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Russia - Ukraine “peace negotiations”

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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“[criticizes Zelensky directly to Bukele] we had a rough session with this guy over here, he just kept asking for more and more, that war shoulda never been allowed to happen, that war, I went four years and Putin would t even bring it up and as soon as the election was rigged and I wasn’t here that war started. There was no way that war should have been allowed to happen and Biden should have stopped it and, and uh you take a look at Putin, and I’m not saying anybody’s an angel, but I will tell you I went four years and it wasn’t even a question, he would never, and I told him, don’t do it, you’re not going to do it …”

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It was never even a question AND he told Putin not to do it. If he so effectively told Putin then not to start it, why can’t he just tell Putin now to stop it?
 

“… Diplomats in Washington also report that some Trump aides say privately that they are ‘fed up’ with Europe’s effort to strengthen Ukraine. As always with such a chaotic administration, it is hard to distinguish the true signal from the noise.“
 


“… Mr. Trump seemingly now wants to apply to autos the universal protectionism that made Ghana an industrial powerhouse. How wrong this turn might be is hard to exaggerate. Many towns hurt in the 1990s have clawed back with new industrial investments. These projects risk being wrecked all over again by Mr. Trump’s import taxes and foreign retaliation. And that’s just the beginning.

Team Trump, given its lack of institutional roots, is especially susceptible to losing all possibility of movement if it loses a base of support in public opinion. That includes progress toward a Ukraine settlement and much else.

What an opportunity the new administration is throwing away: Russia’s incompetent aggression in Europe. China’s gift for alienating friends and neighbors in its region.

The phrase “second American century” once issued from the lips of analysts. On “liberation day,” those words died on the wind.

America’s manufacturing problems of today aren’t the problems of the 1980s and ’90s. China is an epochal threat not because it steals our coat-hanger factories.

But we should be precise about the real failing here. Mr. Trump’s politics of the noisy gesture fall short when paired with a team that, contrary to expectations, appears to be less capable of consistent strategic applications of effort than even the first Trump administration.
 
a team that, contrary to expectations, appears to be less capable of consistent strategic applications of effort than even the first Trump administration.
Wait. WTF? Who's expectations had Trump team 2.0 being anything other than massively inferior to the trainwreck that was Trump 1.0?
 
So to have enough tanks and stuff for the May 9th parade, Kazakhstan is sending their military equipment to Moscow according to pictures. Interesting, there had been rumors that Trump was wanting to go to that parade. Now that would be an embarrassment for a number of reasons.

Seems Russia may have asked Indonesia if it could stash its expensive bombers at an air base there so Ukraine couldn't get to them. Indonesia refused if the reports are to be believed.

And Russia is really getting dependent on North Korean artillery shells and other military hardware. Up to 20 billion by reports.

Something tells me this war is not really going well for Putin.
 


“… Mr. Trump seemingly now wants to apply to autos the universal protectionism that made Ghana an industrial powerhouse.

LOL, I love this quote. Not a fan of Holman Jenkins at all, but this captures the reality of tariffs.

There is SO MUCH empirical evidence that tariffs do not breed industry. Almost every country that has tried to tariff its way to prosperity, at least since WWI, has failed. China and Japan actually used non-tariff barriers to protect their markets. Non-tariff barriers are, in fact, real, and a lot of international trade law is focused on how to conceptualize them within the trading system.

The non-tariff barriers, of course, are not explanations for trade deficits. I don't even know whether Japan's barriers remain (I suspect not). Europe has almost no non-tariff barriers, and Canada has none (with the possible exception of the weird dairy-trade relationship up there in cheese country).
 
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