The American Human: Trump Says So Many Ridiculous Things, It's Hard to Keep Track

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Trump Says So Many Ridiculous Things, It's Hard to Keep Track

In a speech to donors, Donald Trump admits to lying to Trudeau. And that's not the worst thing in the speech.

The master deal maker can't be trusted. Who, now, will make a deal? No one.

Much has been made of Donald Trump making stuff up in a conversation on trade with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Aside from admitting to lying, there's something deeply pathetic about the whole business. Not only does Trudeau know that Trump's full of shit, he also knows that Trump can't win in a negotiation about NAFTA, primarily because he's revealed that he has a losing hand. The U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada!

And that's not even the worst thing in the now-infamous donor speech. Here, buried in an article about it, Trump threatens to blow up our mutual defense deal with South Korea, over what? Naturally, trade:

Trump also implied during the speech that he could pull U.S. troops stationed in South Korea if he didn’t strike a trade deal favorable to the U.S. with the country, the newspaper reported.

“We have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them. We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military,” Trump said. "We have right now 32,000 soldiers between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens.”

Let's get this straight: Trump has just agreed to meet with Kim Jong-un to, possibly, negotiate a deal on denuclearization, and as they ramp up for the meeting, Trump announces that he'd consider pulling our forces out of South Korea if it doesn't reduce our trade deficit. I can hear Kim yucking it up across the DMZ.

Trump and The Art of the Deal? More like The Art of the WTF.

No comments:

Post a Comment

My General Principles

1. Civilized societies require the rule of law.
2. Science is my preferred method for examining and understanding reality.
3. Religion is superstition.
4. An educated society is a healthy society.
5. Democratic governments are by their very nature socialist.
6. Market economies are by their very nature capitalist.
7. Markets are not (entirely) efficient or rational and thus require regulation.
8. Don’t confuse politics with public policy.
9. Civil discourse requires rational argument, even if yelling or stomping your feet or name-calling is more fun.
10. If you consider making stuff up a viable tactic, you are disallowed from civil discourse.
11. Puritanism is America’s original sin.
12. Income redistribution is good for society, hoarding is not.
13. Everybody, from time to time, needs help.

About the American Human

The American Human is written by Calvin Ross, a retired teacher who at various points in life has been a musician, woodworker, restaurateur, narrator, English teacher in Japan, novelist, technology journalist, and private tutor to Japanese children here in the U.S.

Happily residing in the wine country of Sonoma County north of San Francisco, Calvin has lived in the Philippines, the Netherlands, and the aforementioned Japan, as well as in Chicago, Colorado, Georgia, and many different towns in California, including, of all places, the Mojave Desert.

Calvin, you may note quickly, is a liberal progressive who doesn't think being called a socialist is all that bad, especially since he sort of would like living in Denmark if it weren't so cold. He blogs because he can.