Trump's Kabuki War
Trump’s Kabuki War
Junious Ricardo Stanton
They say truth is the first casualty
of war; we are seeing this axiom playing out with the Israeli and US unprovoked
aggression against Iran. The warmongers in Israel have been telling the world
for thirty years Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear bomb, any day now. Even
the censorship industrial complex cannot obliterate the soundbites and visuals
of Netanyahu’s lies over the years. Thus far even after their malicious unprovoked
attacks on Iran on Friday June 13th and Donald Trump in his usual fashion of
throwing caution to the winds joining the Israelis in attacking Iran, the lies
and propaganda just keep coming.
War is a serious matter. But it
seems when psychopaths are involved the sacredness of life, the practical
benefits of peace, living in harmony with one’s neighbors and being honest and
forthright are never considered. Psychopaths and warmongers have no conscience.
They believe they can wantonly commit atrocities, inflict human suffering with impunity;
there won’t be any blowback (a CIA term for unforeseen consequences of their actions)
or penalties for their misdeeds and rapine. Regardless of their words and
verbiage to the contrary, their actions demonstrate for all to see they have no
moral or ethical code, they lack impulse control and empathy and they are
driven by an insatiable desire for power, wanton thrills and control.
Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s,
alleged nuclear weapon facilities but the Iranians claimed the damage was
minimal and that two of the sites had been evacuated earlier. Israel instigated
a war against Iran knowing full well they could induce the West to come to
their aid which the US did. Now, the warmongers are paying a horrific price, in
the global court of public opinion. To all but the most rabid warmongers and
religious fanatics, Israel and the US are now seen as pariahs and savages.
Israel and the US’s actions are so
insane, so irrational it’s like a Kabuki theater production. They’ve failed in their
objective to neutralize Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran hit back hard
against Israel and demonstrated to the US what it could do to its bases in the region.
Meanwhile Israel was so unprepared for
the Iranian response they begged the US to intervene.
For its’ part Iran warned Qatar a
nation which is Muslim and has decent relations with Iran but also sides with Israel
and the US. Qatar allowed the warmongers to use their air space and allegedly
helped shoot down Iranian missiles aimed at Israel, that it was going to attack
a US military base in Qatar. Iran’s forewarning helped prevent any serious casualties
and prevented the US from using Iran’s response to their attack as a casus belli
to expand their involvement.
Trump meanwhile is taking heat from
some in his base who encourage a more isolationist posture or who are incensed
he betrayed his promise not to start or drag the US into any new forever wars. However,
other MAGAites, the Christian Zionist specifically are salivating at the
prospect of an expanded war because they think it will usher in the Rapture when
all their “true believers” who dutifully support Israel will be literally taken
up to heaven to live with Jesus. Of course, the MIC is seeing dollar signs as
their stocks prices sour and business is booming.
Trump obviously lives in a Bizzaro
World type reality. He can now say he supported Israel, that he took out the
nuclear threat, even though it was nonexistent and thus the US military actually
failed in its mission, and he can also “demand” both sides cease firing, act
and play nicely towards each other. Idiot! Things don’t work like that in the real
world especially when psychopaths like Netanyahu and an imbecile like Trump are
involved.
The Zionists want to obliterate Iran
but they have not been able to do so, they and now the world knows they cannot
accomplish this with the help of the West! The world is watching the Zionists
warmongers getting their behinds handed to them in real time. They are in panic
mode. The Iranians took a hit and hit back, big time but not as fully as they
are capable of. If they wanted to they could do serious damage to Israel and
throw the global economy and supply chain for oil and commerce in turmoil.
The US
did not destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, so what now? Israel’s “Iron Doom” is
in shambles and the world sees it. Trump actually thinks he holds enough sway
to make the warmongers in Tel Aviv stand down. He foolishly thinks he can bully
the Iranians into not defending themselves against the warmongers! According to
Trump (who is truth averse) both sides agreed
to a cease fire in principle. However just like in Gaza, Israel continued the assault
and Iran responded hard. Now Trump looks like an idiot so he is throwing a
hissy fit. If this weren’t so serious it would be funny, a complete Kabuki
show.
What can we do to set this
situation right. Pray for peace, pray for sanity and pray that this doesn’t
spiral totally out of control!
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Things Are Going as Planned
Things Are Going as
Planned
Junious Ricardo Stanton
I do not
claim to be an Oracle, Soothsayer or Shaman. In the past I’ve made predictions
not based upon rituals, seances or crystal balls but by using observation and
pattern recognition. Late in 2024 I predicted in a commentary entitled 2025 Predictions
Israel would continue to wage war on its neighbors and in a later commentary in
March of 2025 entitled War Appears Eminent I reiterated Israel is the
aggressor nation that has been trying to get the US to back its plans to attack
Iran. So here we are in June 2025 and the war is on.
On June 14th Israel
launched unprovoked attacks against Iran baselessly claiming Iran posed an
existential threat to the Zionist nation. Keep in mind Israel in general but
Benjamin Netanyahu specifically has been saying this for decades with no verification.
His continuous Chicken Little pronouncements are legendary, “Iran is months
away from developing nuclear weapons, Iran is weeks away from developing a nuclear
weapon, Iran is a threat to Israel…” Keep in mind, Netanyahu has been saying
this for almost thirty years!
Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 as
the great deal maker and negotiator. His egotistical bombast made it seem he
was the quintessential wheeler dealer. Once he was elected, we saw this was merely
egomaniacal ranting. He instigated trade wars against Mexico, Canada, the EU
and China but in the end, he did not come away with much in the way of
advantages. In fact, as a result of his “deal”, US farmers suffered!
In 2024 Trump campaigned as the “peace
candidate” bosting he would end the war in Ukraine immediately after being
inaugurated and he would bring peace to Gaza. Not only has Trump not facilitated
the end of the Ukraine War or stopped the genocide in Gaza, he is neck deep enabling
Israel’s naked aggression against Iran a nation his own intelligence community
stated as recently as March 2025, was not in the process of making a nuclear
weapon! https://jewishinsider.com/2025/03/gabbard-iran-is-not-currently-developing-nuclear-weapons/
This is Trump’s MO, make bombastic
pronouncements and promises then do nothing to actualize them or backtrack on
them altogether. Look at what he’s done with his on, off, on again tariff
threats. The only campaign promise he has kept was his pledge to secure the
borders. But now he is saying he is getting blowback about the deportation of
honest hard-working immigrants who lack the paperwork to make them citizens.
How will he address this blowback?
War is breaking out all over. Trump
the so-called peace candidate is proving unable to stop these wars because he
is being undermined and sabotaged by the neocons and warmongers like Lindsey
Graham and the EU, or because of his own ineptitude. We must never forget Trump
is sending Ukraine and Israel money and armaments from US taxpayers who do not
want war, he is prolonging and exacerbating these conflicts, killing innocent
civilians and creating distrust and animosity against America around the world!
His approval ratings were already declining, I suspect they will fall even
lower due to his failure to keep his promises to keep us out of more forever
wars.
A song asked and answered the question,
“War, what is it good for, absolutely nothing.” The bottom line of the Military
Industrial Complex says this is not true, to them war is quite profitable. From
the perspective of warmongers and psychopaths war is exciting and exhilarating.
For some politicians war is a means to usurp more power during a manufactured “emergency”
or crisis they had a direct hand in creating. For megalomaniacal settler/invaders
violence and warfare are the means to expropriate other people’s land,
property, natural resources and physical territory.
We are witnessing how psychopathic
fanatics are using myth, war and disinformation to achieve land expropriation
and ethnic cleansing in the name of a deity who supposedly chose a tribe of
nomads as his favorite group in the whole world, promised them land that was
already occupied and inhabited for thousands of years and ordered them to
slaughter all of the indigenous inhabitants! According to their myths, this deity was so
psychotic he became enraged when his “chosen” people failed to totally
slaughter and destroy all the property of the indigenous people that he severely
punished them for disobeying him and not committing genocide and rapine! Taking
these myths on “faith” has been the cause of much bloodletting, suffering,
social disruption and terror.
The supreme irony is the Zionists
are not the descendants of the Hebrews. The Ashkenazim are not Semites. The Ashkenazim
have no genetic, historic or cultural connections to the ancient Israelites or
Judeans whatsoever. But they concocted a myth that they are and they are using
this lie to advance their goals of ethnic cleansing, regional and global
domination.
We are watching the agendas of
corporate greed; globalist warmongers and fanatics coalescing and unfolding as
planned. From a moral perspective, if we remain silent and passive, if we offer
no resistance; we are complicit in murder, genocide and ethnic cleansing atrocities!
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See Beyond the Fog
See Beyond the
Fog
Junious Ricardo Stanton
There is a term
called the fog of war which was made popular following WWII. It
pertained to the uncertainty of war; how often tactical decisions were made
lacking the Information or intelligence required which led to uncertainty. In modern
times it came to mean a covering or obscuring of truth. We now know wars are
waged by deception by the leaders on both sides of the conflict, simultaneously
directed against the enemy and their own people!
Physical fog occurs when dense clouds
of water or ice droplets develop and settle close to ground level as opposed to
the upper atmosphere. Dense fog makes it difficult to see; the denser the fog
the harder it is to see thus making visibility problematic. We are all familiar
with waking up in the morning seeing smoke like fog covering the ground
extending deep into our surroundings making it extremely difficult to see
anything.
The word fog
is a common word and it has many usages in our daily language. Fog is used as a
synonym or metaphor for: confusion, mystery, depression and discombobulation. We
hear people say I’m in a fog or I had brain fog. The word fog is also used to
depict the barrier between illusion and reality.
In today’s
society we are deliberately kept in a fog by the owners and controllers of
globalized financial capital, the shot callers, the plutocrats, the powers who
shouldn’t be. We are kept in a psychological and emotional fog designed to
obscure and obfuscate truth and reality, to keep us fearful, disoriented, easily
manipulated and mailable. They use their ownership and control over the media
and its content to shape our perceptions, fashion artificial consensus and
shape our “reality”, a reality that is often not in our best interests but one
that benefits them!
These societal overlords need to
keep us this way so they can dupe, distract and deceive us into going for their
okey-doke and falling for their flim-flam. They need to keep is in a submissive,
uncritical, somnambulant state so we never challenge their narratives, question
their assertions, openly defy their orders and mandates and resist their nefarious
agendas. They need us to be Zombies, mindless automatons and willing workers
doing exactly what we are told and programmed to do.
Some example of the deliberately
manufactured fog they have unleashed on us are: COVID-19 was a novel (new)
virus, that it was causing a global pandemic, only by using repurposed (they
were already in existence but the original reason they were developed and created
did not work because most of the lab animals kept dying), unsafe, DNA altering,
mRNA injections could provide protection and prevent the spread of this new “pathogen”
that had a 98% recovery rate for healthy people!
Another fogging of truth is the preposterous
notion the indigenous people of Palestine who have no military, no advanced
weaponry, no technological sophistication or acumen somehow poses an “existential
threat” to an apartheid settler nation which was carved out in their midst, that
uses advanced surveillance technology, lethal weaponry, to exert logistical and
military control over the Palestinians. We are kowtowed into passively watching
as these “Israelis” who have no genetic or historic connection to the ancient
Hebrews conduct a real time campaign of genocide against the Palestinians.
One good thing about natural fog is,
it doesn’t last long, it usually dissipates in a few hours. Man made fog is different.
It can last as long as the people creating it have the resources and materials to
manufacture it. This is why we have to use discernment to recognize real fog
from fakery. We have to learn to see through the fake fog, stay focused on
reality as we define it. We have to persevere and not allow the miscreants to
confuse us, obscure reality or obfuscate the truth. Open your eyes, look, see
for yourself beyond the fog and walk your own path towards truth and reality.
-30-
Does This Make Sense?
Does This Make Any Sense?
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Looking at
the early events and developments of Trump’s second term we can see several
alarming trends and patterns emerging. First his bombast undermines reality. It
is one thing to say you are the greatest, that everything you do is going to be
fantastic and you will usher in a new American renaissance but in reality what
you are doing is creating confusion and anxiety. It is readily apparent Trump
doesn’t learn from history including his own experiences, mistakes and
missteps. For example, during his first
term he instigated trade and tariff wars with Canada, Mexico, the European
Union and China which backfired and blew up in his face; especially his
dealings with China who refused to be bullied and went elsewhere to find new
markets or expanded the ones they already had in Europe, Latin America, Africa
and Asia. Trump’s actions helped China spur its Belt and Road initiative with
the rest of the world!
In addition
to not learning from his own mistakes, Trump makes moves that are illegal which
in due course will cost him. Already his approval numbers are falling. Some of
his actions other than the securing the border are quite unpopular and upsetting.
Right now, Trump and the Republicans enjoy slight majorities in both houses of
Congress, but even with the Democrats in total disarray, some of his moves are
boomeranging back on him. For example, DOGE. While it is admirable to want to
cut the massive deficits, regain fiscal sanity, reign in government spending
and address the humongous government debt, how he is going about it are both
illegal and reckless.
DOGE is not
a government department even though the word Department is part of its name. It
was not created by Congressional legislation. At best it is an executive advisory
committee that doesn’t have the authority to fire personnel, disband government
agencies nor halt appropriations passed by Congress! His plans to cut taxes while
increasing military spending are going to blow up the deficits. Cuts in
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are not going to bring the budget in
line nor balance it! Evidently Trump fails to grasp the fact this did not work well
under Rondal Reagan or George W. Bu$h; both of them cut taxes and
simultaneously increased spending which resulted in massive deficits and
government debt!
Trump’s on,
off, then on again tariff threats are making him look foolish, indecisive and
wishy-washy. Again, by not being a student of history Trump and his advisors if
you can call them that, fail to realize that in the past, trade and currency
wars and tit for tat tariff retaliation have led to major shooting wars and
military conflicts. His tariffs are not going to solve America’s trade
imbalances which are self-inflicted. These massive trade imbalances are not the
result of the rest of the world ganging up and cheating the US! That is utter
nonsense designed to dupe the American people and place blame on foreigners
when the culprits are the financers, corporations and their bought and paid for
elected officials who legislated and cosigned the offshoring of capital,
factories and jobs to Asia in the 1980’s.
They called it Globalization.
Globalization was the shift of capital, technology, factories and jobs overseas
in exchange for much cheaper labor, available raw materials and less regulation
and humongous profits! This closed US factories, sent well paying US jobs
overseas and hollowed out much of the US industrial infrastructure. The Owners
and Controllers of Globalized Financial Capital (OCGFC) major contributors
to both political parties, transformed the US from an industrial titan into an
economy of gig and service workers, a debt-based system of myriad financialized
casino-Ponzi boom-bust scams. CEO compensation soured while workers’ paychecks
stagnated and declined.
This happened in the 1980’s and
early 90’s and we are reaping the whirlwind of these disastrous decisions. The
factories that left are not coming back no matter how high Trump’s tariffs are simply
because OCGFC will merely transfer their capital, technology and factories to
some other country where they can exploit their cheap labor. Trump should know
this.
Although in
2016 he campaigned on draining the D.C. Swamp, promising he was going to lock
Hillary Clinton and her ilk up, he did neither. Business went on as usual. In
2024 Trump campaigned on peace, saying he would resolve the situation in Gaza,
bring the Ukrainian war to an end and establish better relationships with
Russia and China within days of his inauguration. Well, here we are going into
five months into his second term, and the situations in those places are
worsening! Does any of this make sense?
Avalanch of Lies
Avalanche of Lies
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Almost
every day we witness the government and legacy media colluding and conspiring
to lie to us about everything. There is an obvious reason they are held in such
low regard by people, we know they are untrustworthy, we know they lie! They
omit telling the truth, they spin or obfuscate the facts, they manipulate the
information in such a way, the truth gets lost in the sauce. Daily we are
subjected to blatant propaganda and lies coming from the government, and
advertisers via the media.
During the last week or so we have seen prominent
networks forced to acknowledge they covered up Joe Biden’s mental decline,
despite the fact we saw it for ourselves with our own eyes! We recognized Joe Biden
was far less effective than he was prior to the 2020 election campaign and his
cognitive acuity had diminished during the run-up to the 2024 election when his
feeblemindedness was so obvious he was pressured to withdraw from the campaign. The media and Democratic Party gaslighted us
day in and day out while the Republicans stood silently by acquiescing to the
charade. Now they are forced to attempt to rationalize their disingenuousness.
In another blow to their credibility, it was
recently announced Biden is suffering from advanced prostate cancer. How is
this possible? Aren’t presidents supposed to take scheduled physical
examinations and aren’t the press corps supposed to cover them and ask relevant
questions about the president’s health? How is it this was not done; especially
when it was so obvious Biden was in both mental and physical decline? This is a
travesty but alas it is business as usual.
We see how the legacy media fails to call
Donald Trump on his wishy-washiness of his trade and tariff policies, his
bombast and bluster towards Iran and Assar Allah aka The Houthis or his support
of Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza! What’s up with that?
Covering the news doesn’t have to
be contentious or adversarial, however it should be uncompromising, honest and thorough.
We are not getting that quality of news
in the corporate media or their social media platforms. Why? Because they are in
cahoots, collusion and cooperation, they share the same goals and objectives,
to bamboozle us and keep us dumbed-down.
Elon Musk following his purchase of
Twitter now called X, admitted the social media platform practiced blatant censorship.
He even provided a huge trove of files as evidence. Twitter went so far as to
deplatform a sitting president and none of the media howled about this egregious
denial of First Amendment rights! Twitter was not the only culprit, they all
did it, they all censored dissent and any accounts contrary to the “official
government narrative”.
During the past few decades the
corporate media has served as stenographers and cheerleaders for the
government, except during Trump’s first term when the legacy media were in
lockstep attacking him on all levels, except for the Fox network.
Following 9-11, the corporate media
went whole hog in support of the trampling of citizens’ rights and liberties in
support of the bogus global war on terrorism. The media promoted the government
canard Osama bin-Laden was the culprit behind the building collapses in New
York and the hit on the Pentagon outside of Washington D.C. which he executed from
a cave in Afghanistan!
I won’t go into the myriad anomalies in these
situations; suffice to say, truth was not peddled by the media! Most recently
they did the exact same thing in support of the government’s COVID narrative.
In both instances a massive fear campaign was devised to disinform, traumatize
and manipulate us into going along with the government’s narrative and policies.
In both occasions it was round the clock, 24/7. Every effort was made to
censor, suppress and counter (fact check) any dissenting narratives or even legitimate
questions regarding the government’s actions.
We now know there was no actual
proof Osama bin-Laden implemented 9-11 from a cave in Afghanistan, we know
Saddam Husien had no WMDs and we know the COVID injections were not free, safe
or effective! Hundreds of studies are
coming out now proving the COVID injections were more harmful than beneficial;
and the harm surpasses and is longer lasting than the so-called benefits of the
shots. In fact, the FDA recently stated the COVID shots were no longer recommended
for people under sixty-five unless they are high risk. But we know for healthy
people COVID has a 98% recovery rate!
We know we are being lied to about
the economy. We know the escalating government debt is unrepayable, we know
cuts in social programs are not going to bring down the debt nor decrease the debt
service (interest we have to pay on the debt) especially as the government
simultaneously engages in massive waste, fraud and abuse in military funding/spending!
Speaking of waste, fraud and abuse,
Moody’s credit rating agency downgraded the US government’s credit rating from
AAA to AA1. Remember Moody’s, Fitch and
Standard and Poor’s credit rating agencies rated the sub-prime, mortgage-backed
securities that were basically high risk junk, that caused the 2008 global
financial collapse as AAA! Yet, we know the US debt is unsustainable and unrepayable!
We are experiencing a daily
avalanche of lies, disinformation and gaslighting by the government and the
legacy media. It is a bipartisan, multimedia multi-corporation/owner operation.
We are being inundated and overwhelmed by lies. Also with the advent of AI and high-definition
computer-generated imagery, the lines/membrane between discernable reality and
fakery are being blurred daily. This is having a deleterious impact on society.
We are living in an era worse than George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s wildest
nightmares.
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What Have We Learned in The First One Hundred Days?
What Have We
Learned in The First Hundred Days?
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Much ado has been
made of the first one hundred days of Donald Trump’s second term. What exactly have
we learned, if anything, and what can we extrapolate from these first few
months of the Trump administration?
First, we see
Trump is much more active writing Executive Orders, governing by executive fiat
rather than going through Congress and the legislative process than he was
during his first administration. His bombast; his trademark narcissism and hyperbole
are still on full display for all the world to see. Trump to his credit, has
kept his word regarding securing the US border, his passionate crusade against undocumented
immigrants has not slackened.
Trump promised to
end the war in Eastern Europe and bring about a peaceful resolution between
Russia and Ukraine. Thus far this has not happened. Both parties are agreeing
to have negotiations but it was Putin who asked Turkey ’s President Erdogan to
host Ukraine and Russian representatives in Istanbul for peace talks. Meanwhile
Trump takes credit for pressing Ukraine and Russia to actually sit down and
hold serious talks.
Unfortunately, it appears Germany, France and the UK want hostilities
to continue as they continuously demonize Putin and Russia despite the fact
Zelensky has broken ceasefires set up by Russia. Trump recently signed an
agreement with Ukraine to access Ukrainian rare earth minerals and he has
resumed sending weapons to Ukraine which seems counterproductive to peace!
Regarding the
genocide in Gaza, Trump claimed he would resolve this situation as soon as he
was inaugurated. That has not happened. In fact it appears Trump has signed off
on the ethnic cleansing by saying the US would step in, develop the region and
turn it into a Riviera like environment on the Mediterranean. Yes, he actually
said that with a straight face. His administrations is also persecuting
anti-genocide foreign students and defunding US universities who allow protests
against Israeli massacre in Gaza!
Israel agreed to a ceasefire
but it was soon broken yet Trump said nor did anything to Netanyahu. The US is
still supplying Israel with arms and money to continue starving and bombing innocent
men women and children, in the name of “defense”. Is it defense to bomb
hospitals, water treatment facilities or prevent food and humanitarian aid from
entering Gaza? These are war crimes by even the most vague and lenient
definitions of the term.
During the
presidential campaign Trump said he was for peace that he wanted to stop the
wars, however; he has been bellicose and threatening towards both the Houthis
and Iran. Trump increased the bombing of the Houthis who support the
Palestinians by targeting cargo ships in the Red Sea flying the Israeli flag or
are bound for Israel. In retaliation the Houthis have fired on Israel and
several US jets. Are the open support of genocide and threatening nations the
actions of a man who supposedly want peace?
Trump evidently
didn’t learn any lessons from his first term when he started trade wars with
Canada. Mexico, the EU and China which blew up in his face. This time he has
doubled down and instituted tariffs without input from Congress; universal
tariffs not just on China but numerous nations! When the immediate blowback was
felt in the stock market and financial circles to the loss of trillions of
dollars, Trump backed off. He put a hold on some of the tariffs but he
subsequently doubled down instituting tripled digit tariffs on China and double
digit tariffs on a host of other nations.
Trump says his actions are bringing world leaders to the
negotiating table looking for deals. What he is really doing is sowing seeds of
uncertainty, angst and bewilderment among rivals and allies alike. Trump now
has been forced to backtrack and delay imposing the tariffs for three months
while he negotiates “deals” with world leaders. But his action aresn’t in a vacuum,
there are consequences and repercussions.
Instead of making
him look strong, his actions are making him look wishy-washy and inept. What we
are seeing are slowdowns in shipping, fewer cargo ships and containers coming
from China which will impact the inventories and bottom line of US businesses
for weeks and months to come.
The US has a huge trade imbalance with China. Americans are
addicted to cheap Chinese goods and labor, while China has no similar “Jones”
for American made products. Plus, the Chinese leadership has demonstrated they
can go elsewhere for the foodstuffs and goods they need. China did it during Trump’s
first term, they learned a pivotal lesson and they will do it again this time!
On the domestic
front we have seen Trump use lawfare to go after those who tormented him just like
they did to him. He is using imperial fiat to get things done. DOGE is not a
department created by Congress and has no authority to do anything other than make
recommendations. Yet Elon Musk, the chair is firing people and shutting down
whole governmental agencies! It remains to be seen how this will play out in
the long term in the courts.
The supreme irony is, thus far DOGE has used extremely selective
auditing. For example, DOGE has not investigated the humungous waste, fraud
and abuse of the Trump era stimulus money, the Biden COVID supplemental fund
programs or Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest as a government contractor! These
are just a few examples!
We are witnessing
billionaires who gave Trump huge campaign contributions holding sway over his polices.
Yet somehow the media, Trump’s MAGA groupies and acolytes don’t seem to mind
whatsoever. They continuously go for his bombast and okey-doke. I could mention
the blunders and infighting among his cabinet members and his fights with the lower
judiciary; but hey, we’re just in the first four months of his new administration.
I’m sure we’ll see more in the days and
months ahead.
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The False Premise Behind Trump's Trade Wars
The False Premise Behind Trump’s Trade Wars
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Donald
Trump ran on a platform of peace, economic revitalization, prosperity, secure
borders, domestic tranquility and order. He won in a landslide because people
were thirsty for a so-called “America First” common-sense program. However, in
three months Trump has only delivered on the border security issue while his
domestic, foreign and trade policies are creating undo anxiety and chaos with
the potential for humongous blowback and repercussions at home and abroad.
When he ran
in 2016 Trump falsely claimed the world was ripping America off and that he was
going to make things right. He immediately embarked upon trade wars with Mexico,
Canada, the EU and China, claiming he was going to renegotiate better deals and
a better position for the US. Trump railed against NAFT and said he was going
to renegotiate that agreement which he did but the end result wasn’t much
different from the original deal.
Trump
reiterated the same claims in 2024, he said China was ripping the US off, that
the world was taking unfair advantage of the US and he was going to right the
ship. Just like in 2016 he picked fights with Mexico, Canada, the EU and China only
this time he went hog-wild threatening to impost tariffs of 20% or more on all
of them. Then he doubled down and imposes a universal tariff on all countries!
The blowback
was swift and immediate. The Stock Market tumbled, people lost trillions of
dollars in their 401Ks, Pension Fund principle, meanwhile the world responded vociferously
to his actions, so he had to back down or as he said “delay” for ninety-days.
His actions made him look wishy-washy; but in this case his delay demonstrated good
sense and prevented additional hemorrhaging and blowback.
The major problem
with Trump’s assertions the world was ripping America off is, it is false! If
anyone ripped America off it was the Owners and Controllers of Global Financialized
Capital (OCGFC). They were the ones who decided to shut down US
manufacturing, shutter American industry, transfer capital, jobs, technology
overseas and transform the American economy into a service economy employing
gig workers, part timers in a hollowed-out deindustrialized economy. These are
the same people who caused the 2008 financial implosion with their derivatives
Ponzi schemes.
This is the real cause of America’s
decline as a manufacturing giant, Sad to say, because of globalization and capital
flight these jobs and industries are not coming back to the US. Even if a few
do return, they will be fully automated, robotized using AI and very few
humans.
Trump’s ire was and still is
directed at China but it was not the Chinese leaders who sold American workers
out. All the Chinese leaders did was change their philosophy to allow direct
foreign investment, accept US technology and capital to help transform their
society from a poor subsistence agrarian economy into a manufacturing and
technological behemoth.
The Chinese Communist leaders
benefitted from being admitted into the World Trade Organization, given Most
Favored Nation Status by the OCGFC and their globalist minions like Richard
Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, the Bushes
and Obama. China would not be America’s prime rival in the world today if it
had not been for these people! Trump’s indignation is misdirected.
On top of this, Trump’s misunderstanding
of the role of tariffs may prove to be his undoing. Tariffs are a means of
protectionism. A country imposes tariffs to protect its domestic markets and
businesses from foreign competition. Tariffs are a way for the home country to
provide itself with an advantage over its’ foreign competitors. Tariffs are
also a way to raise funds.
Trump may see this but he fails to
see the larger picture, there can be a downside to tariff wars. Historically trade, currency and tariff
disputes often lead to shooting wars and the US is in no position to wage war
against adversaries like China, Russia and Iran! The US doesn’t have the
industry, manufacturing, money (the US is bankrupt teetering on the brink of default)
or the technology to fight modern warfare against the nations it is currently
provoking, neither does Europe/NATO!
Trump’s bluster, saber rattling and bombast
are bluffs. But in this modern era, bluffing against people who are not afraid
of you who can go tit for tat and better against you may not work. Look at how US sanctions against Russia failed
over the years. Russia and China have the BRICS+ alliance as trading partners
and much of the Global South wants in. China has its Belt and Road Initiative
which it is aggressively pursuing all over the world.
Thanks to Trump’s tariffs and trade wars, who
can the US count on other than Israel? Yes, loss of US markets will be a major
blow to China but the Chinese personality will not allow them to lose face, be
defeated or disgraced. They will do everything in their power not to allow this
to happen so don’t expect China to capitulate, bow down or kowtow to Trump ever.
Ther is an old adage, “never let your
mouth write a check your behind can’t cash.” I say Amen to that.
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