If there is one constant in the behaviour of Trump, it is that he can always be counted on to chicken out. He makes ridiculous claims and threats, which illustrate what a moron he is, and his lack of understanding of pretty much everything, but, within short order, he is forced by reality to abandon them, much as happened with Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss's similar threats that if the EU didn't give them what they wanted, Britain would commit suicide by engaging in a “no deal Brexit” - the equivalent of Trump's tariffs.
Having imposed his “reciprocal” tariffs – there was nothing reciprocal about them – back in April, on every country under the sun, including on some inoffensive penguins living on an island, and claiming that the world would beat a path to his door to kiss his ass – much as the Brexiters had claimed that the EU needed Britain, more than Britain needed the EU – it was obvious that there was no substance to the claims of his “alternative facts”, and that no one was desperate to visit him, and still less to kiss his ass, other than, of course, the pathetic, and irrelevant Starmer, who has taken on the role of Trump Mini-Me, in Britain, from Johnson.
But, while Starmer degraded himself even further by disappearing up Trump's arse, it is apparent that even that did not produce the “trade deal” that was the purpose of the visit. What was agreed was only, basically, what in contract law is called “an invitation to treat”. In essence, keen to show something from the visit, Trump and Starmer agreed, in principle, some heads of terms to discuss as the basis of some future trade deal. But, the reality is that little is likely to come of that, because, in the end, Britain depends on its trade with the EU, far more than it does its trade with the US, and the things that Trump wants in a deal with Britain, would preclude even much of the existing trade between Britain and the EU, because in terms of agriculture or food products, for example, it would conflict with EU standards.
Within days, that was obvious, because when Starmer met with the EU, they agreed a similar form of words, that amounts to nothing more than heads of terms for future discussions. The EU will not sign anything more definite without Britain finalising any deal with the US, which precludes all those aspects that Trump wants to send to Britain, as a trojan horse into the EU. And, why is it that Trump, but also, now, Starmer, like May, Johnson and co., do not seem to understand what the EU is, as a proto state, and continue to think that they can somehow do deals with individual EU member states? In the end, when it comes to trade, tariffs and increasingly much more, the EU negotiates as a single state, and Brexit should have shown that no amount of attempts to do deals with individual EU states, will change that, because they do not have the authority to do so.
So, in an attempt to cover the fact that no one in the world was begging to do deals with Trump, he imposed his “reciprocal tariffs”, using a completely bogus formula for their calculation, dreamed up by Peter Navarro, who Musk has described as “dumber than a sack of bricks”. Then, as I wrote at the start of April, Trump chickened out of their implementation, days before they were due to come into force, and as he faced a cratering stock and bond market, and falling Dollar. As with every other time he chickens out, he tried to cover up by claiming that he was “suspending” their implementation for 30 days, to give time for countries to come and negotiate. No one other than Starmer did. So, Trump, having repeatedly claimed that deals were, as he spoke, being negotiated with more countries than actually exist – presumably his crack team were negotiating with also the penguins on various islands – he had to cover the fact of no deals by sending out his spokespeople to say that “letters were being sent out” to all those countries, telling them what the deal would be, and what the tariffs would be!
Having imposed 145% tariffs on China, which meant that trade between the two would stop, Trump had quickly capitulated, as he faced shelves emptying from US stores, and as the ports on the US West Coast fell silent. Although, it meant that tariffs on China were still at 30%, the climb down allowed US stock markets to rise. But, in the meantime, Trump announced that the EU was not negotiating in good faith, and even the, supposedly, more rational and experienced Scott Bessant, showed just how ignorant the US administration is, by claiming that the EU had “a collective action problem”. In other words, he seemed only then to have discovered that the EU negotiates as a bloc, a proto state, not as individual states. Confirming Einstein's statement that the definition of idiocy is repeating the same experiment over and over, and each time expecting a different result, Trump, announced the imposition of 50% tariffs on the EU. Again, the EU, understanding that Trump always chickens out, didn't blink, proposing its own set of sanctions on the US, to be detailed later. Sure enough, Trump has again chickened out.
This is, also, why Putin has realised that, for all of his bravado about imposing further sanctions on Russia, and so on, Trump is a busted flush, when it comes to the war in Ukraine. The last few years have shown that no matter how much money, and how many advanced weapons NATO pumps into Ukraine, much of which disappear given the huge levels of corruption in Ukraine itself, as also happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Vietnam, Ukraine cannot defeat Russia, and, indeed, cannot push Russia out of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. Trump is not going to commit large numbers of US troops to go and fight in Ukraine – the leaked Defence Department papers showed it, Britain and other NATO countries already have Special Forces on the ground in Ukraine – because that would mean the start of WWIII proper, as against the phoney war currently being undertaken.
Already, with Trump's MAGA base seeing the reality of Trump's insane economic policies, much as happened after Brexit, in Britain, he can't further undermine that base by reversing on one of the main planks he built that support – opposition to the foreign wars conducted by the US under the Democrats, and other Republicans, such as Bush. So, his only option is further sanctions, which not only have proved ineffective, but, also, just encourage the development of more corruption, black markets and so on, as well as strengthening the ties between all those outside the remit of NATO/US imperialism, i.e. further strengthening China. So, the easy option for Trump, already indicated in his previous actions, is, instead, to pressure Zelensky to settle with Putin, and accept the loss of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
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