Donald Trump says that if Russia doesn't settle its war with Ukraine he will put "high levels" of tariffs on Russian goods. Apparently no one has told him that we only imported $3 billion worth of stuff from Russia in 2024. Even for Russia that's only 0.1% of GDP. This is about like Belgium threatening tariffs on us. Who cares?
The guy's only got one playbook. If this was his big plan to end the war within 24 hours, he's going to have a lot of disappointed fans.
The monomaniac thinks that tariffs are the answer to every perceived problem.
This monomaniac thinks threats are the answer to every perceived problem. Fixed that for you.
This is the mafia administration.
Trump is not going to threaten Russia.
I think that's probably true. The only big stick Trump has to push Russia is to threaten to dramatically ramp up military aid to Ukraine if Russia doesn’t begin negotiating in good faith. I agree it’s hard to see Trump doing this to his buddy Putin.
Some good news is that Zelinsky seems to have charmed/flattered Trump enough that Trump hasn’t yet threatened to cut off aid. Zelinsky has played a smart card by saying he is ready for a Trump-led deal. So Trump now thinks Putin is the problem in getting a deal.
If Putin is smart, he'll agree to negotiate, and let Trump think he is a master deal maker. Then Putin keeps the land he's taken, gets weak peace keeping forces along borders, and Trump demands Ukraine agree to never joining NATO. Thus, Putin wins.
I think Zelensky is hoping that he can pull an Obama here.
Which is to say, put a deal on the table, and rely on his opponents demand for everything and the kitchen sink to kill it.
Maybe, but I'm guessing Putin really wants out. If he can just keep lands taken, and keep Ukraine out of NATO, he'll be happy. And I think Trump will go along with both of those goals.
With Trump now being president, Putin is in a lot stronger position to get what he wants than Zelensky. Putin will realize this, I think. He’ll start playing nice to Trump soon, even if he hates doing it.
"Some good news is that Zelinsky seems to have charmed/flattered Trump enough that Trump hasn’t yet threatened to cut off aid."
So that makes Zelinsky luckier than Gavin Newsom and the State of California.
California Held Hostage, Day 3:
Give up your immigrants and we'll give you some disaster relief.
I think Zelinsky is just holding off the bad deal that Trump will eventually push for: Putin keeps land he's taken and Ukraine agrees to not join NATO.
" . . . The only big stick Trump has to push Russia "
Disagree -He ADMIRES the guy. He’d never use any stick against his BFF.
He got elected selling election denial and Jan 6 as a peaceful protest. The Ukrainian gaslight will be a snap, given the cheaper oil and gas we’ll get in exchange for selling out Z
I said that's his big stick, but I also said he's unlikely to use it. I wrote, "it’s hard to see Trump doing this to his buddy Putin."
🎯 Point taken
I still suspect Putin has incriminating photographs of Donald. Exactly the sort of trap an ex-KGB guy like the Vlad would set up, exactly the sort of trap a vainglorious fool like Donald would fall into.
Perhaps, but would Trump care about old photos? Trump is a master of re-direction. He'd say Putin is promoting fake photos, and so on. Also, not sure why Putin would jeopardize his relationship with Trump by making personal threats. Better to just play Trump instead. All he needs to do is use a bit of flattery.
🎯 🎯 🎯
Also, as I've said before, any effectiveness of old photos, or videos of golden showering or whatever, is gone since the purported existence of these has been played up so much in the media (especially late night comedy shows) that whatever damage they may have done to Trump is long exhausted.
I don't doubt that Trump has fallen into plenty of foolish traps, but he also doesn't come off as a guy trying to carry out Russian orders under duress.
The likely truth is worse: Trump looks at a figure like Putin with awe, and wishes he could be like him, and is thus very, very susceptible to flattery and manipulation by him.
He’s “threatening” Putin with . . . nothing. And then will hand over Ukraine. What’s not for Putin to love?
No he's not. It's just theater. Ukraine is in a real bind now. I don't see it ending well for them. Putin is going to play Trump like a fiddle and the idiot will think whatever happens was all his idea.
tariffs and taxcuts
their 2 big red buttons
Tariffs are by definition tax raises. But its ok because the're taxes that fall most heavily on the lower middle class and working class.
Hey give the guy a little credit. His only solution used to be tax cuts. Now he has two tools that won't help at all.
Fran Lebowitz was right:
“Everyone says he is crazy – which maybe he is – but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t.”
I can almost see Biden slapping his forehead and saying “If only I had thought of that!”
But of course he never could have. It takes a genius who (OMG can you believe it!) had a family member who taught at MIT to think such deep thoughts.
Brains in the Trump family were a Zero / Some Game. Some got brains, others got Zero.
+1
We shouldn't be importing jack-all from Russia; in fact they shouldn't be allowed to interact with our economy at all. I guess he's right on accident?
I was surprised it was as high as $3 billion. I would have thought we'd shut things off completely. I'd like to know what we're still importing.
Google AI sys
In 2023, the United States imported approximately $4.57 billion in goods from Russia. This included:
Inorganic chemicals, precious metal compounds, and isotopes: $1.26 billion
Pearls, precious stones, metals, and coins: $1.16 billion
Iron and steel: $207.17 million
Machinery, nuclear reactors, and boilers: $117.14 million
I expect the difference in 3 billion and 4 billion is the actual value of the gold coins/gems and the retail value of them. So the big thing is radioactive isotopes from nuclear reactors used for medicine?
it was $15B 2 years ago...
"We shouldn't be importing jack-all from Russia;"
and we shouldn't be allowing a public figure to sell election denial, insurrection, sneakers, watches, and ads onTruth Social, trashing equality and environment.
Message to us from 50% of American voters
"We're okay with all that. Welcome to Trump 2.0"
OK but what is Bidens excuse for allowing these imports.
It will be pretty funny if Trump increases sanctions beyond what Biden was willing to do.
If you go to a magic show, and want to figure out the trick, you must avoid the distraction/s.
The reality, a significant portion of the Ukrainian budget is paid by the US: not to mention the strategic importance of US arms. Without US money, Ukrainian civil servants don't get paid, there are food shortages etc. The leverage Trump has is with Ukraine, not Russia....
Europe give more than double what the US gives, plus aid from oceania and Canada. So the civil servants would take pay cuts but would keep a big chunk (80%) of their salary.
Your comment is in the same vein of what I was going to point out. Europe, Turkey, the U.K., they all see the wolf at the door and would like to keep this particular beast from entering their home. They have also known for quite some time that it was a real possibility that President Trump gets back into office and that they would need to do more help Ukraine well before President Trump was re-elected.
Helping Ukraine now is much cheaper and prevents a ton of German, French, etc., blood from being spilled to fight Russia in the near future. I get it that the politics in places like France, Italy, and Germany mean folks in those nations have to now work harder than before to convince the public that it is a great plan to help Ukraine out as much as they can now so as to avoid direct war with Russia perhaps just a couple years out from today
Even if Russia were to take over Ukraine literally today, they would need to pause their expansionist ambitions to re-build their military, as they have lost a lot of ships and other material goods during their fight with Ukraine, but if pressure is let off of Russia now than watch out Europe, you are in Putin's crosshairs, better to weaken Putin now than to do so with face to face conflict with Russian in the near future.
Also, since Trump can see that Europe, Turkey, the U.K. and other nations have not completely given up on helping Ukraine, it makes the U.S. look weak if we do not show up all those other countries by offering substantial aid to Ukraine. If Trump wants the U.S. to be feared again, then he needs to show other countries that the U.S. has enough material at its disposal to directly kick anyone's ass to the curb if they try to hurt us, or we have the means to send our friends enough goods to put the hurt on anyone who puts them in harms way.
I also really do wonder if it matters anymore if Trump tried to claim that he ended the war with Ukraine by giving Putin what he wants, there is the very real possibility that his words are ignored and the U.K., Europe and Turkey just keep on helping Ukraine weaken Russia.
If Trump wants to show Putin that he should be scared of him, and not the other way around, Trump should announce a massive aid package to Ukraine.
" it makes the U.S. look weak if we do not show up " Trump has just spent more than a year claiming that the US gives far ore than europe when europe has always given double the US. Trump will just ramp up his lies about european contributions. And when europe prevents Ukraine from falling, Trump's lie is going to be how Biden wasted a trillion US dollars helping Ukraine when they didn't need a single penny of that money.
US had given Ukraine substantially more military aid than the rest of the world combined. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62002218
Ukraine didn't invade Russia
Caught up now?
ROTFLMFAO
🤣🤪🥸🤭
And many people still think he's a strategic thinker who can solve intractable problems.
To be fair for a moment, "Stop that or I will politely object again" was also Biden's strategy for Gaza.
I'm sure you thought that was clever, but the analogy is a complete mess. Israel is an ally that was attacked and then retaliated. The only reason we even politely asked them to stop is because it was obvious they were going to decimate a foe that was completely overmatched. If Israel was experiencing a real existential threat, we would have done just about anything to support them.
On the other hand, Biden was as forceful as he could possibly be in opposing Russian aggression because in that case it was an adversary attacking an ally. He revitalized NATO and rallied most of the western world in opposition. It was unequivocally the right thing to do.
Then along comes Trump with his pathetically weak threat to impose sanctions when they already exist, and on a trading partner that basically sells us nothing. Meekly asking Russia to stop attacking Ukraine is not even remotely the same as asking Israel to stop attacking Gaza.
In short, yes, Biden was friendly with our allies and tough on our adversaries. Trump is the opposite. For some reason, people seem unwilling or unable to see this clearly, but it really shouldn't be hard. It's the bullies playbook: beat up on your friends because friends probably won't hurt you, and cozy up to enemies to ensure they don't. He just does that with a bunch of tough guy bluster and his rubes fall for it.
+1
You misunderstand my point.
Biden never wanted to stop Israel's destruction of Gaza. The noises he made were intended to mute the people who were saying, maybe fragmentation bombs in urban areas and torching hospitals and shooting civilians for sport is a bit much.
Trump's interest in Ukraine is extremely similar, if less sentimental. The noises he is making are meant to shut down critics in his own party.
Ok, that's a more reasonable point, but I still don't think it really hits home. Biden was trying to put the brakes on Israel because it was the right thing to do. He was directionally aligned with Israel, which makes sense because they're an ally. But, he also knew that they were going to way over the top if there was no push back at all. It was an impossible needle to thread, but I don't really think he was just making a show of it for political reasons. Maybe, but even then I'm not sure how he could have since his coalition was split on the issue.
Trump has no meaningful constituency that cares about the fate of Ukraine one way or the other. In fact, most of them want to stop all aid and let them twist in the wind. He's also shown zero interest in placating conventional Republicans - assuming any still exist in the wild. On the contrary, he's relished every opportunity to put a sharp stick in their collective eyes. The more I think about it, I don't know why he's saying anything on this topic, much less why he chose such a weak opening salvo. Maybe he actually believed his own bullshit about ending the war? He does think of himself as a "deal maker" even though his skills in that area are child like.
I get what you're saying now at least. Sorry for blasting you with my initial reply.
Also, for the record, this
is phrased in such a way that I can't tell exactly what you mean. If you meant US policy was for Ukraine to win, well, that is not true. Eric Green, of the NSC:
I meant pretty much what I said. We weren't going to war with Russia, so Biden did about as much as he could. He denounced Russian aggression, got all the NATO countries on board, and gave as much military aid as we could get through Congress. I guess he did handcuff Ukraine to some extent by withholding certain weapons systems, and restricting how others could be used, but I don't envy having to make those decisions. In hindsight, he probably should have thrown caution to the wind knowing that Russia was never going to start WW3 over this, but it was a hard call.
Or maybe a slap on the wrist to Putin rather than something really serious, is the point.
This isn't a serious strategy. I wouldn't be surprised if Putin uses it as an excuse to end his war of aggression. Most likely with additional "incentives" from Trump. Trump will be played again like he was the last time he was POTUS.
Trump wouldn't be a president without Putin. That obviously much more than anything Putin got in return.
If he gives Putin substanial part of Ukraine, that makes it more balanced, but it is still Trump that got more out of it.
Yet. There's practically four more years of having POTUS virtually at his service.
He's already planning to put tariffs on China. Maybe they'll settle their disputes in the South China Sea?
I'd say something about China setting the dispute with India, but he's threatening India with tariffs too.
What if the ulterior motive for threatening everyone with tariffs is to hike the demand for $TRUMP? Protection money that will never get traced to the Godfather - wink, wink!
He knows tariffs won't do anything, but it sounds good to his base. He would never do anything to upset Putin.
You may have missed it, but Putin has already been laughing at Trump and the current government. What do you think he will do after this?
I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more attention, but Russian TV is openly mocking Trump. Calling him "grandpa" and saying that Putin will need to help him figure out what to do as president. It's simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. Too bad the cult will never hear about it.
That suggests that Putin believe he is not going to get much out of cooperating with Trump.
I think it suggests that he thinks he can get everything he wants and humiliate the US at the same time. Maybe, maybe not. But, I don't think he believes that he has to cooperate with Trump at all. It could blow up in Putin's face, but if this continues and there's no response from Trump, then I think it's pretty clear that he's already owned by Putin.
For the record, I don't think it really matters. Trump is so easy to manipulate that there's just no need to hold any real leverage.
If Trump is so easy to manipulate, why can't the Democrats manipulate him not to send out all those executive orders?
Didn’t Trump say “They’re laughing at us”? Promises made, promises kept!
What on earth does that $3 billion even consist of? How are we still importing even that given the sanctions regime? I suspect if we are still importing anything from Russia, it's probably pretty damn essential for some sector of our economy and if Trump chooses to choke it off with tariffs, it's going to really screw something up.
Russia produces high quality vacuum tubes, for guitar and high end audio amplifiers (most of the tubes are manufactured in Saratov Russia at a factory is owned and operated by the New Sensor Corporation, located in Long Island City, NY dba Electro-Harmonix).
Tubes (valves as per the English), are also manufactured in the Slovak Republic and in China.
We import some of the nuclear material that comes from their nuclear reactors to ensure it doesn't end up going to terrorists.
Even Trump can't be stupid enough to think that his tariffs will matter. I wonder if he thinks Russia wants a deal (possibly because Putin has said so) and so this will make Trump be able to take credit for it with the magic of tariffs. Or he just thinks he has to look like he is doing something and believes that his followers will have forgotten about it by the time that it becomes clear he accomplished nothing.
It is interesting that he takes office with a cease fire in Israel which he can take credit for, but only sort of, but that that means if it falls apart, as it likely will, that he blew a cease fire.
That's where the sort of comes into play. He'll just blame Biden and deny he had any part of it.
Outside of China and India, it's actually Germany, Turkey, and Italy who are the biggest three remaining trade partners for Russia, though still a small overall percentage compared to the first two, can Trump work with them?
Would be fascinating to see Trump attempt to build and sustain our coalition with Europe, rather than tempestuously and gradually breaking it.
And not only is $3 billion pretty small potatoes, there is the fact that Americans, not Russians, will pay the import tariffs, as they will for all of Trump's upcoming tariffs.
My most serious gripe with Harris's otherwise exemplary campaign is that she never emphasized this enough. She even failed to bring it up in the debate.
Harris kept calling the tariffs a sales tax. That didn't seem to be as effective as it would have been to clearly explain and drive home the point that WE pay the tariffs, not THEM. (She could have taken a hint from the successful campaign against her as far as the effective power of pronouns.)
Oh my God! The guy we elected president is a complete ignoramus. Why didn’t someone warn us?
The price of Sour Kraut is already too high! I thought that's how Trump got elected: the price of Sour Kraut is out of control!
Kevin, add a Bluesky share button to your posts! I've never had a Xitter account. I've abandoned Facebook on principle despite having friends, family, and neighbors there. But I've acquired a Bluesky account and would re.... sky? your posts if you'd give me a button. (Note to self: figure out how to do this without training wheels.)
The only plan is no plan. There's nothing Trump can threaten him with outside of continuing aid to Ukraine, which he told his supporters he would not do, or send U.S. troops to Ukraine, which no one believes he would do in a million years. My guess is he's stung by criticism of his grandiose belief he could end the war by himself on his first day in office and when he didn't, all he could do is simply offer a bunch of nonsense.
...or send U.S. troops to Ukraine, which no one believes he would do in a million years.
Unfortunately Zelenskyy is now asking us to do just that.
"...all he could do is simply offer a bunch of nonsense." His go to strategy when his promises don't pan out. Which is most of the time.
This is all theater. Trump has already signaled his willingness to surrender of part of Ukraine to Russia.
In a few weeks we'll hear about how the great intervention of our Supreme Leader led to a peace settlement. In it the U.S. cuts off military and other aid to Ukraine while Ukraine is forced to surrender part of itself to Russia.
Thank god for our Supreme and Exalted Leader.
Trump won't have disappointed fans. They just want him to bazoo. They don't care if he comes through. He's Teddy Roosevelt in reverse: speak noisily and carry a limp noodle. His supporters don't mind. They just want the noise.
When Russia refuses to capitulate he'll blame Ukraine, then it's their fault.
"Trump says Ukraine should have surrendered to Russia and blames Zelensky for war."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-putin-zelensky-ukraine-russia-sean-hannity-b2685565.html
We all knew this was coming.