Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

You really are damning Biden with faint praise, arent' you?

You are really avoiding the question, aren't you?

Outside of the tariffs, the pushback from the administration on correcting their error of sending a man to an El Salvador prison should terrify US citizens.

A Federal Judge has ordered the return of the man, with the Supreme Court issuing a stay on the matter. AG Pam Bondi has said she “fully intends to protect the executive from judicial overreach”, so basically do what Trump tells her to do.

If the Supreme Court find a way to determine that this man does not need to be returned, there is a template for the administration to disappear anyone they don’t like into a foreign prison, never to be seen or heard from again.

To be honest, I'm wondering why the question was even asked. (Why did you ask it, as a matter of interest?)

Was Biden a better President than Trump? Yes, obviously. Specifically, in relation to Israel/Palestine? Yes, obviously.

Does this in any way vindicate Biden, or provde any defence or mitigation in relation to the sh1t Biden was given over his actions or inactions on Israel/Palestine? No, not in the least. Why would it? Like I say, it's reasonable to hold presidents to a higher standard than "not as bad as Trump" and to criticise them when they fail to meet that standard. A healthy republic should have higher expectations of its presidents than that.

(Plus, of course, there is a view that if the Democrats had not alienated progressive voters by their position on Israel/Palestine, they might actually have won the election, and we'd all have been spared Trump 2.0. I'm not convinced myself, but it's not an unarguable view.)

China know this is a once in a generation opportunity to defeat America without having to fire a single bullet (america is busy shooting themselves in both feet).

Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. By the end of Trumps term, the USD will no longer be the reserve currency and a Chinese tech and manufacturing industries will dominate with Chinese owned brands, instead of simply supplying the raw materials and manufacturing every for america to extract profits from.

The US is facing a bleak decade, declining political influence, declining international military power, declining economic control, environmental concerns (widespread drought and heat waves caused by the climate change they did the most in the world to cause (and sabotage any attempts to address it).

Internal division and political chaos as the institutions of the state have been corrupted by decades of regulatory capture and corruption, while income and racial inequality eat away at the foundations of civil society.

The measures seem to be supported by the steel industry and even Democrats, but not American shipping companies and ports.

What I meant though was that these countries could actually do immense damage to US trade with a more direct approach.

Why bother? The US is doing the job for you. Why position yourselves as the bad guys by mounting things like blockades (definitely illegal, by the way) when you can acheive the same result, at a lower cost, and preserving your reputation, by just letting the Americans shoot their own feet off?

In a post above Akrasia predicts that Chine will overtake the US as the leading global economic (and, probably, political) power. I agree with her. (With him? With them?) This was happening anyway but Trump has accelerated it.

The only people allowed to advise him are those who will give him the advice that he wants to hear.

Those numbers are based on averages, which is iffy in the US - states matter. It's cheaper to live in Mississippi with its poverty and bad child and maternal health outcomes (bottom 100 worldwide) than in Hawaii. Cars are cheaper in Michigan. Things like that. You need to include the state ranking, which paints a different picture:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state#the-cost-of-living-in-the-united-states

20 states above the US average.

The only thing that's super cheap in my opinion is energy compared to the rest of the world. Take that out of the expenses (which I haven't found unfortunately) I'd guess the picture would be much worse for the US.

Health care is nearly as important as food prices, especially availability, and far and above the most expensive in the West.

Anecdotally as a US citizen, food prices are insane, Housing isn't far behind. THe US might've been cheap once, now places like Ireland are far cheaper.

Believe it or not. I’m still awaiting an “upside” of all of this nonsense - aside that is for billionaires making a stock market killing- but there has to be a silver lining somewhere.

There’s a crtici opportunity here right now - a crossroads - whereby now that America has the attention of the world and less face it the balls of the world in the palm of their hand- they have a prime opportunity to negotiate 100’s of billions in their favour and trillions over time .

I’d really like to know what the experts would say at this point - how could America leverage this situation to actually do some good for the country - we know Trumps claimed plan will do very little and a lot of pain will face the world but including Americans - how could he turn this into a win win?

Lot of blue ticks, so probably 50-50 bots/intellectually subnormal.

better paid less back breaking

If what you say is true then why is Trump UPSETTING THE APPLE TART/CART?

If the economy is experiencing close to full employment, people are on better paid and less back breaking jobs because it has outsourced the production of certain products and by ‘all’ accounts the economy inherited from Biden was said to be in fairly rude health then why did Trump take the proverbial sledge hammer, steam roller, crow bar and scalpel to the economy and turn it completely on it’s head . Did he ever think of ‘building on what is there’?

IMO, what is happening at the moment - AND AGAINST ALL ADVICE EVEN FROM WITHIN HIS OWN PARTY/ BIG BUSINESS SUPPORTERS - proves to me that he is either missing an ESSENTIAL GENE which is vital to the running of a democratic country OR he has an excessive/recessive gene that is bigot interfering with same

He thinks everything is zero sum, ie he views the world in a purely transactional way so there is always a winner and a loser. He sees the US running a trade deficit with all these countries and thinks they are somehow losing so hes trying to make them winners again, its a fundamental misunderstanding of global trade because places like Cambodia, Madagascar and Vietnam will never be able to balance their trade with the US and if they somehow magically did it would actually be terrible for the US. In the most basic sense the US is already winning because everyone else makes their stuff for them and they don't have to do it themselves.

Why can't they balance trade with the US?

Isn't that the whole point? That Americans are buying too much from those countries? So he tariffs them, goods become more expensive, and then Americans buy less of them....closing the deficit

I think people are assuming that he wants the same level of imports from Vietnam and Cambodia as today, but somehow force them to buy the same amount of American goods. It only works if he discourages America from importing

Any time I see all this pro Trump nonsense online, I really struggle to believe they correspond to actual real people. It's all just so mental.

That just isn't how cross-border trade works, but of course Donnie and his gaggle of toadies don't know that.

For example, a 3rd World Nation might have far greater exports of a cash crop to the US compared to anything they themselves can afford to buy from the US. Some stuff will be imported, but nowhere near the same amount. This is normal in a relation between richer and poorer nations. "Trade Balance" is not realisitc, and often not even nessisary.

When 2 First World nations trade in similar goods, then it's often down to market factors such as consumer demand. German cars (for example) are well regarded and are exported to the US. US brands however stuggle in Germany (and Europe as a whole) due to consumer tastes. This is the whole "Free Market Capitalism" thing at play that the GOP used to champion in previous years. More trade goes to the party who know how to market and sell themselves.

Of course, not of this is actually about Trade, or Taxes, or even the US itself. It is about Donnie wanting to be the center of attention, and to have himself styled as The Most Important Person. For the past week or so that's exactly what he's got, but that's also why "negotiations" about these self-destructive tariffs are nearly pointless. Should Donnie ever feel slighted, or less important than he wants to be, he'll just re-apply tariffs or increase them…regardless of any "Deal" he might make.

He might be talking big about China, but what he's done might actually end up being the biggest win that Beijing could ever had hoped for. The world's supply chains are going to bypass Donnie's America, and China is there waiting to take up the remaining slack, cash and influence. Oh…what a "Stable Genuis"…