“If a deal is not reached, I will have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and other participating countries,”
What sort of pussy-ass threat is that? Does he think Russia is making a ton of money exporting stuff to the USA?
He sounds just like an inmate.
This is actually a better outcome than I expected for Ukraine. If Putin doesn’t negotiate, he may end up being harsher on Russia than Biden was.
He has a reputation for being friendly with Russia, potentially even compromised by them, and may want to shed that reputation.
Or maybe I’m just naive. We’ll see.
Zelensky had been on a diplomatic charm offensive on Trump before the election; and it worked wonderfully–so far.
There is a video, but I can’t find it now, which was released before the 2024 US presidential election mentioning that Trump and Putin’s friendly relations had been overstated, because during Trump’s first presidency, him and Putin already have had some spat. I think that video analysis had been accurate thus far seeing as how Trump is trying to coerce Putin at the moment.
It’s more important to know the motivation why Trump probably wants to end the war in Ukraine quickly. There is a very good article explaining that he wants to pivot against China, and to address perceived American security vulnerabilities given China’s growing influence in Latin America as mentioned in the article. As laughable as Trump wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico, there is actually some realpolitik sense into it. It is Trump’s attempt to flex on China vis-à-vis Latin America. Basically, he is reigniting the Monroe Doctrine for the 21st century.
Trump just made billions on his shit coin, got all his cases thrown out or nullified, and he’s already won 2nd term. So maybe he doesn’t care about the pee tape anymore.
I’m guessing it involves underage girls. Because the threats he make here are completely meaningless and toothless.
I don’t think his supporters would actually care about that. Child marriage is legal in 37 US states.
The guy is a convicted rapist and an Epstein client. People don’t care.
It’s quite possible they wouldn’t, but I suspect it would depend on the age of the underage girls. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were under the minimum age in all those 37 states. And of course, he didn’t marry them.
The marriage thing just turns an ethical / moral / health matter into a legal one. If they were really against sex with minors, they’d be against child marriage. But they aren’t, so this is just another way to be outraged at something where they feel there will be no repercussions because the target group is rightfully frowned upon.
Anyhow, if such a tape exists, he could just claim everyone said the girls were over 18; and if they weren’t, maybe the tapes were produced somewhere where sex between them is legal? Remember, all pearl clutching and rule of law talk from them is hollow, this is just “we can do whatever we want and you have to do what we want” behavior, thinly disguised.
You’re trying to apply your logic and values to the whole thing; it doesn’t work because there’s retroactively applied justification at best.
Again, it depends how young they are, there’s a limit to how far you can push the “they were all 18” argument.
Given the potato quality such a tape would be, if it exists, he could claim its AI, and it would be extremely difficult to prove him wrong.
Also, I think supporting Ukraine is actually quite popular with his support base.
Smoke and mirrors. Trump talks tough talk. Putin says war is over. Trump stops Ukraine weapon flow. Russia keeps territory gained. Trump takes credit. Putin averts Russia economic collapse.
Except America aren’t the only ones supplying Ukraine with weapons and other aid, Europe is doing a lot too. Ukraine will keep fighting without the help of the US, which won’t be a good look for Trump.
There is one thing Trump has said that I wholeheartedly agree with, and it’s that the world relies too much on the US to back them up, and they need to do more to help themselves, and this is a classic example of why.
Pure speculation, but could Trump no longer be as beholden to Putin as he so clearly was in his first term? Musk seems to be holding his reins now, and maybe he realizes any Kompromat the Russians may have had just doesn’t matter any more in the face of his cult of personality.
That said, it seems to be in both parties best interest for Putin to get out of the war while Trump is in office. A president favorable to Russia gets a big win on the world stage, and Russia gets to quietly back out of a conflict that has been a complete disaster for them.
Except putin is holding musk’s reins.
Is he? The two have many shared interest sure, and maybe he has some dirt on Musk. I feel like if Putin was the “grand puppet master” he’s often made out to be then the war in Ukraine would be going much better for him. The article above seems to indicate that Putins influence has waned considerably since 2016.
SpaceX got started because the Russians were dicks to Musk and refused to launch satellites for him, and he’s taken a lot of business from them.
What makes you think they have anything on him?
I dont know. But why would he be getting personal calls from putin and followingnhis requests?
I certainly hope so.
Trump has already stated he is imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, in direct violation of an agreement he himself set up during his first term. On top of that, he’s already threatened the invasion of at least four allied nations. He is showing the world that he has no intention of honoring anything he says, nor respect for any existing relationships with other countries.
Sanctions only work if other nations cooperate. Why would anyone choose to cooperate with someone like this? Trump is acting like the whole world should bow down to him, while the world is laughing in his face.
It will be an interesting world indeed if the USA loses all its allies. For all its power, it’s not strong enough to stand up to the whole world.
That’s exactly why I’m concerned about his boasts of leaving NATO. The US has made a lot of enemies through our own military actions against other people and nations, and Trump seems to think the US doesn’t need anyone else. Can you imagine if all those countries decide that now we’re vulnerable? 9/11 will look like a cake walk.
This is exactly why the USA formed NATO in the first place. People think it was to defend Europe, but it was really to defend the USA from the Soviet Union, which left to expand would have taken over Europe and then had 2-3 times time economy and military and population of the USA. No coming back from that.
I doubt anyone is interested in going to war with the US. Even if the EU decided that was their goal it would take years to build up their military to where it wouldn’t be a clear loss (the EU should have the economic might to pull this off and win). However even if they win the war they don’t gain much and they lose the opportunity costs about the other things they want to do instead.
We aren’t laughing. My wife and I sat down with our in-laws the other day and had very serious conversations about watching the rise of fascism, and wondering if our country would go the same way.
Yup, especially when we’re all being bombarded by the same propaganda in the places that we meet online and spend a considerable amount of time in, we’re all in this together. I’ve seen the discourse about the USA and the culture wars over the last decade in my own country. And from what I’ve gathered through my years of lurking is that shit is darkening the skies and affecting everyone from the UK to Sweden to Australia.
And as far as I can tell, all of our governments have been mostly happy to sit back and watch everything slide into enshittification and misinformation and ruin. Like they all thought the fight was won and the job was done and they could just spend the rest of their lives collecting bloated paychecks and sleeping in parliament. Even Australia’s recent effort to curb social media for children is too little too late I fear.
No wonder he gets along so well with Putin
If The Idiot’s narcissistic injury has finally soured him to Putin, hey great sure why not.
He still belongs in prison. At best.
And anyone who takes him at his word was born yesterday.
Lol what bullshit.
Trump dances to Putin’s whistle.
So now he’s pretending like he’s threatening Russia so he can say he’s “brokered peace but unfortunately there’s a few small conditions” and then the gives Ukraine the list of demands Putin wrote.
Edit and also probably with the caveat of “Ukraine if you don’t agree then we’re gonna stop all aid to you”
I wonder if Trump wants to be the strong man instead. Wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.
Sure he wants to.
But Putin is an actually tough KGB guy. Trump is a floppy fatty who’s never had to fight anyone.
Last time Putin wanted a list of top US spies. Which Trump promptly gave and they started dropping like flies.
This isn’t an if. Trump is Putin’s bitch.
Russia already chose fhe hard way.
Wait till he finds out we’re already doing that.
Unfortunately, China and a number of other countries aren’t participating.
And their combined GDP is as high as that of the USA.
So US sanctions can’t starve Russia, they only divide the world economy into 2 blocks.There is such a thing as secondary sanctions, IE sanctioning a country that does business with a sanctioned country, and that’s precisely what China has been threatened with if they do business with Russia.
And Russia’s economy is the same size as some US states, so China would much rather stay on good terms with the USA.
Trump likely wants to do a full blockade on China anyway, so them helping Russia - which they are clearly doing unofficially - would be an excuse to do that.
So US sanctions can’t starve Russia
They can certainly make things harder and more expensive for Russia though. And combined with Ukraine’s relentless targeting of their oil sector and war outputs, the thousand small cuts continue to build on Russia’s economy.
