Baffled European

Category: Intenational relations

  • Switching sides

    The USA continues its foreign policy of alienating long-standing allies, while sucking up to dictators. South Korea is the latest target.

    Hyundai has been building a new battery factory in Georgia. It’s due to go into operation next year, so a group of engineers and technicians from South Korea have been on site, setting up the new facility.

    No longer. ICE decided to raid the place, arresting everybody for (spurious) visa violations. The South Korean government has managed to secure the release of its citizens and is now, along with Hyundai, considering its options. South Koreans are understandably outraged by this incident, and there will be consequences.

    It’s a deliberate provocation, no question, but why are they doing it? Possibly it is part of the trade negotiations, with the USA trying some extortion to help its side. The Leader of the Free World is of course a great friend of Kim Jong-un in the north. He has also expressed antipathy towards the president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, particularly since he is soundly democratic and has replaced a despot.

    That, as well as simple racism, explains the treatment of a close ally. Beyond this, there is the point that they want everything Made in USA. They want companies to set up factories in the USA. But what companies are going to invest in the country, if this is the way their employees are treated?

    What do they hope to achieve?

  • Short term planning not possible

    I’m getting used to this. I write something and the next day it is obsolete. In this case, I was complaining about how it is impossible for anybody to make long term plans when the president has the attention span of a goldfish. He’s decided to postpone the new EU tariffs until July. Going back to his not-original-but-second plan. It seems that von der Leyen talked some sense into him.

    It draws me back to looking at his other adventures in foreign affairs. The war in Ukraine continues, with Russia targeting civilians in drone attacks. It is seeping into the mind of our wannabe Nobel prize winner that Putin is taking him for a ride.

    Then there’s been a change of approach towards Syria since his visit to the gulf states. With these states having essentially infinite petrodollars for bribes, he has turned away from his previous solid support for Bibi and his perpetual war. Will this affect his crusade against “antisemitism” that his government is using to silence its critics? Possible, but it’s so useful they’ll likely keep going. Consistency is for betas.

    The problem is that the USAians congratulate themselves on having a strong and decisive leader, but he keeps getting pushed around by everybody. At some point, the rest of the world will simply ignore the USA rather than waste time. This will come as a surprise to the USAians and I don’t think they’ll like it.

  • Long term planning not possible

    It was supposed to be 90 days. After the markets started trashing the liberation day taxes, the fool who raised them announced a 90 day break so that negotiations could take place. Now, just over a month later, he gets bored, or Ron Vara gets a word in when Bessant isn’t around, and arbitrarily raises import tariffs from the EU to 50%.

    All the old favourites were there. Made up figures. Attempts to divide the EU. Whining that the EU was set up to screw the USA. And still no idea of what the USA is supposed to achieve in any deal.

    Markets were in turmoil of course. The dollar also fell as a result, although Bessant helpfully told us all it wasn’t the dollar that was falling, merely that all other currencies were rising. Scott my boy, you’re supposed to be the brains of the outfit, but I think we should have a talk about these things.

    If past experience is anything to go by, this will cause a lot of short term pain. Then there will be a triumphal announcement of some amazing deal, before quietly climbing down on basically everything. Only the insiders around him shorting the markets are winners in his corrupt system.

    This is the cost of having a ruler who has massive power but zero understanding of anything. The whole of the US establishment seems to be quite content with the random damage he is causing.

  • Racists are just idiots

    It’s time to take a stand against racism. The president signed an orange order back in February to address a brewing humanitarian crisis. This is the atrocious way that some whites have lost out in South Africa.

    It breaks the heart. To see these fine specimens, descendants of the great Aryan race, reduced to their present state of online influencers and lifestyle coaches. To make amends for this historical slight, the USA is chartering a jet to fly 49 across the Atlantic, where they can go back to the good old days of blacks being second-class citizens.

    The South African government treats this as the silly political point-scoring that it is. But freedom of choice and all that – they can go if they want to. Probably it will be a relief that they no longer have to deal with a bunch of pampered whiners.

    OK, I have a couple of questions.

    First, why is this necessary in the first place? These people are obviously racially superior. Their pure Nordic stock is clear to all who see them. So why are they doing so badly? Why doesn’t their race simply raise them above the subhumans around them?

    Second, since the US government is explicitly recognising the evils of racial discrimination, why don’t they stop being immensely racist in all their other policies?

    Can’t complain too much. They can make themselves look stupid and squander money. Go ahead.

  • Vladimir, STOP!

    The Art Of The Deal. A book that was not written, or even read, by the man named as its author. Despite this, he enjoys a reputation for being a deal-maker. People must be listening to what he says about his great business successes and believing him.

    A notorious boast was about achieving peace in Ukraine within 24 hours. Three months in and the USA has finally negotiated a peace deal. They have found the best way to do this is to only talk to Russia and agree a modern-day Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but not secret.

    A senior Russian general was blown up in a car bomb in Moscow earlier today, which is presumably Ukraine’s answer to the proceedings.

    The EU and NATO have also rejected the terms. This is what happens when you don’t include all major stakeholders in the negotiations. So it is a non-starter and a big waste of everybody’s time.

    What next? Presumably, the USA will abandon the whole process and blame Ukraine, the EU, the woke mind virus or anything. The result is that we are exactly where we were before the master negotiator took over, but that the USA has now made itself look extremely foolish in front of the whole world. It has alienated its friends and allies, while demonstrating its weakness to everybody else.

    Maybe they will have more luck with the trade war they have started with China. Useless, they are, utterly useless.

  • Did they use AI for this?

    I’m starting to understand the purge of academics in USAian universities. The regime is not interested in anything they have to say. So why pay for them?

    The new tariffs were announced today. A seemingly random set of numbers, all with huge increases. It didn’t take long to work out what was going on. They have taken the total trade with each country, divided it by the trade deficit with the USA and set this percentage as the new tariff. Essentially, they have converted the US trade deficit into a tax on US citizens.

    Why stop at that point? If tariffs are so good, why not set them at 1000%?

    A few countries have been spared, such as Russia, Belarus and North Korea. For most countries, there is a flat rate of 10%, including the Heard Islands, which are uninhabited, except for penguins. They’ve also hit Diego Garcia, a US naval base, with the same tariff.

    It’s not merely the idiotic policy, but the way they are pursing it. Resentment about countries “cheating” and “victimising” the USA. Vietnam is one of these countries, but all of South East Asia is being clobbered by a policy designed to drive everybody into the arms of China.

    An incredible quote by SoS Howard Lutnick, who said the EU “hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak.” How can anybody say stuff as stupid as this?

    These people are lunatics.

  • Not a treaty organisation

    International women’s day today, great, I did the washing. Nice and sunny, gets it dried lovely.

    I find myself thinking what a good thing it is that I don’t have to rely on the USA for sunlight and fresh air. It’s a different matter with defence.

    The Leader of the Free World announced that he will not defend his allies if they are attacked by an enemy.

    To me, this rather goes against the spirit of an alliance. More to the point, it goes directly against what is written in the treaty, but then when did a fraudster ever respect a contract?

    Not that any of this comes as a shock anymore. What is their strategy? Why are they deliberately driving us away?

    In the next few years we will be saying, yankees go home, and that’s assuming they don’t slink away in shame by themselves first. With that the USA loses the ability to threaten Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Either they know this and don’t care, or they don’t know.

    At the same time they have prodded the EU into massive rearmament. At the end of this the EU, as an independent actor, will do as it pleases in the world and will never ask USAian permission first. This will happen. Do they realise?

    They are throwing away their power and I don’t understand why.

  • Modern trade negotiations

    I’m going to burn down the supermarket. I’ve had enough.

    Basically, I’ve realised that although I buy a load of stuff from them, they don’t buy any goods or services from me.

    I go into the supermarket you see and they are nice people there. Fine people. Good people. I’ll tell you, it’s a great place there. And they do a great job. But people come up to me and they say to me Kim they say, that supermarket is doing better than you. Look at teh freezers they got. And I tell you they got freezers, But I got freezers two and you want to look at the differences between their freezers and the freezers i got its you know right now we got 2025 but its not just freezers its major logistical operations ! they got thse major logistical operations you seee andd they wont let me in to theyr operations i can do major llogistcal opreations as well i did them bakc in 2016 and everybody told me they said he cant do that but you konw here we are and we protectionism like you never seen not freezers though i got billion freezers great dont enforce Lidl subsidise god bless mrakets einkauf bigly hilary got i anis thor qpyc covfefe mulzvmmnas .öjsgvqs oatgniu ga g z j! @#~ how could anybody ever possibly vote for this rubbish its a disgrace