Thread: President Donald Trump

Judge rules Trump cannot block people on Twitter. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-forum-account

Judge rules Trump cannot block people on Twitter.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-forum-account

^So he's gotta unblock me

Trump declares China trade deal too hard to get done.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...-deal-too-hard

Originally Posted by Cujo

Trump declares China trade deal too hard to get done.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...-deal-too-hard

But... But... He's the best at making deals, believe me!

Might have been a little easier before he caved and gave China the ZTE bs.....

leverage is good to have in negotiations......somebody should write a book about the art of deal making and let trump read it

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

He's the best at making deals

make or break (brake?)

Trump cancels Singapore summit.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...nuclear-summit

Those commemorative coins are going to be worth a fortune.

Why China Is Winning the Trade War

By John Cassidy
May 23, 2018


An acquaintance of mine, an economist with decades of experience in Washington and on Wall Street, recently visited Beijing, where he met with a top Chinese official. Given how the trade talks between the Trump Administration and Chinese negotiators have unfolded in the past couple of weeks, the meeting turned out to be prophetic.

The Chinese official said he viewed the Trump Presidency not as an aberration but as the product of a failing political system. This jibes with other accounts. The Chinese leadership believes that the United States, and Western democracies in general, haven’t risen to the challenge of a globalized economy, which necessitates big changes in production patterns, as well as major upgrades in education and public infrastructure. In Trump and Trumpism, the Chinese see an inevitable backlash to this failure.

The Chinese official also predicted that his government would show some flexibility in trade talks. Having monitored Trump’s rise closely, the Chinese fully expected a confrontation after he was elected, and they were willing to make some concessions to meet concerns about the huge U.S.-China trade deficit. Indeed, they agree with U.S. analysts who say that the Chinese economy, having experienced three decades of rapid industrialization and massive capital investments, needs to be rebalanced toward domestic consumption.

The official emphasized, however, that the Chinese government was not willing to compromise its other core economic strategy, which involves upgrading its now vast industrial sector, moving up the economic-value chain, and creating a major Chinese presence both in foreign countries and in the industries of the future, such as robotics, biotech, and clean-energy transportation. This policy is encapsulated in the “Made in China 2025” strategy document that China’s State Council released in 2015. To many members of the Trump Administration, particularly Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade representative, and Peter Navarro, a White House economic adviser, this document provides official cover for discrimination against U.S. firms in the Chinese market, the theft of U.S. intellectual property, and the misuse of industrial and antitrust policies to favor Chinese firms.

Finally, the Chinese official expressed frustration that U.S. policymakers didn’t spend as much time studying China and its history as the Chinese spent studying the United States. Many senior Chinese officials, particularly the younger ones, speak English and have spent time studying in the West. How many American officials speak Mandarin? the Chinese official asked gently. How many of them could hold a conversation about Chinese literature or film?

At the State Department and other U.S. agencies, there are plenty of China experts. But these people aren’t driving U.S. trade policy, and the Chinese official’s larger point still holds true. In dealing with the United States, China knows what it wants, it has clearly delineated its own red lines, and it has studied its opponent closely. The Trump Administration is confused about its ultimate goals, its red lines keep shifting, and its top negotiator—Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin—seems to be out of his depth. On top of this, American negotiators are subject to the whims of a mercurial leader, whose leverage has diminished in advance of his summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. The result is a fiasco.

Lighthizer and Navarro are certainly knowledgeable about Chinese mercantilism, and they have strong views about how to confront it. In March, Lighthizer’s office released a long report detailing China’s suspect trade practices. At the same time, Trump announced that if China didn’t change its ways his Administration would impose tariffs of sixty billion dollars on Chinese imports. Subsequently, he raised the figure to a hundred and fifty billion dollars.

Over the weekend, however, following talks in Beijing and Washington, Mnuchin announced the suspension of these tariffs, saying, “We are putting the trade war on hold.” This followed a remarkable intervention from Trump a week earlier, in which he abruptly instructed the Commerce Department to reverse its decision to ban a big Chinese telecommunications corporation, ZTE, from purchasing American-made technology components. (The company had pleaded guilty to violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea.)

For its part, China has announced the suspension of its retaliatory tariffs, which cleverly singled out the products of Republican farm states. As yet, though, it hasn’t announced any other concessions. Trump, on Twitter, suggested that the Chinese have “agreed to buy massive amounts of ADDITIONAL Farm/Agricultural Products.” At least for now, he appears to have dropped, or tempered, his demands for big, structural changes in how China treats domestic and foreign companies.

As confusion reigns, internal recriminations have begun. The rival factions in the Trump trade team are squabbling bitterly. On Capitol Hill, a number of Republicans, led by Senator John Cornyn, of Texas, have joined Democrats in signing a letter criticizing Trump’s effort to ease the restrictions against ZTE. Reflecting fears that the Administration might be about to make further concessions on the sale of sensitive technologies to the Chinese, the bipartisan letter also warns that “any such move would bolster China’s aggressive military modernization and significantly undermine long-term U.S. national security interests.”

Somewhere in Beijing, a senior Chinese official is probably smiling.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-c...-the-trade-war

China is quite happy there is no summit with NK, mission accomplished

got to admit Trump really fucked up that one, along with the Iran deal

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

China has announced the suspension of its retaliatory tariffs, which cleverly singled out the products of Republican farm states. A

The trumpos have no clue who they're dealing with

Originally Posted by uncle junior

The trumpos have no clue who they're dealing with

That's exactly it right there.
They are way out of their depth.

So the NYT did a story about a WH official who said it may not be possible for the June 12th summit to be held because they're running out of time.

Baldy orange cunto tweets: "WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources."

So some kind soul released an audio file from the White House briefing room where one Matt Pottinger, an official on the NSC, had been introduced by Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah, and said:

'I think that the main point, I suppose, is that the ball is in North Korea's court right now. There's really not a lot of time,' Pottinger said. 'There's a certain amount of actual dialogue that needs to take place at the working level with your counterparts to ensure that the agenda is clear in the minds of those two leaders when they sit down to actually meet and talk and negotiate and hopefully make a deal. And June 12 is in ten minutes.'

So basically baldy orange cunto is calling his NSC "phony". God what an idiot.

Trump: Date and location for Kim summit 'hasn't changed'

US President Donald Trump seemed to revive hopes for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month, telling reporters at the Oval Office late Saturday, "we're looking at June 12th in Singapore. That hasn't changed."

His remarks came as South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivered his first public comments since a surprise meeting with the North Korean leader on Saturday, saying Kim was still committed to denuclearization.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/26/a...ntl/index.html

The only problem is that it's hard to believe him.

The Chinese aren't worried about his stupid games, they have everything ready if they need it.

On Tuesday, the White House said the administration would proceed with its proposal to impose 25% tariffs on $50 billion worth of goods from China, and place new limits on Chinese investments in US high-tech industries.


The decision comes after top administration officials have tried to dampen fears of a trade war.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a trade war with China was “on hold” less than 10 days ago. And Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is expected in Beijing on Saturday to help ease trade tensions between the two major trading partners.

Beijing has previously pledged to retaliate against the 25 percent tariffs.

In a brief statement, the White House said the president plans to take “multiple steps” to protect domestic technology and intellectual property from certain “discriminatory and burdensome trade practices by China.”

The latest step follows a March report by the US Trade Representative Office, which undertook a seven-month investigation of China’s handling of technology transfers and intellectual property, according to the White House’s statement.

“The United States will implement specific investment restrictions and enhanced export controls for Chinese persons and entities related to the acquisition of industrially significant technology, the White House said in a statement.

The final list of covered imports subject to tariffs will be announced by June 15. Those tariffs will take effect “shortly thereafter.”

Proposed investment restrictions will be announced by June 30 and also take effect at a later date.

White House Slaps 25% Tariff On $50 Billion Worth Of Chinese Goods « CBS Chicago

Here we go...

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration is planning to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports after failing to win concessions from the European Union, a move that could provoke retaliatory tariffs and inflame trans-Atlantic trade tensions.


The tariffs are likely to go into effect on the EU with an announcement by Friday’s deadline, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The administration’s plans could change if the two sides are able to reach a last-minute agreement, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Trump announced in March the United States would slap a 25% tariff on imported steel, and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum, citing national security interests. But he granted an exemption to the EU and other U.S. allies; that reprieve expires Friday.

Europe has been bracing for the U.S. to place the restrictions even as top European officials have held last-ditch talks in Paris with American trade officials to try to avert the tariffs.

“Realistically, I do not think we can hope” to avoid either U.S. tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum, said Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Union’s trade commissioner. Even if the U.S. were to agree to waive the tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Malmstrom said, “I expect them nonetheless to want to impose some sort of cap on EU exports.”

European officials said they expected the U.S. to announce its final decision Thursday. The people familiar with the talks said Trump could make an announcement as early as Thursday.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross attended meetings at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris on Wednesday, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer joins discussions in Paris on Thursday.

The U.S. plan has raised the threat of retaliation from Europe and fears of a global trade war – a prospect that is already weighing on investor confidence and could hinder the global economic upturn.

If the U.S. moves forward with its tariffs, the EU has threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. orange juice, peanut butter and other goods in return. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire pledged that the European response would be “united and firm.”

Besides the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, the Trump administration is also investigating possible limits on foreign cars in the name of national security.
“Unilateral responses and threats over trade war will solve nothing of the serious imbalances in the world trade. Nothing,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in an impassioned speech at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.

In a clear reference to Trump, Macron added: “These solutions might bring symbolic satisfaction in the short term. … One can think about making voters happy by saying, ‘I have a victory, I’ll change the rules, you’ll see.’”

But Macron said those “who waged bilateral trade wars … saw an increase in prices and an increase in unemployment.”

Tariffs on steel imports to the U.S. can help local producers of the metal by making foreign products more expensive. But they can also increase costs more
broadly for U.S. manufacturers who cannot source all their steel locally and need to import the raw material. That hurts the companies and can lead to more expensive consumer prices, economists say.

Ross criticized the EU for its tough negotiating position.

“There can be negotiations with or without tariffs in place. There are plenty of tariffs the EU has on us. It’s not that we can’t talk just because there’s tariffs,” he said. He noted that “China has not used that as an excuse not to negotiate.”

But German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier insisted the Europeans were being “constructive” and were ready to negotiate special trade arrangements, notably for liquefied natural gas and industrial goods, including cars.

Macron also proposed to start negotiations between the U.S., the EU, China and Japan to reshape the World Trade Organization to better regulate trade. Discussions could then be expanded to include other countries to agree on changes by the end of the year.

Ross expressed concern that the Geneva-based World Trade Organization and other organizations are too rigid and slow to adapt to changes in global business.
“We would operate within (multilateral) frameworks if we were convinced that people would move quickly,” he said.

Ross and Lighthizer seemed like the odd men out at this week’s gathering at the OECD, an international economic agency that includes the U.S. as a prominent member.

The agency issued a report Wednesday saying “the threat of trade restrictions has begun to adversely affect confidence” and tariffs “would negatively influence investment and jobs.”

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/w...ade/658649002/

awesome

it was a slow week anyhow, glad Trumpo is spicing things up a bit

I found this while looking at Russian Brides ...

Trump's 'cruel' measures pushing US inequality to dangerous level, UN warns

Scorching report on poverty finds ‘systematic attack on welfare program’ will leave millions deprived of food and healthcare


Ed Pilkington in New York

Donald Trump is deliberately forcing millions of Americans into financial ruin, cruelly depriving them of food and other basic protections while lavishing vast riches on the super-wealthy, the United Nations monitor on poverty has warned.

A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
Read more
Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty around the world, has issued a withering critique of the state of America today. Trump is steering the country towards a “dramatic change of direction” that is rewarding the rich and punishing the poor by blocking access even to the most meager necessities.

“This is a systematic attack on America’s welfare program that is undermining the social safety net for those who can’t cope on their own. Once you start removing any sense of government commitment, you quickly move into cruelty,” Alston told the Guardian.

Millions of Americans already struggling to make ends meet faced “ruination”, he warned. “If food stamps and access to Medicaid are removed, and housing subsidies cut, then the effect on people living on the margins will be drastic.”

Asked to define “ruination”, Alston said: “Severe deprivation of food and almost no access to healthcare.”

Alston sounds the alarm in the final report of his investigation into extreme poverty in the US that is published on Friday and will be presented to the UN human rights council in Geneva at the end of June. His findings are based on a tour he carried out in December through some of America’s most destitute communities, from Skid Row in Los Angeles, through poor African American areas in Alabama, and the stricken coal country of West Virginia, to hurricane-racked Puerto Rico.

The report amounts to one of the most scorching assessments of Trump’s leadership in his 16 months in the White House. It is likely to spark debate across the political aisle as well as globally about the US president’s rapid drive towards heightened inequality.

The policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest

The NTobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told the Guardian it was profoundly important that international observers were speaking out about Trump’s impact. “This administration inherited a bad situation with inequality in the US and is now fanning the flames and worsening the situation. What is so disturbing is that Trump, rather than taking measures to ameliorate the problem, is taking measures to aggravate it.”

Top of the list of those measures was the $1.5tn tax cuts enacted by the Republicans last December that slashed corporate tax rates. “Can you believe a country where the life expectancy is already in decline, particularly among those whose income is limited, giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations while leaving millions of Americans without health insurance?” Stiglitz said.


The UN monitor similarly excoriates Trump and the Republicans in Congress for passing a tax bill that “overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality”. Alston added that “the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege”.

He cautioned middle-class Americans from thinking they were immune from the lash of such policies, as Trump’s assault “bodes ill for society as a whole. The proposed slashing of social protection benefits will affect the middle classes every bit as much as the poor.”

The Federal Reserve annual economic survey released last week underlines the large pool of people who are vulnerable to any further erosion of the safety net. It found that four out of 10 Americans are so hard up they could not cover an emergency expense of $400 without borrowing money or selling possessions.

Cory Booker, the US senator from New Jersey, described the UN report as “disturbing, but unfortunately not surprising. We live in a land where great wealth lives alongside unconscionable poverty, and the Trump tax bill makes this dire situation worse by showering the wealthiest with huge tax breaks while Republican leaders seek to make drastic cuts to the social safety net.”

Booker, who has introduced legislation to combat poverty, said fellow policymakers should see Alston’s investigation as a wake-up call to take bold action, such as a jobs guarantee, healthcare for all and help for former prisoners to reintegrate in society. “People who disagree on politics can agree that no child in America should go to bed hungry, no home should lack access to a working sewer system, no illness should drive a family to bankruptcy.”

As one of the world’s wealthiest societies, the US is what Alston calls a “land of stark contrasts”. It is home to one in four of the world’s 2,208 billionaires.

At the other end of the spectrum, 40 million Americans live in poverty. More than five million eke out an existence amid the kind of absolute deprivation normally associated with the developing world.

The symptoms of such glaring inequality include:

Americans now live shorter and sicker lives than citizens of other rich democracies;
Tropical diseases that flourish in conditions of poverty are on the rise;
The US incarceration rate remains the highest in the world;

Voter registration levels are among the lowest in industrialised nations – 64% of the voting-age population, compared with 91% in Canada and the UK and 99% in Japan.
Against that backdrop, the UN rapporteur identifies a slew of what he calls “aggressively regressive” policies coming out of the Trump administration that are sending the country “full steam ahead” towards greater inequality. In addition to the tax breaks, there are new work requirements for welfare recipients, cuts of up to a third in the food stamp program, a recent proposal from housing secretary Ben Carson to triple the base rent for federally subsidized housing, and a burning of government regulations that offered protections to middle-class and poor families.

“This is an across the board attack on those who are living on the poverty line or below it,” Alston said.

The UN monitor contends that what amounts to Trump’s punishment of low-income Americans is based on an unfounded assumption that such people are lazy, work-shy and dedicated to defrauding the welfare system. Several senior government officials told Alston during his tour that scamming by welfare recipients was rampant, yet little convincing evidence was provided to support that caricature, he notes in his report.

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The scrutiny now falling on Trump from the UN is significant in that the US stands increasingly as an outlier in the world community. Alston’s report adds to a mounting body of criticism emanating from global organisations warning the US that unless it pulls back from its current course it will end up isolated from all other developed countries.


The statistics speak for themselves. In 1980, the US and Europe stood side by side in terms of inequality – in both cases, the richest one percent earned about 10% of national income.

Fast forward to 2017, and in Europe the 1% has edged up to 12% of national income. But in America the same elite now gobbles up 20%.

Last year the IMF, a world body not renowned for being hyper-critical of countries that fail the poor, said: “The US economy is delivering better living standards for only the few. Household incomes are stagnating, job opportunities are deteriorating, prospects for upward mobility are waning and economic gains are increasingly accruing to those that are already wealthy.”

Stiglitz said: “It’s clear that this administration is totally out of step with the rest of the advanced world that is looking at the US more askance on so many levels. For Americans who are fighting against the abnormality of the Trump administration it is heartening and reinforcing to know that the rest of the world is becoming more resolved in how it deals with the post-Trump US.”

Topics

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...el-measures-un

Shrinking middle class, wealth accumulated among an idle minority.....what marx and engels were talking about.

I am not one for conspiracy theories, and so I don’t find the guesses flying around the lefty internet about Melania Trump’s whereabouts particularly convincing. But I am very interested in double standards – and I find it hard to believe that if Michelle Obama disappeared from the public eye for nearly a month that there wouldn’t be some sort of sustained public inquiry.

It’s fun to imagine that Melania – who has been memed endlessly because of her apparent distaste for the president – has finally flown the coop and left her notoriously misogynist husband. And who knows, maybe she has.

But the reasons behind her lack of public appearances are less interesting to me than the fact that we’re so used to bizarre and out-of-bounds behavior from this administration that something like a missing first lady barely makes the grade for news coverage.

Things are weird, my friends. And they’re only going to get weirder.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/co...etting-weirder

^It is a strange marriage by appearances. Who knows, they may be madly in love but too shy to display it in public. Or, he's a rich, fat, disgusting pig who bought himself a bride who loathes him. Doubt we'll know anytime soon...if ever.

Occam's razor