After blasting out that impressive bit of anti-Trump invective this afternoon, Colombian president Gustavo Petro has apparently backed down. Easy come, easy go.
I have no idea why, aside from the obvious: his advisors persuaded him he was risking economic ruin over nothing much. Who cares if deportees are returned on civilian or military jets?
Still, it's noteworthy that Trump didn't try the same bully-boy tactics on Mexico, which has also refused military flights. He prefers to pick on small countries that can't effectively fight back.
Conservatives are all spiking the football over this, as if it's some kind of triumph that the United States of America managed to bludgeon a small South American neighbor and ally into submission. You bet. We Americans should all be very proud of ourselves.
Next up are apparently Canada and Mexico. Trump reportedly wants to hit them with huge tariffs for no particular reason except to show that he means business. Nobody truly knows why, since Trump can't seriously think there's much that either country can do about fentanyl, and both of them have been pretty cooperative on border issues. As for economic issues, he's the guy who signed a trade deal with them seven years ago and insisted it was the greatest deal in history. So what's his gripe?
He didn't back down - Trump agreed not to send the deportees in military planes anymore, nor to include any non-Colombian deportees.
In other words, Petro won on all the concrete demands. All Trump got him to do was accept the civilian planes again, meaning he actually got nothing except him and his people claiming they got a Big Win through tariff bullying.
The lesson there is that Mexico and Canada should tell Trump to pound sand if he brings down the tariffs before their meeting, and he'll likely ditch the tariffs and claim he got them to do something he was already planning to do.
Henry Farrell had a good piece back in November about how he thought that Trump's not really a transactional President - he's a personalist President, who doesn't really have fixed goals and readily concedes on concrete matters if he gets to be the center of attention and be seen as a Big Winner.
Weird - NYT is now saying they did cave on it, and will take the military flights.
So yeah, he bullied them into concessions. I wonder what Canada and Mexico will give up to try and make the 25% tariffs go away.
That's a message Democrats should be driving home about Trump. He rips off his friends, whenever possible. If you seem like you're conciliatory, he'll just go for more - and just like how he got the bankers owning his Trump company stock in the 1990s to float his living costs and erase his personal debt, he'll count on you being willing to give up stuff just to make him go away.
Conversely, when you tell him to pound sand and then refuse to comply, he'll probably go away eventually. If Mexico told him they would refuse any deportees unless he waived the tariffs, what's he going to do, invade the country?
Okay, on the third hand - it looks like Colombia isn't saying whether they agreed to accept the military flights. Only the Trump people are, and they're pathologically dishonest on this sort of thing so it's unwise to take it at face value unless there's independent verification.
"...unwise to take it at face value..."
That's probably the best lesson to learn from this escapade, something that will need to be applied to everything Trump touches while in office. True for Trump and true for much of what's reported as news.
Two big takeaways re economic matters this weekend:
1. The US is an unreliable trade partner. Advantage: China.
2. DeepSeek appears to trounce American AI. Advantage: China.
One week into Trump 2.0 and US econ dominance is already on the decline.
Mostly Colombia complained about undignified treatment, so a deal can be made where both sides claim victory and the detainees are still delivered by military or other plane in a "more dignified" manner.
I believe donnie used military aircraft was because the cost came from the Pentagon budget and not the State Department.
The President of Colombia simply asserted they wanted the detainees treated with respect, as they had not been convicted of violating any laws. Why cannot our "media" be truthful?
Your news is lying to you, Brett.
I wonder why?
One of the problems Trump faces with Canada and Mexico but not Colombia is that Canada and Mexico are both in a position to HURT the US economically, and both have populations that are mostly willing to pay the price of telling Trump to fork himself.
This is really just an issue of a sovereign nation refusing a foreign military access to their country without prior approval and Trump getting pissy about it. A competent government would just get the okay before sending the flight.
A competent *pilot* makes sure they have permission for their cargo before they fly into international airspace. They don't wait until they're at a refueling stop.
A competent military pilot follows orders. If someone ordered them to fly to Columbia, they will fly to Columbia.
I imagine that they did so while hoping/assuming that someone else in the chain of command was working on the needed approvals. But either way, military personnel follow orders.
I question the competence of those higher up in the chain of command. Not the pilots, who did their duty.
The incompetence starts with Trump.
That's why he chose a military flight.
They still should have asked and stood down, though. 'Fly into another country's airspace without permission' is an illegal order.
They may not have done that. I don't know where the turnaround happened.
Refueling spot. It was reported in latin american news.
I'm sure there's a three-dimensional chess reason why Trump would spend the first week of his presidency going out of his way to pick pointless fights with one long-term US friend or ally after another. Sadly, this dumb checkers player can't begin to guess what it might be.
The tactic is to unleash a flurry of news bait that both delights his supporters and freakes out his opponents. So, it's random stuff designed to keep us from uniting around a defensive strategy.
I'm still trying to figure out what the big hill is that we need to die on. It might be the end run around Congress and the massive amount of executive power he's grabbing.
What someone needs to do get feet in the street out in the states and districts we need to win in the midterms to figure out what is resonating with persuadable voters and what's freaking them out.
"It might be the end run around Congress and the massive amount of executive power he's grabbing."
No one pays attention to that shit. Voters don't care. As we learned, they only care about cost of living. That cost Harris the election. But, with a little electoral jiu-jitsu, Dems should feel free to flip the script there. Trump owns the economy now and they should completely jump all over every single bit of bad news, whether it's Trump's fault or not, for the next four years.
The only problem is, Dems don't control a massive, integrated propaganda network the way Republicans do, so it's more of a lift getting those messages out.
...Dems don't control a massive, integrated propaganda network the way Republicans do,...
That's one problem. The other problem (which you alluded to) is that Dems don't have a coherent message. Republicans have always been better at marketing than Dems. It's not like there aren't any bright people in the party, but their ossified elders won't give them a chance to do something.
There is also the small matter of a tiny but vocal and pugnacious majority being receptive to the Republican message.
That is doing the common mistake of trying to understand Trump's actions based on the assumption that he cares about the interests of the US and American people. Maybe here it is supposed to be sarcasm, but too often people really do this mistake.
The friends and allies are allies of the US, not of Trump. Since they are democratic, they are enemies as far as he is concerned, and it makes perfect sense to bully them.
+1
Not just that the planes were military, but that the deportees were shackled, both hands and feet, according to the reports I've seen, and not allowed use of bathrooms while on the plane. If that's accurate, I'm guessing they had to be on be military planes because what commercial flyer could have agreed to take them under those conditions?
It will be interesting to see which of the two caved and to what degree, as more comes out. And this is an object lesson in just why the trumpists want to control all public information about everything they do, and want all government agencies to report only what makes them look good rather than what's accurate. Information control is one of the key things trump admires about Xi and Orban and what he wants to establish here. When he has his way, American official information will be every bit as trustworthy as it is in China.
I believe this was a different incident that got the Brazilians all pissed off.
Correct. However it stands to reason that the same rules apply to all flights on military aircraft.
You "imagine" correctly.
I’m sure in this country of 80m+ assholes, you can find one with a plane and pilot’s license who would be willing to do anything for Trump, up to and including shackling passengers before or after fellating Trump. (Hell, I don’t know if he has either a plane or pilot’s license, but resident nihilistic monstertroll Justin on here would do it just for the lulz.)
It’s amazing what Trump manages to get his followers to do with smiles on their faces the whole time.
It wasn't a mystery to latin American news, apparently...
https://bsky.app/profile/whiskeynachos.bsky.social/post/3lgocqpjhks2a
Many thanks for this and the link to bsky.
Yeah. Not easy to find, but bsky's been picking up where xitter offed the left.
And Musk's Nazi salute AND fawning presence at the AfD party has reportedly caused a LOT of Jewish associations to dump X. The man is an "Idiot for all Seasons and Reasons".
Well, that was an nice distraction for a Sunday afternoon. I'm glad I wasn't paying attention for a few hours. Go Chiefs!
He's since realized that Canada and Mexico hoodwinked him completely.
In July 2020 the updated USMCA trade deal went into force. That year, the trade deficit with Canada was $13.8B. The next year it was $47.7B. We had a $111B deficit with Mexico in 2020. In 2024 that number was now $157.2B.
He was very bad at making deals, so now he's throwing a tantrum.
Unfortunately for America, he remains horrid at deals. He got China to agree to hit quotas on purchases and they just ignored the deal after the fact. He's going to force a renegotiation and he'll just make it worse for Americans.
This is correct. The USMCA was a terrific deal -- for Mexico and Canada. That doesn't mean it was necessarily a *bad* deal for us, just that most of the benefits accrued to our neighbors, with the accompanying growth in imports. As he has most of his life, Trump was more interested in being seen as a "deal maker" than actually making a good deal.
Unfortunately, it's one thing when one of his tacky hotels goes bankrupt because of his stupid shit, and another when he bankrupts the entire country.
Back when the deal was signed, the then Secretary of State of Mexico gave an interviewed where he admitted that during a particularly contentious point in the negotiation all his team had to do was casually mention to Jared (who was the top person in the room on the US' behalf), how amazing Trump's DC hotel was, and how much they were spending there, and to convey that message to Trump. Shortly after Mexico got everything they wanted in the deal. Mexico's Secretary could barely contain the laugh at how easy it was to play Trump.
Trump didn't lose anything as a result, so they didn't actually play Trump. They may have played the US and American people.
Another example of incorrectly interpreting Trump's actions.
Trump campaigned on making sure the US came on top in every deal he negotiated. The US didn't because Trump's ego got in the way. In the end Mexico came away the winner in the negotiations and they couldn't give two shots if it's Trunp personally or the US who is left holding the bill. In a deal between the US and Mexico the US lost because they were able to play the leader of the US like a fiddle. That is all that matters.
No, it matters that TFM claimed it was a win, and tens of millions of voters believed him, just as they believed that he had built hundreds of miles of border wall.
In your initial message there was nothing about US winning or losing, but it was about Mexican playing Trump. That was wrong. It is was not anybody playing Trump, it was Trump bamboozling Americans.
au contraire.
They played Trump (because he is so easy to play), but the American people paid the full cost (whatever it might be) of that.
This is a pattern we will see many times in the next few years.
+1
Part of what idiot Trump doesn't understand about trading, is that the nation with the population that is 10 times, and 3 times larger, respectively, than the trading partners is much likely to need and buy a lot more stuff than the other way around.
You have to remember that Trump has no idea what a trade deficit actually means. He interprets it in the simplest way possible: the winner has a trade surplus and the loser has a deficit. It's not only wrong, but the exact opposite of right. The US is incredibly wealthy, and buys lots of stuff. Our economy is mostly service based, so we largely rely on other countries to make stuff for us to buy. A trade deficit doesn't really mean much more than that. Are there legitimate reasons to be concerned about keeping some manufacturing in the US? Absolutely! It just doesn't have anything to do with trade deficits.
For what it's worth, by this logic, my local grocery store is really getting over on me. I buy stuff from them all the time, but they never buy anything from me. My trade deficit is unbelievable!
It's truly sad that we are now lead by such an incompetent fool, but thanks to a virtually illiterate electorate, here we are. One week in, and it's pretty hard to see how we make it 4 years like this without serious long term damage.
" He interprets it in the simplest way possible: the winner has a trade surplus and the loser has a deficit."
He pretends to believe that. The actual fact is that he doesn't give a toss about the trade deficit/surplus, because it doesn't aftect him.
We already have serious long-term damage from his first term: lost years of failing to take measures against climate change, immigrant families broken up, Supreme Court Justices willing to produce rulings out of whole cloth. There will be more, and worse.
This seems like something that should get more media attention.
Tough on China became tough on Canada because Musk makes over half of Teslas in China, whereas Chevy makes ultium platform in us, Canada, and Mexico.
This is about Tesla.
Ultium is canceled and Tesla doesn't sell Chinese Teslas in the US.
They make almost as many in the US as they do China. (Currently they're battery constrained again... and also because who wants to buy a car from someone who did a Nazi salute unironically?)
Can I get one used, and thus avoid the moral turpitude?
I hope so.
The EV market is effed as is surviving climate change if not.
The Ultium branding is cancelled, not the tech itself per: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62554879/gm-drops-ultium-name/
Now, perhaps some other shoe dropped after October 2024. If so, feel free to post a link to the story here, since Kevin allows links in comments.
Sounds like he's taking advice from Putin.
Usually Americans are proud of themselves for ruining small countries like Nicaragua and Libya.
It seems to me that military aircraft cost more to operate than civilian ones. Especially if you have to add guards to put them in shackles, etc.
So, we are demanding the right to spend more money to deport people, do I have that right?
Just the price of appearing "tough" and "strong". So, I assume this is non-negotiable for the current regime. It ain't Trump's money, so I guarantee he could not possibly care less.
Before his first term, immigrants who had been found of having a case were put in cheap hotels or the equivalent ot a half-way house and monitored regularly until their Court date . Compliance was close to 95%, families were kept together, and the cost was relatively low.
Then came along Trump and demanded families separated, and immigrants to be kept in cages at detention centers, with the cost of housing a single immigrant for a night being higher than the cost of housing an entire family for a week under the previous system. Making stupid decisions that are much more expensive than the alternative has always been a feature of Trump, and his MAGA faithful have always been to stupid and hateful to care about it.
Republicans have *never* been adverse to wasteful spending or growing government if it means making minorities suffer somehow. If they had to choose between spending $5 to give a poor Black mother healthcare or spending $10 on bureaucratic hurdles to prevent her from getting said healthcare, they'll happily spend the $10 every time.
+1. Red tape in service of their goals is bad. Red tape in service of denying poor people services is a o.k.
I can’t find it now, but I recall a report from early in TFM’s first term, according to which he told his staff that every day of his administration, the lead story in the news had to be some conflict or confrontation from which he emerged as the winner. The reality-teevee theory of the Presidency. This term, surrounded by sycophants, bootlickers and fanatic vassals, he’ll do his utmost to perform the role.
The lead story every day should be Trump fakes it yet again, or Still faking it, who does he think he's kidding?
NPR is reporting that Karoline Leavitt, TFM’s spokesliar, is claiming that Colombia agreed to all US demands. Hmmm.
The youngest bold faced liar ever to be Trumps propaganda spokesperson. She will make all the other liars look like saints.
This is what bullies do. They pick on those too weak to resist. It's not a sign of strength. It's a sign of weakness.
+1.
A lot of people have a more or less vague idea that it's all a tug of war between conservatives and everyone else. And now it seems that conservatives have achieved a critical mass to pull everyone in their direction, right toward a cliff.
So, if we all just let go of the rope they will go right over the edge.
Liberals in general have, for a century, operated on the idea that we all have to get along and we have to make reasonable accommodations to keep everyone in the game. That's never been realistic, and now it's suicidal. It's allowed them a populistic validity they've never merited.
We have to drop that rope and stop playing their game and let them hang themselves with it, and help them wherever we can to do that, because obliterating them from human life is the only serious effort we can make.
+1
'It's allowed conservatives a populistic validity they've never merited.'
off-topic: my trump-is-dumb scorecard currently has two things on it:
* "we" voted for trump because crime increased under Biden. We want law and order. We got the pardoning of people who attacked cops.
* "we" voted for trump to improve government efficiency. The DOGE is the greatest thing since sliced bread! Instead, we are now wasting money halting obviously unconstitutional executive orders in court. (Birthright citizenship.)
What else can I put on my "Trump said he was going to improve X and is doing the exact opposite" scorecard?
It's going to be a long list.
The price of eggs here shot up in the last week.
I think inflation is going to re-ignite. Even if few of the tariff threats are carried out, importers may hedge. If they try to beat the tariffs by buying ahead, the excess demand will drive prices up.
Remember him promising the cleanest air and water? Oh, on second thought …. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-halts-environmental-litigation-sidelines-lawyers-sources-2025-01-24/
Yo KD, remember when you said the planned, and then temporarily cancelled, Chicago immigration raids were just theater, and almost everyone agreed with you? Across the country, 2300 arrests in 4 days and they're not just targeting people with criminal records.
I bet you regret making that call, eh?
Certainly time will tell....but arresting roughly the weekly average over the course of roughly a week while making a giant spectacle of it was what Kevin predicted and that appears to be what is happening.
He warned you not be a rube, but you fell for it anyway.
He's arresting ~2x more than what happened under Biden.
No, he's not. These people were already registered.
I'm not sure what you mean by, "registered".
Of course it's theater. Why send officers without warrants but armed like a swat team to search for people who actually showed up for their court dates?
Google begs Trump to fuck them harder,
Google says it will change Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ in Maps app after government updates,
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/27/google-maps-to-show-gulf-of-america-after-government-updates.html
I hope some one suggests to TFM that he order Sundar Pichai to cluck like a chicken.
That's what we need. Fewer friends. America will be great again when all our current friends become covert enemies, only pretending they are friends because they're afraid of a psychotic president.
Also: do you think he remembers anything he said or did from 7 years ago? I don't.
Apparently, there was a negotiated settlement. The deportees are still being sent off C-17s (the most expensive way to fly them to Colombia) but they're no longer being shackled with leg irons and handcuffs. Domestically, Colombia and Brazil are celebrating this as a win for them and a loss for the convicted felon Trump.