind it.
hanumadu
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5168
Joined: 11 Nov 2002 12:31

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by hanumadu »

It should have been a gradual process allowing time for the US and others to find alternate markets and suppliers. The US did enjoy the dollar as reserve currency all these years in exchange for what ever benevolence it showed on its allies.
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Suraj »

Gus wrote:There is some truth to the argument that these 'allies' have benefited from trade with US, but US has regressed from their high and mighty position a few decades before.
The "others have been getting rich off us" argument has the gaping hole that everyone HAD to use the US dollar to trade. Everyone outside of the Soviet bloc dealt with dollars when trading. That was the consequence of the Bretton Woods Agreement and then the Petrodollar system. Everyone needing to obtain hydrocarbon energy had to use dollars bought off the forex market or their own reserves - which themselves consist substantially of money loaned to US cheaply thru foreign holdings of US treasuries. Of course, other petrocurrencies have slowly gained a niche, but the USD remains the premier one.

The US problems are its own creation. It got hooked on the drug of being able to cheaply fund its deficit by the means of others accumulating foreign exchange reserves in its currency. It built that deficit because it didnt need to produce real goods/svcs to buy stuff - everyone was using dollars to trade, and they saved those dollars in US treasuries issued to deal with the deficit. It can't go on doing that forever.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by ramana »

And don't forget the Arabs were made to switch from using Indian rupee to Dollar in early 1960s.
g.sarkar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4382
Joined: 09 Jul 2005 12:22
Location: MERCED, California

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by g.sarkar »

Suraj wrote: The US problems are its own creation. It got hooked on the drug of being able to cheaply fund its deficit by the means of others accumulating foreign exchange reserves in its currency. It built that deficit because it didnt need to produce real goods/svcs to buy stuff - everyone was using dollars to trade, and they saved those dollars in US treasuries issued to deal with the deficit. It can't go on doing that forever.
Surajji,
To this I would add the wars the US waged in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Post 9-11, war on terrorism is a bottomless pit, just soaking up money. I always wonder at the security at US airports and think about the money it costs. The Sheikh ultimately won. All this weighed heavily in the US budget, and it got away by printing more moolahs, more funny money. If China can now somehow lure US into more such useless wars, its demise from the sole super power status is assured. DT has already alienated Europe, Mexico and Canada, split NATO and more similar stuff is coming.
Gautam
Gus
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8220
Joined: 07 May 2005 02:30

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Gus »

Suraj,

the benefits of the cheap cost of printing dollars, and the 'free trade' with allies etc...went to the top, while the white working middle class steadily lost ground.

trump has tapped into that frustration and anger, and now makes big deal out of his trade wars, barriers, non-signing of trade deals, spats with other western leaders as steps that'll help this wwm class, but we've seen how his ban on zte was sold and then rolled back in a 'make china great again' manner..

what astounds me is the folks who are still falling for the con and 'doubling down'..
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Suraj »

Gus wrote:Suraj,

the benefits of the cheap cost of printing dollars, and the 'free trade' with allies etc...went to the top, while the white working middle class steadily lost ground.

trump has tapped into that frustration and anger, and now makes big deal out of his trade wars, barriers, non-signing of trade deals, spats with other western leaders as steps that'll help this wwm class, but we've seen how his ban on zte was sold and then rolled back in a 'make china great again' manner..

what astounds me is the folks who are still falling for the con and 'doubling down'..
Of course . The job losses in manufacturing hurt the Middle American beebuls most and they voted DT in . He played it well, being one of the beneficiaries and getting those who lost out to be his vote bank .
UlanBatori
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14045
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by UlanBatori »

Sheer entertainment.Trump calls Trudeau "VERY WEAK AND DISHONEST", US refuses to sign G7 "Communique". Trudeau "won't be pushed around" :((

IMO it is HIGH TIME someone pointed out the obvious: The Canadians are exactly what Trump calls them.

Donald J. Trump
‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump
PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!
Last edited by UlanBatori on 10 Jun 2018 11:59, edited 1 time in total.
UlanBatori
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14045
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by UlanBatori »

Classic photo released by Germans.
"A Single Photo Captured POTUS Trump's Attitude to G-7". :mrgreen:
Image
UlanBatori
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14045
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by UlanBatori »

Vipin Narang
(@NarangVipin)
Let me get this straight: Trump agreed to the G7 communique before leaving the summit and then reversed his position on the plane to Singapore. Where he is trying to convince Kim Jong Un that his word on a security assurance is his bond. Right.
:((
Oh yeah, right! "Honest One" Kim Jung One is waiting to believe Loundeyes hu speak with folked Tongue... :rotfl:
Neshant
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4852
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Neshant »

Trump At G-7 : "We're The Piggy Bank That Everybody's Robbing"

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06- ... ys-robbing
UlanBatori
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14045
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by UlanBatori »

First of all, what is "G-7" and why is it relevant in 2018 except as a Gang Of 7 out to rob and loot the rest of the world? 6 of the 7 together account for only 19% of the world's GDP. US at 24.7% is the rest of the 46% total.

Britain is just below Botswana in the UN and about there in GDP % as well.
France is teetering on the verge of conversion to ******.
Germany is, well.. germany.
Japan is a has-been, stuck for decades.
Canada is cow-stan.
Italy :rotfl:
Karthik S
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5380
Joined: 18 Sep 2009 12:12

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Karthik S »

How are things there now, keep seeing tweets about lowest unemployment since decades, and lowest unemployment of minorities ever etc. Did things turn around in last 1.5 years?
Karthik S
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5380
Joined: 18 Sep 2009 12:12

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Karthik S »

UlanBatori wrote: Britain is just below Botswana in the UN and about there in GDP % as well.
France is teetering on the verge of conversion to ******.
Germany is, well.. germany.
Japan is a has-been, stuck for decades.
Canada is cow-stan.
Italy :rotfl:
Sadly for us though, they are all still more advanced and lot richer than us.
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

great pic. shows the courtiers and pack rats gathered around a unmoved satrap. the japanese PM retains his respect and looks resigned to the satrap's decision.

anyone unhappy with dollar hegemony and able to do something about it are already doing it like russia, cheen, iran, and to an extent india also.

G7 are the last people to crawl out from under the P1 umbrella....this week a huge armoured force were exercising in the baltic sea and poland and poland is willing to pay to have a khan division on its soil. the vaunted EU rapid reaction force cannot even match the resources of even *one* MEU and murica has some 10-15 MEUs if they start digging deep, plus armour heavy army divisions that can be shipped by sea and air.

EU is left with whining and using the size of their still rich market to "fine the US giants for violations" - ie rent seeking rather than develop their own giants.

per mary meekers slide deck released this week on the internet economy, murica has 11 of the top 20 and cheen has 9. tell its own tale.

slide deck is here. tells you were the G7 stand https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/173851 ... rence-2018
abhik
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3090
Joined: 02 Feb 2009 17:42

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by abhik »

Lol epic foto, budding headmistress #1 and #2 (along with napoleon reincarnated) having to jostle for naughty schoolboy's attention. Abe is too smart to get involved. The host liberandu is missing?
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

meantime in the dark upper fortifications of Barad-Dur...

Image

and deep inside the forbidden realm of the Dragon lords

Image
UlanBatori
BRF Oldie
Posts: 14045
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by UlanBatori »

But, ITALY? Why not Australia? Or if "Rich" is the criterion, why not Nauru? Singapore itself? Switzerland? Sweden? (where they don't wear any clothes come summer)? Cayman Islands? Mauritius? Kuwait? If "developed" is the criterion, why not South Korea? Costa Rica?
Last edited by UlanBatori on 10 Jun 2018 13:07, edited 1 time in total.
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

g.sarkar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4382
Joined: 09 Jul 2005 12:22
Location: MERCED, California

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/worl ... nafta.html
Trump Refuses to Sign G-7 Statement and Calls Trudeau ‘Weak’
By Michael D. Shear and Catherine Porter
June 9, 2018
QUEBEC CITY — President Trump upended two days of global economic diplomacy late Saturday, refusing to sign a joint statement with America’s allies, threatening to escalate his trade war on the country’s neighbors and deriding Canada’s prime minister as “very dishonest and weak.”
In a remarkable pair of acrimony-laced tweets from aboard Air Force One as he flew away from the Group of 7 summit toward a meeting with North Korea’s leader, Mr. Trump lashed out at Justin Trudeau. He accused the prime minister, who hosted the seven-nation gathering, of making false statements.
Literally moments after Mr. Trudeau’s government proudly released the joint statement, noting it had been agreed to by all seven countries, Mr. Trump blew apart the veneer of cordiality that had prevailed throughout the two days of meetings in a resort town on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!” Mr. Trump wrote.
A few hours earlier, Mr. Trudeau said the seven nations had reached broad agreements on a range of economic and foreign policy goals. But he acknowledged that deep disagreements remained between Mr. Trump and the leaders of the other nations, especially on trade.
Mr. Trudeau had sought to play down personal clashes with Mr. Trump as he wrapped up the summit, calling the meeting “very successful” and saying he was “inspired by the discussion.” But he also pledged to retaliate against the United States tariffs on steel and aluminum products in defense of Canadian workers. Mr. Trump, who apparently saw Mr. Trudeau’s news conference on television aboard Air Force One, was clearly enraged.
“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @g7 meetings,” Mr. Trump said in a second tweet, “only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!” Not long after, John Bolton, the president’s national security adviser, tweeted out a dramatic photo of Mr. Trump, arms crossed and scowling, looking defiant as the leaders of the other nations stood in a circle around him.
.....
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/opin ... pe=Article
Opinion
Debacle in Quebec

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
......
What went down in Quebec? I’m already seeing headlines to the effect that Trump took a belligerent “America first” position, demanding big concessions from our allies, which would have been bad. But the reality was much worse.
He didn’t put America first; Russia first would be a better description. And he didn’t demand drastic policy changes from our allies; he demanded that they stop doing bad things they aren’t doing. This wasn’t a tough stance on behalf of American interests, it was a declaration of ignorance and policy insanity. Trump started with a call for readmitting Russia to the group, which makes no sense at all. The truth is that Russia, whose GDP is about the same size as Spain’s and quite a bit smaller than Brazil’s, was always a ringer in what was meant to be a group of major economies. It was brought in for strategic reasons, and kicked out when it invaded Ukraine. There is no possible justification for bringing it back, other than whatever hold Putin has on Trump personally.
Then Trump demanded that the other G7 members remove their “ridiculous and unacceptable” tariffs on U.S. goods – which would be hard for them to do, because their actual tariff rates are very low. The European Union, for example, levies an average tariff of only three percent on US goods. Who says so? The U.S. government’s own guide to exporters.
True, there are some particular sectors where each country imposes special barriers to trade. Yes, Canada imposes high tariffs on certain dairy products. But it’s hard to make the case that these special cases are any worse than, say, the 25 percent tariff the U.S. still imposes on light trucks. The overall picture is that all of the G7 members have very open markets.
So what on earth was Trump even talking about? His trade advisers have repeatedly claimed that value-added taxes, which play an important role in many countries, are a form of unfair trade protection. But this is sheer ignorance: VATs don’t convey any competitive advantage – they’re just a way of implementing a sales tax — which is why they’re legal under the WTO. And the rest of the world isn’t going to change its whole fiscal system because the U.S. president chooses to listen to advisers who don’t understand anything. Actually, though, Trump might not even have been thinking about VATs. He may just have been ranting. After all, he goes on and on about other vast evils that don’t exist, like a huge wave of violent crime committed by illegal immigrants (who then voted in the millions for Hillary Clinton.)
Was there any strategy behind Trump’s behavior? Well, it was pretty much exactly what he would have done if he really is Putin’s puppet: yelling at friendly nations about sins they aren’t committing won’t bring back American jobs, but it’s exactly what someone who does want to break up the Western alliance would like to see.
.....
Gautam
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

Being a uber hawk on russia is now the benchmark of murican patriots per msm, not caring for the underclass
Falijee
BRF Oldie
Posts: 10948
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Falijee »

"Trump" And "Kim" Entertain Singaporians :D

Trump and Kim lookalikes hold ´summit´ in Singapore
Singapore, June 9, 2018 (AFP) -While access to the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be tightly restricted, hundreds of Singaporeans got the next best thing on Saturday when two lookalikes showed up at a downtown mall.
Hong Kong-based impersonator Howard X, who has attracted worldwide attention in recent months for his impression of Kim, appeared on stage with Trump lookalike Dennis Alan.During a promotional event dubbed the "real" Trump-Kim summit, the men waved at shoppers as they walked through the crowded Bugis Junction mall.
The duo shook hands and embraced on stage, hamming it up for onlookers who whipped out mobile phones. But selfies came at a cost: those wanting a souvenir shot had to download the app the pair were pushing, and pay Sg$15 ($11) for pictures with both lookalikes.
Like the real-life leaders, fake Kim and Trump are no strangers to controversies of their own. On Friday, Howard X said he was questioned for two hours by an immigration officer when he arrived at the city-state´s Changi Airport ahead of the real summit on Tuesday.
When he previously appeared at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea with the same Donald Trump lookalike, he was escorted out by security after waving and dancing in front of North Korea´s cheerleaders.
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

CNN

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of undermining the US and its allies with comments he made at the G7 summit.

"It was a betrayal," Kudlow said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Kudlow was speaking following the G7 summit in Canada on Saturday. As Trump flew from the summit with US allies to a planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, he lashed out at Trudeau for what he said were his "false statements" at a news conference and said the US would not endorse the G7 communique, a negotiated statement on shared priorities among the group.
Although it is unclear which of Trudeau's statements Trump was calling false, Trudeau said in the news conference Saturday that Canada will "move forward with retaliatory measures" on July 1 in response to the Trump administration's decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, the European Union and Mexico.

"I have made it very clear to the President that it is not something we relish doing, but it something that we absolutely will do," Trudeau said. "Canadians, we're polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around."
In his interview Sunday, Kudlow accused Trudeau of making his comments for "domestic political consumption" and doing "a great disservice to the whole G7."

"He really kind of stabbed us in the back," Kudlow said.
Kudlow said the US had spent the summit negotiating in "good faith" with Trudeau and the other assembled leaders, and that the US had planned to sign the communique until Trudeau's news conference, which Kudlow called a "sophomoric play."
Peter Navarro, Trump's trade adviser, directed a series of stinging comments at Trudeau on "Fox News Sunday."
"There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door," Navarro said. "And that's what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That's what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did, and that comes right from Air Force One."
Navarro added that while these were his own words, they reflected the "the sentiment that was on Air Force One." Navarro also said Trump attending the G7 in Canada was a "courtesy" to Trudeau and that the President had "bigger things on his plate" in Singapore.
"He did him a favor," Navarro said. "He was even willing to sign that socialist communique."
Mort Walker
BRF Oldie
Posts: 10033
Joined: 31 May 2004 11:31
Location: The rings around Uranus.

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Mort Walker »

There's a lesson in all of this in approach to the US (DT) imposing tariffs on Indian goods and services.
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

let us see if he really brings ZTE back to life. so far its just expression of intent. ZTE is a global giant with 75,000 staff and presence in every developing market bar none and EU. they also sell cellphones in massa, albeit not telecom network infra gear.
they are not a changu mangu manufacturer but a co with a deep technology base....hence a key strategic asset in Peking's pack of national champions.
IndraD
BRF Oldie
Posts: 9319
Joined: 26 Dec 2008 15:38
Location: भारत का निश्चेत गगन

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by IndraD »

Singha wrote:G7 are the last people to crawl out from under the P1 umbrella....this week a huge armoured force were exercising in the baltic sea and poland and poland is willing to pay to have a khan division on its soil. the vaunted EU rapid reaction force cannot even match the resources of even *one* MEU and murica has some 10-15 MEUs if they start digging deep, plus armour heavy army divisions that can be shipped by sea and air.
what is P1?
g.sarkar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4382
Joined: 09 Jul 2005 12:22
Location: MERCED, California

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by g.sarkar »

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/world/tr ... index.html
France, Germany slam Trump's G7 statement U-turn
By Claudia Rebaza, Duarte Mendonca and Angela Dewan, CNN
June 10, 2018
CNN)France and Germany have criticized President Donald Trump for threatening to pull the United States out of a joint statement with key G7 allies.
Trump tweeted Saturday that he had instructed his representatives not to sign a communique between the seven nations that make up the group just after host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced all countries had agreed to it. Key to Trump's concerns appeared to be declarations on trade, a thorny issue following Trump's announcement that he planned to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum exports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico.
France's Elysee Palace said Sunday that the country and Europe as a whole maintained their support for the communique. "International cooperation can't depend on anger and small words. Let's be serious and worthy of our people. We spent two days obtaining a draft and commitments. We stick to it. And anyone who leaves and turns their back on them shows their inconsistency," the palace said.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday called on European nations to stick together following Trump's announcement.
"It's actually not a real surprise. We have seen this with the climate agreement or the Iran deal. In a matter of seconds, you can destroy trust with 280 Twitter characters. To build that up again will take much longer," he told reporters in Berlin.
He called on G7 members to "keep a cool head" and consider consequences.
"One will be that we will have to represent our interests in Europe as much more closed from the outside. We will also definitely go into talks with our ... partners, especially Canada and Japan, and again see how we could work closer together. I would then next travel to Japan or try to set up talks with my Canadian colleagues very quickly."
......
Gautam
Singha
BRF Oldie
Posts: 66601
Joined: 13 Aug 2004 19:42
Location: the grasshopper lies heavy

Re: Understanding the US- Again

Post by Singha »

P1 is murican security shield
Post Reply