While struggling to overcome my dislike of Trump as a person, I have to begrudgingly acknowledge some achievements.
1 - He’s just totally blindsided and undermined the war criminal Netanyahu with the release of Edan Alexander, and with the US direct talks with Hamas and Iran.
2 - He’s forcing Zelenskyy and Putin to the negotiating table. Which is what Biden and jingoistic Johnson should have done from day one, instead of pouring oil on the fire.
3 - He’s rattled China’s cage, which can only be a good thing for the World.
So, the question is, is it worse or better to have a loose cannon that achieves things, aimed in the generally correct direction, as opposed to a bunch of entrenched milk and water plonkers (eg Starmer) who get nothing done.
Nail on the head John. I agree with your statements 100%. Someone had to rock the boat to shake the rats out of their holes and no one else has the balls to do it. As you say Biden, who was about as useful as a chocolate teapot and braindead bojo had no clue. Lets hope something good or useful comes out of his effort which I put down to being a very successful businessman previously or he would not have gotten all his millions in the bank.
For all I agree that you have some valid points I would have to ask whether you honestly believe either side in the Ukraine war would have been willing to entertain serious negotiations back when Mr Johnson was PM.
In the case of both conflicts I think there is an element that Trump is lucky with his timing. He didn’t do anything in his first term to make Netanyahu less genocidal or Putin less of a warmonger, for instance.
And like it or not there is plenty of evidence that he is in Putin’s pocket.
That for me is a concerning point. If it de escalates conflict by allowing America to take mineral deposits or leave things as they are in which case Putin will take by force and many innocent people will have died.
He’s not been a very successful businessman. His father was. He gave Trump junior a loan of approx $420M in today’s money.
This is a few years old now, but The Economist did a write up on whether Trump’s claim he’s a self-made billionaire stacked up…
DONALD TRUMP has always said he is a self-made billionaire. The president insists that the only financial help he got from his father Fred, a New York City developer, was a $1m loan, which he repaid. An investigation by the New York Times (NYT), published this week, concludes that he actually received fifty times that amount, that it was not repaid, and that many of the transfers were dodgy.
The newspaper examined more than 100,000 pages of documents, including financial-disclosure reports and bank statements (but not the president’s tax returns, which he refuses to make public). In the 1990s, it says, Mr Trump took part in “dubious” tax schemes which included instances of “outright fraud”. It concludes that he “appropriated his father’s entire empire as his own”.
The NYT counted 295 revenue streams from Fred to Donald and his siblings, which began flowing when they were children. It estimates that Donald received at least $413m in today’s money from his father’s empire, mostly from property transfers and a “flood” of loans, many never repaid. Had the money gone straight into a fund tracking the S&P 500 when received, it would now be worth almost $2bn.
I agree with Billy. I simply do not see Trump as any kind of master diplomat or even competent politician - what he is, is very lucky, and able to bullshit his way out of almost any situation.
The Ukraine War is only at a point where negotiations are being considered because Putin is running out of options, thansk to Western support of Ukraine in containing the invasion.
What John calls “pouring oil on the fire” was simply preventing Putin taking Ukraine over lock stock and barrel, and then turning his attention to the Baltic States next.
As for “rattling China’s cage”, he has done nothing of the sort - he imposed some ludicrous tariffs, which China responded to, with the result that imports into the US from China virtually stopped. Now that’s not ideal for China but they have the rest of the world to sell to. Trump’s supporters shop at Walmart and were starting to see big price rises and shortages coming through - but someone has pointed this out to Trump (finally) and he’s simply done a big U-Turn on the tariffs that he said were so essential a couple of months ago.
In the meantime he has ensured that the USA will not be trusted by anyone for the foreseeable future, and triggered a complete realignment of global trade and political relationships.
Someone once calculated that Donald Trump would be far richer than he is today if he had simply stuck the money he got from his Dad into investments and not bothered to start any businesses at all.
And yes he is a chip off the old block in terms of business probity.
I note that Trump is now becoming chummy with China on cue. The only thing that talks to him is money.
All Trump’s posturing actually did was rock the stock markets, giving opportunity for his friends and family to buy in low. Then, when business as usual resumes, they’ll sell high.
I suspect that was just a lucky bonus and he really did think the tariff thing would work. He’s been banging on about tariffs for years but, when it came to the crunch, he blinked.
I think increasing numbers of Trump’s ‘transactions’ haven’t had their instigator’s desired outcome, unless the it was to earn more money for him and his family. Otherwise he’s too impatient and his policies too superficial to achieve anything of lasting value, or permanence and many of his 'initiatives have been actually been utterly counterproductive.
Netanyahu will continue his programme of ethnic cleansing.
Which will fuel Hamas’s recruitment.
Trump’s given up on eliminating the Houthis in Yemen cos it’s taking too long and costing too much.
He’s backed down on Chinese tariffs.
He wanted a weaker dollar to boost exports, but retaliatory tariffs have meant that despite the dollar’s fall, exports have gone down.
Zelensky is going to the negotiating table because he has to, but Putin isn’t - Lavrov might appear, but if he does, will concede nothing.
Lastly, his attack on Canada, united Canadian including even the Québécois against Trump and cost a former Trump supporter the election. Now Canada is united as perhaps never before and Carney will run economic rings round Trump.
Lastly, this summer I will forego my annual aloha shirt purchase.
There is absolutely zero chance of me going to America while Trump is in power, even though one of my brothers and my nieces live there and I am mostly fond of the place.
You are probably right but I don’t see Trump’s record as being any better - lots of bluster, little result (except useful dead cats hiding what Musk and Thiel are really up to)
I agree, but that’s what frustrated me. Once Ukraine had rebuffed the original blitzkrieg and the West, correctly, moved swiftly to bolster their defence ability, there should have been a parallel and simultaneous pressure to het them to the negotiating table. It was always going to be a negotiated peace in the end.
I live in a suburb of New York City and what I am reading here omits the attempts by Trump to undermine our
Constitution : By denying citizenship to those who are born in the US (There is a case in the Supreme Court being heard today, May 15th). By denying civil rights to un- documented immigrants, and locking up many of them. By denying universities funds for research.
By appointing cabinet memberships to men and women who are markedly
unqualified, the most outstanding of these being Robert F. KennedyJr., who
as Secretary of Health and Human Services insists that a) Vaccines cause autism b) fluoride should not be added to our drinking-water reservoirs, because it leads to arthritis, bone cancer and IQ loss. All this is happening without much leadership from the Democratic Party, and we can only hope that the by-election in November will give the Democrats a majority and the possibility of impeachment of Donald Trump.
It’s been touched on and I think it is more than just me that recognises there is a much darker side to the 2nd Trump administration than messing around with tariffs.
