The World Adjusts Around Megalomaniacal Donald Trump

   

The World Adjusts Around Megalomaniacal Donald Trump

“President of the World” is Viewed as an Unstable Non-Genius Bully

"France must be available to assess the threat, adapt, and stand alongside a sovereign state to protect its territory." 

 French Emmanel Macron addressing soldiers before troops send to join other NATO forces going to Greenland for “exercises.”

Let me start with Trump’s stupidest obsession to date, to me the clearest sign to me of an old man who has lost his mind: the announced intention to annex Greenland. The US has a treaty right to send unlimited troops and establish any level of military bases on the world’s largest island, a Danish territory. We’ve had as many as 17 bases, but today there is only one. All our choice.

Something has snapped in Trump’s 2.0 mind, and in his second term, the adults in the Trump 1.0 room are gone. He has surrounded himself with a cabinet that prioritizes Trump above the Constitution, accepts his warped vision of the world as the gospel; he has purged senior military officers, prosecutors, intelligence experts, dedicated medical experts, and anyone attempting to protect a deteriorating environment… the word “no” applies only to those who oppose him, and “yes” is accorded to everyone who works for him. He has not had a good and workable idea since his 2.0 inauguration; he has established a new level of donors who support his ridiculous causes – like building a massive king’s ballroom with a footprint greater than the main White House – trading governmental favors for those donations.

He genuinely believes his bully tactics, at home and abroad, are both effective and have generated worldwide respect and admiration. In fact, respect for the United States is at an all-time low, the planet is rapidly designing workarounds, and even within the US, consistent polling shows that a clear majority of Americans label his first 2.0 year a failure. As midterms approach, he is grappling with how to rig the vote – through gerrymandering, culling voter rolls of likely Democrats and alleging fraud wherever he can. Yet there are signs that his rigid control of Republicans in Congress is eroding. There is a rippling awareness that Republicans running for Congress just might mirror lemmings headed for self-destruction.

There are a few signs of rebellion in the GOP ranks, aside from Republicans aware that the Epstein cover-up is wildly unpopular. For example, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers traveled to Copenhagen to assure Denmark that they supported its control of Greenland. At the same time, President Trump suggested he may use tariffs to pressure countries to go along with his annexation of the island. But nations are beginning not to fear his wrath or cater to his increasingly insane whim. Lex Harvey, writing for the January 15th CNN: “Several European NATO countries are deploying small numbers of military personnel to Greenland to participate in joint exercises with Denmark as US President Donald Trump ramps up his threats to forcibly annex the Arctic island… Trump’s declarations have thrown Europe’s decades-old, US-led security alliance into crisis, raising the prospect of NATO’s largest and most powerful member annexing the territory of another.

“Denmark, which is responsible for Greenland’s defense, has warned an attack on Greenland would all but end NATO, and announced on Wednesday [1/14] that it was expanding its military presence ‘in close cooperation with NATO allies.’” The nations involved include Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands and Finland. But the big winner in Trump’s global malfeasance is China… a customer for a sliver of Venezuelan oil. When Trump announced a 25% additional tariff on any nation that defied his intent to annex Greenland, it was French President Macron who declared that tariff completely unacceptable.

But as US farmers are smarting at the loss of the Chinese market for their goods, despite the $12 billion make-good Trump offered them, that sum represented roughly a third of their actual losses for the year. China even reported an almost $1 billion trade surplus, without the US, proof that the world is increasingly successful in separating from US economic dependence. China also made an impressive array of new trade agreements around the world, none of which involved the United States at any level. “China can afford to play the long game precisely because it can depend on the U.S. to create opportunities for it to do so, said Bates Gill, a senior fellow for Asian security with the National Bureau of Asian Research in Washington… ‘To the degree countries see the United States as more of a problem than a solution to the challenges they face, China will try to provide an alternative,’ he said.

“In areas such as providing development assistance, opening export markets and offering educational opportunities, for example, ‘that is already happening,’ Gill said. ‘Washington is handing over the script for China to use’… China has aggressively expanded into Latin America, including through enormous infrastructure projects. In Venezuela, for example, estimates of total Chinese investment, including loans and investment in the oil industry, range from $60 billion to $100 billion… China has also grown its trading ties with the Middle East, including taking advantage of U.S. sanctions on Iran to buy discounted oil.” Simon Elegant and Huiyee Chiew for the Washington Post, January 16th.

How long will it be for the US to be out of providing the reserve currency (the global metric for cross-border valuations? If Americans think prices are absurdly high now, without global acceptance for American financial infrastructure, they ain’t seen nuffin’ yet. For Americans planning travel to Europe any time soon, or towards most countries, I have one word of advice: don’t! By the way, Trump’s efforts to attack Fed Chair Jerome Powell and take control of the Fed haven’t made him popular with his buddies in corporate America, as the immediate plunge of out stock markets will attest.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this is one lesson Trump seems to want to learn the hard way, although his arrogance may cause irreversible damage to our economy… impacting all of us in a very bad way.