Sunday, June 10, 2018

G7 Summary

Sounds like a blowout. Trump is challenging America's trade agreements with allies and that's shown to be extremely disruptive. American liberals are incoherent. Nothing that Tump does makes sense to their comprehension of geopolitics so nothing they say in return is comprehensible to the people who voted for Trump and will vote for Trump again to make sure the points made are driven home.

Here is a summary of news articles that taken together paint a picture of the world as we know it resisting Trump's vision. It's a bit long. Sorry.

First of all, they declare Trump doesn't have a vision.

* Don Surber writes about Noah Rothman of Commentary, a Never Trumper, who wrote that he cannot believe that Trump talking about inviting Russia back to G8 is actual Trump policy. That when Trump speaks off the cuff it has real and substantial geopolitical repercussions. Don Surber continues:
Rothman and the rest are intellectually atrophied. They remain stuck with ideas they had in the first Bush administration. They confuse policy for principle. Principle dictates policy, not the other way around. If a policy does not work -- NAFTA, for example -- you modify or abandon it. 
As for Russia returning to G7, it can take our place for all I care. The G7 is a bunch of socialist nags who fail to protect their own lands from terrorism, but wish to set the thermostat on my AC.
* Don Surber again. He refers to himself showing our economy is larger than their combined economy even though their combined population is 100 million more than ours and their land mass is larger. Trump is using hardball negotiating tactics behind the scenes threatening to cut them off from the massive American market if they don't reduce their trade barriers, at the same time offering the prospect of transforming the group into a completely free-trade zone.
"That’s the way it should be – no tariffs, no barriers and no subsidies. I did suggest it, and I guess they’re going to go back to the drawing board and figure it out."
Then.
"It’s going to stop, or we’ll stop trading with them." 
* Steve Hilton, Fox News. Trumps G7 critics are all saying the same thing, using the same language. Trump's trade policies are unprecedented and undermining a rules-based international order. The criticisms come from 1) Arrogant and unaccountable corporate stooges running globalist multilateral institutions like the IMF and the EU 2) Self-regarding after-diner Washington think tank pontificators who float above real-world catastrophes created by their ideology. 3) Gullible journalists and commentators who lap up the self-serving elitist pablum while presenting themselves as fearless truth pursuers. They remind Hilton of his university professors at Oxford when he studied Communist Government in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and Economics of Communist Countries. Professors who were left gasping as goldfish after the Soviet Union collapsed and who literally could not comprehend nor explain the new world order.

Hilton exams the rule-based international order that the elitists defend.

It made the rich richer, it undermined faith in government and in democracy when voters saw it didn't matter how they voted, they still got the same result. The rule-based system is unfairly tilted heavily against America and it's ineffective as shown unable to stop the annexation of Crimea by Russia and didn't stop the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS nor the destabilization of Middle East by Iran, nor did it stop China from near world domination nor did it stop N. Korea from getting nuclear weapons.

Elites toss the word "unprecedented" around as a critique, when it's the essential reason for Trump. The post received 5,520 comments. Over half of them run right off the rails.

* Daily Mail. John Hardwood (CNBC) on Joy Reed's show, questions Trump's mental health after watching him deliver remarks at the G7 summit. Trump was speaking about readmitting Russia to G8 after being expelled for annexing the peninsula that belongs to Ukraine. Concern trolling. He did not look well. He was not speaking logically or rationally. He sounded like he was making stuff up. Something was oddly languid about him. He did not look well to me.

Well then. Who can argue with perception cogent as that?

* Powerline, John Hinderaker. He reviews all the things that we talked about.
THE PRESIDENT: And no subsidies. I even said no tariffs. In other words, let’s say Canada — where we have tremendous tariffs — the United States pays tremendous tariffs on dairy. As an example, 270 percent. Nobody knows that. We pay nothing. … 
We have to — ultimately, that’s what you want. You want a tariff-free, you want no barriers, and you want no subsidies, because you have some cases where countries are subsidizing industries, and that’s not fair. So you go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free. That’s the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance. I mean, that would be the ultimate thing. Now, whether or not that works — but I did suggest it, and people were — I guess, they got to go back to the drawing and check it out, right? 
But we can’t have — an example — where we’re paying — the United States is paying 270 percent. Just can’t have it. And when they send things into us, you don’t have that.
* Daily Caller, Justin Caruso. He's saying that Trump reminded everyone it was Obama who let Russia aggression go unchecked. Trump really did say that, but this view puts all responsibility for world order on the United States and lets the other complacent G7 nations off the hook for any responsibility whatsoever. The most G7 could bring themselves to do was kick Putin out of their precious little club.

* Daily Mail again. Trump jets off early to Singapore to meet with N. Korean president. Lots of photos, no content. Comments are miserable.

* BizPac Review. As Trump is leaving for the summit, CNN asks a loaded question and Trump snaps his gun away and shoots him in the face.
“As you are heading into these G7 talks there’s a sense that America’s closest allies are frustrated with you and angry with you and that you are angry with them and that you are leaving here to go meet with more friendlier talks with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore and I was wondering if you view it the same way? And do you view the US alliance system shifting under your presidency?”
Trump: Who are you, CNN? GFY.

* Daily Mail again.  George Soros' world is falling apart under the Trump administration so George Soros maintains Trump is destroying the world.

* The stupidest most insane thing of all. Following a meeting with Trump and as Trump was leaving, Trudeau gave a press conference misrepresenting what Trump said in their meeting and with his own spin of the G7 summit that mischaracterizes what actually happened. This caused Trump to tweet back attacking Trudeau as disingenuous and described his as meek.

You must read behind Trump's tweet to see the insanity. At first it's annoying, then maddening, then frustrating, then finally hilarious as you gain a picture of who's doing the talking and how impossible it is for them to comprehend what is happening, so they make up their own reasons, project their own causes to force-fit events into their pinched worldview that cannot be altered or adjusted to reality. So they live in a make believe political world. It's pathetic, intellectually dishonest, and stultifying. The affliction is global. Engaging is impossible. Best just to point and laugh.

4 comments:

ampersand said...

Since they're so on about Europe, Trump should insist on one representative for Europe. Break it down to the G3. No separate seat for the UK until May gets off her ass on Brexit. If that's not good enough insist on a representative from each of the 50 states. Handle the UN the same way.
I got a kick our of the photos of this summit. Looks like Trump went full Al Czervik on Christine Legarde, "Hey baby, you must've been something before electricity." and Merkel, " "Whoa, did somebody step on a duck?"

edutcher said...

Imagine if Dolf and the Nips had managed to take Russia, a lot of Inja, Oz, and the Middle East, and the only army was the US (at one point, we did plan for a 334 division army worst case, granted we'd have had to have annexed Canuckistan, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and a good part of South America).

Trump is America and it's WWII and he's telling the world, "Don't make me come over there".

Rabel said...

Very good summary, Chip. Trump knows he has the high hand with the American market behind him and is using that to turn international trade agreements to our advantage.

This appears to irritate a lot of people.

Trooper York said...

Great summary Chip.

One thing you did not touch on was the much ballyhooed photo where Merkel is leaning over a table lecturing the President who has his arms folded and is laughing at her. What all of the expert analysis misses is the Japan Prime Minister also has his arms folded and is rolling his eyes at Nurse Ratched.

Look Europe is just not hat important. Nor is Canada. Or Mexico. We can put tariffs on everything or nothing. Everything is replaceable. Our main interest lies in Asia. China. South Korea. Japan. India. Indonesia.

China is looking at this and thinking if he does this to his friends what is he going to do to us? The President is not screwing around. Look at what he is doing to Castro's son. Calling him weak and a liar. Now the thing is ...everyone knows that is true. I hope he actually refers to him as Fidel Jr. That will put a load in their pants.