Citygator, you said that already. We all heard you. We all got it. I stipulated at the time it was a dumb thing to say, and we all knew it wasn’t going to happen in any case. But what about now? Presumably, you want this war over on terms favorable to Ukraine more than you want President Trumo to fail on this issue. If so, I’m right there with you, and we can cheer for him to fail in other things. If not, then you can make “Yeah, but he didn’t get it done in 24 hours!” your campaign slogan for the ‘26 midterms.
Everything he says is dumb. The war will eventually end. It won’t go 4 years more so I expect it to end under Trump. But it’s hard to see how he will speed it along with nothing but boasting and now…Tariffs and sanctions. Those have been in place for years.
That plan sounded fine to me I’m not sure what else he can do besides that. More lethal long range weapons. More aircraft. More anti drone/anti air defense. Tougher sanctions. Get rid of the shadow fleet. Incentivize or disincentivize China from supporting Russia. Sent frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. I mean, am I missing anything? Tank the price of oil somehow? All of the above?
But that's not what Trump said. You are taking what Trump says, and twisting it to fit your narrative, because Trump's narrative is too stupid. Trump specifically said that he was going to put tariffs on Russian goods sold to the American people. Which is laughable. Russia is going to cave because Trump put tariffs on a few cases of vodka heading to the U.S.? It's remarkable that deranged Trump supporters will justify something idiotic that Trump says by saying that he was really saying something else. It's bad enough that Trump lies and distorts facts; Trump doesn't need his worshippers to lie and distort facts for him. You're not helping Trump's case by calling him a liar and making up things that you think he should have said while pretending that's what he really meant. And no, Trump cannot take the U.S. out of NATO under the current laws. A US exit from NATO under Trump would likely trigger a legal showdown
Trump is not likely to control India or eastern Europe. What leverage does he have with these countries? And China? What will higher tariffs do to China? They have already set up alternate customers for their products and are shipping much fewer products to the U.S. under Biden's tariffs, which are already relatively high. Why would China have to change their attitude?
To nail this point down, Russian exports to the U.S. before the war totaled $30 billion. The war has reduced them to $4.6 billion. Peanuts. U.S. imports from China in 2019 (before the pandemic) were $452 billion. https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/c...19, U.S. exports to,of the U.S. – World Trade.
More comedy on the two North Korean soldiers captured. One refused to drop his sausage. He was starving so much that the Ukrainian troops could not persuade him to drop it, even with rifles pointed at him. The other one tried to kill himself by running full speed into a concrete pillar. After they were taken into custody, they asked to watch Korean "romance" films. Stereotypes: Accurate. Hungry? Check. Fanatic? Check. Horny? Check. Surrendering North Korean soldier refuses to drop sausage at gunpoint
The Swedes have figured out that Putin has been lying. About the economy and inflation rate, mainly. They believe that Russia's shrinking economy can be seen by comparing satellite pictures before the war and more recently. They believe that Russia's inflation rate is closer to 21% than the 9.5% that Russia has claimed. Skeptical of Russia's data, some Western officials judge its economy by looking at Moscow from space