(Posting a HELLUVA’ lot of “Fake News” from “Fake News Agencies” there to support your point, norse…oh, well…)
This has been argued, and analyzed…and argued and analyzed …over and over again throughout the history of the Modern Presidency…and even on this site…so much so, that I just don’t have the energy.
The important facts are this:
The U.S. economy (at least as far back as the 60’s); goes though huge decades-long cycles. Some President’s get caught in the “bust” cycles…and some in the “boom”…so yes…Trump has been lucky.
And related to Obama doing nothing but getting Osama Bin Laden? God help us all if Trump and his Motley Crue of “business” people (that don’t seem to stay around long); were in charge as the WORLD’S economies were on the verge of total collapse…and all Conservatives could add was “Let them ALL collapse! “The Market” will figure it out!” (It also goes with out saying that some of the hardest-hit economies and businesses would have been smack-dab in the middle of what is now “Trump Country”).
President’s DO get too much credit for good economies…and too much blame for bad ones. I guess for saving economies you don’t get jack-shit.
Let’s get real about the Chinese. They are a pragmatic people with a Leader who is the very epitome of that pragmatism. Trump…of ALL people didn’t put any “pressure” on the Chinese. Rest assured they have gotten a lot in return for what ever “win” Trump wishes to Tweet about.
Trump believes in bombast, bluster, public display and tweets. Xi is the EXACT opposite.
Don’t think for one instant that he is cowering to the will of the person now in the White House.
I don’t know, maybe he gets some credit. Maybe he gets some credit for employment. Heck, now he’s talking about meeting with NFL players and potentially pardoning people they feel have been wrongly imprisoned by a biased justice system. Maybe he gets to liking how it feels to be the President known for dealing with racial issues and law enforcement reform. Maybe no smoking gun comes out of the investigations surrounding him and he gets to pronounce a great big fake-news-I-told-you-so.
This is not what I said. It was a good rant though
It has absolutely nothing to do with cowering to will. Trump started dick waving with econ sanctions. In exchange for what will inevitably be billions in increased revenues, all they’ve “traded” is putting pressure on the little shit in NK. NK is completely and utterly reliant on uncle China.
So did Trump put pressure on China for talks with NK? According to people in the know, yes.
Did he have to exchange his America first bullshit by intentionally softening the trade defecit he’s always preaching about? Also, yes.
By uninviting a Super-Bowl winning Team whose players didn’t even kneel…uninviting the EVENTUAL winner of the NBA finals; and welcoming the Stanley Cup winning Capitals…
(Guess you need a star player from Russia to be invited to the White house; and it probably helps if your Team photo isn’t so…uh…“urban”?)
And rest assured that Xi Jinping has made it clear to Kim what is, and what is not, negotiable…while Trump in depending on “his gut”. (Which in some cases isn’t all bad…)
My personal gut feeling is that China isn’t involved with what N. Korea is doing right now.
What I wanted to convey with my post is that N. Korea has achieved its goal with its nuclear program. The fact that they want to negotiate afterwards is a trap.
What incentive do they have to negotiate when they now possess the ability to threaten the U.S. directly?
If the U.S. plays hard-ball and gives N. Korea nothing during the summit, then we’re back to square one- N. Korea loses nothing.
If the U.S. gives in, then N. Korea gains vast amounts of benefits in (presumably) the lifting of sanctions and other such economic gains, while the U.S. doesn’t actually possess the ability to enforce any of the agreed upon terms. Again, the worst case if N. Korea reneges is that everything goes back to square one, except that N. Korea would have reaped the benefits of the original term. From what I understand, this is fundamentally what caused the Republicans to dislike the Iran deal, so I don’t quite understand why people are happy with a possibility of a deal with the N.Koreans now.
This is a lose-lose situation to the U.S. unless N. Korea genuinely agrees to give up its nuclear weapons and does so in a completely transparent matter. But what are the chances of what happening when N. Korea spent the last 20+ years working towards becoming a nuclear state?
S. Korea’s goals are different from the U.S.'s in this case.The fact that we’re allied doesn’t change this- It doesn’t help that the current sitting President came to power after the previous president, a conservative and daughter to a former dictator of S. Korea, was impeached. Personally, I don’t think S. Korea is in a place to deal with N. Korea right now.
Of course. Hilary, who wasn’t even president, is the devil because of Benghazi. Reagan has a cultish following in spite of Beirut.
As far as Obama being some force that created horrible racial divides; I think it simply shows how Americans have short and selective memories. Just look back at Detroit, Newark, Chicago, etc., in the late sixties into the seventies.
NK wants what China has and what we gave China a few decades ago - a liberalization of their economy without giving up their politics and position to project power. That way, they can amass wealth quickly and plow that wealth into regional power.
Give them a decade of “normalization” and open markets and we’ll see a Pacific Rim Axis of sorts.
This negotiation is about one thing from NK’s point of view - how do we better arm our ideology? And it isn’t in the US’s interest to have China 2.0 in the same region (or anywhere).
Is our "master negotiator " in the WH assessing all this? No, all he cares about is a splashy “win” in the media so he can tout an accomplishment exceeding that of Obama on NK. Trump is negotiating with an eye to “winning” a news cycle - NK is negotiating with an eye to the long game of rising as a power.