Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 06/06/25

What $136 trillion?

None whatsoever, which is why I'm genuinely hoping that Americans feel a serious economic pinch from this tariff fiasco. I feel genuinely sorry for decent Americans but they made this choice as a nation, and need to feel some consequences for electing these clowns yet again. Maybe their 401k's going down the crapper might start to focus their minds a little. I'm not holding my breath though.

Not only that but to claim it's because that country wanted to join NATO.

he said to the reporter who asked the question ‘what constraints are you putting on Russia’ ? He also said that ‘ you don’t know all the constraints I have put on Russia’ giving the clear impression that he has put on a lot of them but you would not know about them . Is it like the Helsinki meeting with Putin where he said ABSOLUTLY nothing about what they discussed.
he has taken TOTALLY DIFFERENT LINE when it comes to Ukr - with all of his public ally made threats/ negative comments , etc, etc, etc, etc.

When will the world come to realise that we have a Hitler/Stalin/Mussilini/Chescheu/etc/ etc/etc. /etc/etc amongst us and even worse in some respects when compared to some of them

Hopefully all this economic pain will shut up the "both sides are as bad as each other" clowns who don't show up to vote when it's not a strong Democrat running.

Hopefully this will shut up the people who think democracy only happens every 4 years during elections. The DNC has been corrupted and needs to be taken back. People need to organise locally and nationally to get rid of the Nancy Pelosi types who think the DNC are entitled to be opposition and to actually stand for something other than 'we're not as bad as the outright fascists'

I'm kind of surprised that we got to this point already. I was expecting this to possibly come to a head sometime after summer. But now here we are just short of the 100 day mark and Donnie has made himself a de-facto Lame Duck President.

There's now no point at all taking any tariff threats from him seriously. The idea that other nations are "making deals" with him or "discussing" the tariffs have been shown to be the fiction that we all knew it was. To amend your proposed headline Quin_Dub, I would go as far as having: "Trump makes pointless statement worth ignoring"

Add to this the very public way Putin has been ignoring his "Peace" overtures regarding Ukraine. To top it all off, Musk has called uncle on his DOGE shenigans and has left…likely not to return. All within 100 days..not that I should be all that surprised.

Got to wonder what he hopes to manage to do with the rest of the 3 years…assuming his health lasts that long.

And the consequence of this is that businesses cannot plan for the future. How can businesses even attempt to make long term strategy when their trading conditions can suddenly and drastically change overnight by a random tweet from the unmitigated fool in the white house.

Trump signed other EO's on Wednesday, these covering education reform and school discipline in K-12 schools.

In a potential hit to higher education, Trump signed an executive order targeting the college accreditation process.  

College accreditation ensures a university can access financial aid, but, Scharf [as W/H staff secretary] said, “many of those third-party accreditors have relied on sort of woke ideology to accredit universities, instead of accrediting based on merit and performance.” 

Accreditors have pushed back on these accusations, as colleges in states that have bans on diversity, equity and inclusion have had no problems getting accreditation.  

But if a school does not have accreditation, it would have devastating effects, likely increasing concerns among higher education institutions who have seen Trump is not afraid to mess with their finances.  

That’s especially true of Harvard University, which had $2 billion in federal funding revoked in retaliation for not changing its policies based on Trump’s demands. The Ivy League member has sued over the action.  

Another Wednesday order seeks to further integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into American classrooms.  

“The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” said Will Scharf, White House staff secretary.

“President Trump is taking historic and commonsense action to boost school safety standards. Disciplinary decisions should be based solely on students’ behavior and actions,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. 

The school order and Scharf's words seem to infer that if a child doesn't get the hang of AI, their education is over - sorry kid, you're out. McMahons words, paraphrasing what she sees as Trumps view on school safety, centre on behaviour and actions - which could refer to anything from weapon carrying to use of words like DEI or gay, or obligatory use of loyalty phrases. The thing is that Trumps school order included the word discipline. That word carries many variations, corner-time or other practices allowed in the past.

THe problem for the USA is that they have spent most of that $36 trillion. If you spend borrowed money, which the USA has always done, it is money that that will at some stage have to be paid back. You are now at the whim of the lender of that money, so in all intents and purposes is ex money. It's lost assets.

Similar to keeping your credit card in credit because there are serious consequences if you don't.

This is a major issue going forward. Trump has created a hugely unstable business environment with his constant flip flopping. Businesses love stability, but instead there is an unstable nut in the Oval Office who changes his mind every six hours.

Do we know who is buying?

Makes you wonder how he bankrupted so many of his companies.

Nobody at the moment. Or very few.

That's why Trump was being less of a dick on tarriffs in the last week.

He knows that the bond market is the main reason why America has stayed afloat in the last 20 years. Or somebody with more intelligence told him.

I'd imagine Ireland and other EU countries are dipping in for a little more. I wouldn't be surprised to discover if Russia are buying it up via a partner in the Middle East to use as leverage once Trump inevitably pulls back on sanctions. Developing nations probably see this as an opportunity too. Obviously these would probably be longer term holdings in the hope that once MAGA runs its course, the US economy will become more reliable again.