Trump at Davos, 2026 version

Apparently, Trump was completely bonkers, dismissive of Scandinavian countries, and insulting of our allies. And they noticed.

CanadianPrime Minister Mark Carney didn't mince words.

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

[...]

Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.

[...]

It seems that every day we're reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.

And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.

And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.

Well, it won't.

So, what are our options?

  World Economic Forum

Continue reading. 

He talks about the fiction of the system we have been living in for decades. It's very good.

He also lays out what Canada has been doing in light of the rupture created by Trump:

We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the EU, including joining SAFE, the European defence procurement arrangements. We have signed 12 other trade and security deals on four continents in six months. The past few days, we've concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We're negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines and Mercosur.

We're doing something else. To help solve global problems, we're pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests. So, on Ukraine, we're a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per capita contributors to its defence and security.

On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark, and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland's future.

Our commitment to NATO's Article 5 is unwavering, so we're working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic Gate, to further secure the alliance's northern and western flanks, including through Canada's unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, in submarines, in aircraft and boots on the ground, boots on the ice.

[...]

On plurilateral trade, we're championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans Pacific Partnership and the European Union, which would create a new trading bloc of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we're forming buyers’ clubs anchored in the G7 so the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. And on AI, we're cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure that we won't ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.

This is not naive multilateralism, nor is it relying on their institutions. It's building coalitions that work – issues by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.

[...]

This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.

[...]

We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and most to gain from genuine cooperation.

The powerful have their power.

But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.

That is Canada's path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.

The world is experiencing a shift away from rules and international law, French President Emmanuel Macron told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.

"It's ... a shift towards a world without rules, where international law is trampled underfoot and where the only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest," Macron said, adding that what he called "imperial ambitions" were resurfacing.

  Reuters

And, what was Trump saying?

[...]

In the midst of an active campaign to burn down the Western world order by forcibly annexing territory from a NATO ally, the rogue president of the rogue United States of America ranted incoherently for some 90 minutes about windmills, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and an apparent daddy fetish.

He confused Greenland with Iceland not once, not twice, but three times.

[...]

The mad, delusional, ranting emperor has no clothes on. And yet there is no truth-telling child in sight. Just a coterie of shameless liars, grifters, and sycophants bent on engaging in a cover-up about the clear mental incompetence of the most powerful man on Earth.

  Zeteo

 

Yes, our president is a piece of shit.

You can only use the same vein so long before you have to give it a rest.

Donald Trump sounded like a fascist dictator suffering from a brain bleed during his speech yesterday at Davos. It was a national embarrassment even by the lowly standards of modern American politics.

[...]

Trump’s screed was chillingly aggressive. He began the Greenland part of it with a thinly veiled threat against NATO, claiming his recent coup in Venezuela proves his regime is a “much greater power than people even understand.” He contrasted his purported strength with European weakness.

“We saw this in World War 2 when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself of Greenland,” Trump said to total silence, adding that “without us, right now you'd all be speaking German and a little Japanese.” (German is in fact an official language of Switzerland.)

[...]
Trump then channeled Hitler during the Sudetenland crisis, demanding “immediate negotiations to discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States" — or else.

“We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be frankly unstoppable. But I won't do that. Okay?"


  Public Notice

And what did he "get" after making a "deal"? Nothing.

Trump shortly after his speech pulled a TACO, posting on Truth Social about a vague “framework of a future deal” involving NATO and Greenland. But during a subsequent interview with CNBC, Trump was unwilling and/or unable to provide any details, instead characterizing the framework (which sure sounds like the status quo) as “a concept of a deal.”

Alas, NATO Secretary Mark Rutte confirmed later on Fox News that the status of Greenland wasn’t even discussed as part of Trump’s “framework.” The “deal” appears to be about as meaningful as a degree from Trump University.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s speech, cable coverage seized upon his “I won’t do that” comment as evidence he’s taken armed aggression against NATO off the table. But of course he also ruled out strikes within Venezuela until shortly before he launched them.

[...]

That Trump backed down hours after his Davos speech is a promising sign that financial markets and diplomatic pressure (not to mention the grassroots organizing that’s taking place in the occupied Twin Cities) can still provide something of a check on his desire to carve up the world between strongmen like himself, Putin, and President Xi. But one year in, he and his regime are getting worse.

[...]

One day after Prime Minster Carney delivered a historic speech at Davos [...] Trump huffed that Carney “wasn’t so grateful” for all America has done for his country and said, “Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.”

[...]

He made up that “we have new steel plants being built all over the country,” claimed that “I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China” (the country in fact operates some of the largest ones in the world), and vowed that there will soon be prosecutions over his 2020 election loss, which he delusionally claimed was “rigged. Everybody now knows that. They found out.”

 He's literally rotten.

UPDATE 02:34 pm:

It's possible.  Old people skin does that.  But what are the excuses for the previous times photographs have shown bruises on his left hand?

UPDATE 01/23/2026:   What it took to bring Kier Starmer around...

 But surely he knows he won't get one.

Dire straits

So, in your own interest, stop buying Russia's oil, or give Ukraine offensive and more defensive weapons and soldiers.

And maybe think about where Putin goes after he takes Ukraine, if he does.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

In a nutshell

Lords of the earth meet virtually

"America is back. I speak to you today as president of the United States at the very start of my administration, and I'm sending a clear message to the world — America is back," [US president Joe] Biden said in what could be a summary of his speech [to the Munich Security Conference].

[...]

"Competition with China is going to be stiff. That's what I expect. And that's what I welcome," Mr. Biden said, adding the U.S. and European partners can "own the race of the future."

The president also spoke of Russia as an adversary, something that threatens the freedom of its people. That's why the U.S. must stand up for Ukraine, and stand against hacking and other Russian tools, he said.

[...]

Mr. Biden also spoke of Iran as a threat to the safety and prosperity of the Middle East.

  CBS

So, back to the status quo: West vs. East.

Earlier Friday, the president participated virtually in the G7 COVID-19 meeting with world leaders and announced the U.S. would contribute $4 billion to COVAX, emphasizing the administration's stance that the coronavirus must be fought around the world.

The Biden administration is also officially reentering the Paris climate accords later Friday afternoon.

Joe Biden, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson topped the bill on Friday in a virtual version of the world’s top gathering on foreign affairs and defense — the Munich Security Conference.

  Politico

Did Australia get booted out of the "Five Eyes" intelligence group, or just snubbed for this meeting?

The online event presented a first opportunity for the new U.S. president to set out his foreign policy agenda to Europe since he took office last month. John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, also addressed the conference — a scaled-down rejig of the gathering that normally fills Munich’s Hotel Bayerischer Hof every February.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and U.N. chief António Guterres were among the other big names on the program.

[...]

Boris Johnson (who has a reputation as a political chameleon) pulled off the trick again. The man Joe Biden once called a Trump “clone” gave a Munich speech that positioned him as the optimistic champion of the transatlantic alliance Trump so often scorned.

[...]

Johnson highlighted the U.K.’s role in standing up to Beijing on human rights over the Munich Security Conference, as he was the only national leader to mention Xinjiang and Hong Kong during the event.

Interesting.

It's “not acceptable for countries to think they can go to Glasgow and simply put out big numbers” for decades into the future, [U.S. climate envoy John Kerry] said. “We are absolutely clearly … now inside the decisive decade.”

Oh, we're way past the decisive decade. We're now in the desperate one.

Scientists have warned that governments need to drastically cut emissions and drop fossil fuel use by 2030 to keep warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Which Joe Biden has officially rejoined as of this meeting.

NATO needs to step up efforts “to fully understand the security consequences” of climate change [noted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg].

[...]

Stoltenberg warned that climate change has a direct impact on military operations and infrastructure, with rising sea levels raising questions over where to built military bases, especially naval bases, and the future of organizing military missions as temperatures are going through the roof.

[...]

“In the future, we will need even more cooperation,” particularly when it comes to dealing with China.

“Neither NATO nor the European Union have all the tools you need to address the consequences of the rise of China,” he argued.

Indeed, a climate pact that leaves out China (and Russia) seems like a huge disadvantage.

In her speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put the regulation of internet platforms front and center — together with fighting climate change — of a new transatlantic agenda.

“The storming on the U.S. Capitol was a turning point for our discussions on the impact social media have on our democracies,” the Commission president said.

“Imposing democratic limits on the uncontrolled power of the big tech companies alone will not stop political violence but it is an important step.”

I wonder what "democratic limits" are.

“I don’t think that TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] will be revived because we are not there where the United States left us four years ago,” she said. “The world has changed, the United States has changed, and Europe has changed.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

NATO news

Donald Trump arrived in the UK to meet Nato allies who are fearful that he could pose a serious threat to the survival of the alliance if he wins re-election next year.

Days before Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting just outside London to mark Nato’s 70th anniversary, the US announced it was cutting its contribution to joint Nato projects.

Nato officials say the cut (which reduces the US contribution to equivalence with Germany’s) was mutually agreed, but it comes against a backdrop of Trump’s longstanding ambivalence about the value of the alliance, and suggestions that US security guarantees to allied nations were dependent on their military spending.

John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser until September, heightened fears among allies about the president’s intentions in a private speech to a hedge fund last month, in which Bolton (according to a NBC report) warned that Trump could “go full isolationist” if he wins re-election next November, withdrawing from Nato and other international alliances.

[...]

The New York Times has reported that Trump has said privately several times that he would like to withdraw from Nato.

[...]

Before leaving Washington on Monday, Trump repeated his complaint about “other countries that we protect, that weren’t paying”.

“They were delinquent. So we’ll be talking about that,” he told reporters, though he noted that allies were now spending $130bn more than before he took office, a development he took credit for.

[...]

A European diplomat in Washington pointed out that under the Trump administration, the US military presence on the alliance’s eastern flank has been stepped up, but expressed concern that such reinforcements were driven by other administration officials seeking to compensate for Trump’s personal affinity for Vladimir Putin and his denigration of his European allies.

“The greatest fear is what he would do in a second term. He would be more free from constraints,” the diplomat said, adding that he was under pressure from his capital to assess what a second Trump term would look like. “It is impossible to predict,” he said.

  The Guardian

But we all know it would be bad.

NATO allies are closing in on a deal to contribute more to allied running costs to reduce the United States’ share of funding, three diplomats familiar with the matter said.

Agreement would meet a demand by U.S. President Donald Trump, though France has made clear it will have no part in the deal, which the alliance hopes to reach before its 70th anniversary summit in London next week.

[...]

The agreement would mean European allies, Turkey and Canada contribute more towards the annual $2.5-billion budget to run the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters, international staff and military assets under NATO command.

Compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars that allies spend on their armed forces each year, it is a small sum. But it is one that allies hope would silence Trump’s statement in July 2018 that the United States “pays tens of billions of dollars too much to subsidize Europe”.

“It is a political gesture,” one senior NATO diplomat of the possible deal. “There is no alliance without the Americans.”

France opposed the proposal long before President Emmanuel Macron described the alliance on Nov. 7 as “experiencing brain death”, French diplomats have said.

[...]

Paris will not block the proposal, but will abstain, the three NATO diplomats said. France’s defense spending is higher than Germany’s as a percentage of economic output, data shows. Paris says it will also meet a NATO target to spend 2% of national output on defense by 2025 at the latest, while Germany will reach that level only in 2031, according to French and German officials.

[...]

Italy has yet to decide its position.

[...]

All 29 NATO member states contribute to the budget on an agreed formula based on gross national income, but this formula would change after the proposed reform.

“It will be a more cumbersome mechanism,” a second NATO diplomat said.

Under the proposal being negotiated for the 2021 budget, the U.S. contribution to the alliance’s annual budget would fall to around 16% from 22%. Germany’s would rise to the same level as the United States and others’ contributions would also rise.

Only seven NATO countries currently meet or exceed the NATO target of spending 2% of national output on defense - the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

  Reuters

The NATO budget is separate from the 2 percent of gross domestic product that each NATO member has agreed as their goal for defense spending by 2024.

Mr. Trump regularly complains about defense spending by other NATO members, but other countries in the alliance have increased their military spending since the Russian annexation of Crimea five years ago by about $130 billion, a NATO diplomat said, a figure that Mr. Stoltenberg is expected to announce next week.

[...]

At a news conference with Mr. Stoltenberg after their meeting in Paris, Mr. Macron defended his own criticism about NATO. The French leader, in an interview with the magazine The Economist, said that the alliance was approaching “brain death” because of a lack of coordination.

He was particularly irked that Mr. Trump had told President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey that he would pull American troops out of Syria without having spoken to other NATO members.

[...]

In [a] gesture to President Trump, NATO announced on Thursday that it had agreed to reduce the United States’ contribution to the alliance’s relatively small central budget, a move aimed at ensuring a calm leaders’ meeting next week in London.

[...]

NATO leaders are trying to keep Mr. Trump from disrupting this meeting, a short one to celebrate the alliance’s 70th anniversary, as he did the last Brussels summit meeting in July 2018.

  NYT

Talk about your unreasonable hopes.

Donald Trump has lashed out at Emmanuel Macron on the first morning of a two-day Nato meeting, saying the French president’s description of Nato as brain dead was insulting and a “very, very nasty statement”.

[...]

“Nato serves a great purpose. I think that’s very insulting.”

He added: “Nobody needs Nato more than France. It’s a very dangerous statement for them to make.”

[...]

At a news conference alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the US president also accused Macron of trying to break away from Nato, as well as running a failing economy.

Trump has described Nato as obsolete on previous occasions.

  The Guardian

Obsolete is ok. Brain dead is nasty. Got it.

Macron made his criticism of Nato in an Economist interview partly to reflect his frustration that Turkey, a Nato member, had entered northern Syria in October without coordination with any Nato partner apart from Trump. Macron believes the invasion has undermined the fight against Islamic State.

[...]

Defending his decision to pull US troops out of north-east Syria, and to green-light the Turkish invasion, he said: “I wanted to get our soldiers out of there, but I wanted to keep the oil.”

Why does no one bring that up? He keeps saying it, and everybody just seems to let it ride.

He also reeled off a string of insults against France, saying: “I think they have a very high unemployment rate in France. France is not doing well economically at all.

“It is a very tough statement to make when you have such difficulty in France, when you look at what is going on with the yellow vests [anti-government protesters].

“They have had a very rough year. You just can’t go around making statements like that about Nato. It is very disrespectful. I’m looking at him [Macron] and I’m saying that he needs protection more than anybody, and I see him breaking off [from Nato]. So I’m a little surprised at that.”

Not nasty at all.

“When I came in, I was angry at Nato, and now I’ve raised $130bn,” Trump said, referring to the sum Stoltenberg says Canada and European members will have added to their defence budgets by next year.

“And yet you still have many delinquent – you know, I call them delinquent when they’re not paid up in full,” the US president said.

And here is where people should stand up and recite the list of contractors Trump has stiffed.

Trump also said a trade agreement with China might have to wait until after the US presidential election in November 2020, denting hopes of a quick resolution to the dispute that has weighed on the world economy.

Every time he touts a great deal with China, nothing happens. Every time.

The Trump attack came only hours after divisions opened up elsewhere in the alliance, with Turkey vowing to oppose a NATO plan to defend Baltic countries unless the alliance backs it in recognizing the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist group.

The YPG’s fighters have long been U.S. allies on the ground against Islamic State in Syria. Turkey considers them an enemy because of links to Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey.

[...]

In an interview with Reuters, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned Ankara that “not everybody sees the threats that they see”, and he urged it, in the name of alliance unity, to stop blocking the Baltics plan.

Queen Elizabeth will host the leaders at Buckingham Palace. But even the British hosts, for generations among the most enthusiastic champions of the trans-Atlantic partnership that NATO represents, are disunited over their project of quitting the EU and distracted by a rancorous election due next week.

“The question is, as we celebrate 70 years, are we waving in celebration or do people think we are drowning?” said a senior European NATO diplomat.

  Reuters

Brain dead.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The no-tension G7

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has floated a plan at the G7 summit to defuse rising tensions in the Gulf by partially lifting the US oil embargo on Iran in exchange for Tehran’s return to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement restricting the country’s nuclear programme.

Donald Trump was noncommittal about the plan. Asked for his reaction at the summit at the French Atlantic resort of Biarritz, the president said he had not discussed the proposal with Macron, contradicting a statement from the Élysée that the G7 had agreed to support a French diplomatic initiative.

  The Guardian

I guess the UK Guardian is also fake news.

America’s differing stance on the climate crisis has been a feature of the past two G7 summits, and just one issue on which divisions were so deep that the meeting was increasingly referred to as the G6 in Quebec last year, when Trump left early.

[...]

US officials insisted the US policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran was working and had international support.

“The G7 countries all agreed the President’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran is having an impact, and that it should continue,” an official familiar with the talks said.

An American official, no doubt.

Under the 2015 joint comprehensive programme of action (JCPOA), Iran accepted strict curbs on its activities in return for tax relief.

Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in May 2018 and has since steadily increased sanctions against Iran. In response, Iran has begun gradually to break out of the JCPOA limits, increasing its stock of low enriched uranium for example, and raising the level at which it enriches uranium. Iranian forces have also stepped up the harassment of oil shipping going through the strait of Hormuz.

The other parties to the JCPOA – the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the EU – have urged both the US and Iran to return to the agreement.

French officials were optimistic they could persuade the US that Macron’s plan was a better alternative to a drift towards a new Middle East conflict.

That's some seriously misplaced optimism.

Senior aides in Donald Trump’s entourage have accused the G7 host and French president, Emmanuel Macron, of seeking to embarrass his US counterpart by making the summit focus on “niche issues” such as climate change, according to multiple US media reports.

  The Guardian

Only in the current ultra-right-wing climate is climate change a niche issue.

Macron’s plan to heal divisions among G7 leaders in Biarritz this weekend apparently did not factor in the need to keep Trump’s aides happy too.

The spark for the fuse appeared to be lunch. Macron whisked the US president away for an impromptu meal for two on an oceanfront terrace at the Hotel du Palais. Trump initially appeared frosty but later called it “the best meeting we have yet had”.

But even as Mr. Trump bragged about what he called “a special relationship” with Mr. Macron, saying they have “been friends for a long time,” members of Mr. Trump’s administration were publicly and privately dumping on the French president and his team.

[...]

Senior administration officials said that the agenda would center too much on issues designed to play well with Mr. Macron’s domestic audience — like climate change, income and gender equality, and African development — and was engineered to highlight disagreements with Mr. Trump’s administration.

They accused Mr. Macron’s aides of ignoring pleas by Trump administration officials to focus the summit, which runs through Monday, on national security and a looming economic slowdown.

  NYT

So, that's what Fox will report, and what Trump will be tweeting soon.

[A]ccording to Mr. Trump’s advisers, the success or failure of the two-day gathering will be measured by how seriously Mr. Macron and the others address a weakening economy — something that threatens Mr. Trump’s own re-election campaign if it drags down the American economy next year.

[...]

Mr. Trump easily tires of the niceties of diplomacy. Last year, he arrived at the G7 following a Twitter tirade about tariffs with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, whom he continued to berate after leaving and backing out of the joint statement with the other leaders.

Before arriving this year, Mr. Macron said he had decided to abandon efforts to craft a joint agreement at the end of the summit, describing it as an attempt to avoid the inevitable clash with Mr. Trump. He told reporters it would be “pointless” to try to reach consensus on issues like climate change with a leader who has made his contrary views quite clear.

The two men have also recently clashed over Mr. Macron’s imposition of a digital services tax on big American tech companies. Mr. Trump has threatened to retaliate with a tax on French wine, adding to the trade tensions between the countries.

[...]

[D]own the road in Bayonne, 13,000 police officers were arrayed, firing tear gas and water cannons on Saturday to disperse protests by demonstrators opposed to globalization and other tenets the Group of 7 represents.

Meanwhile, when he has down time in his hotel, instead of focusing on the issues, Trump is tweeting shit from watching TV.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Still failing at Twitter

Did he not notice that the spelling was wrong?

Somebody fixed it for him.





At least he's enjoying his meals.  Are they serving him Big Macs?

Also, has Mrs. Macron been able to avoid his clutches this time?

UPDATE:

Rise and whine*

Trying to "will" bad economic times.  Yes, journalists are known for their belief in psychic assault.

Our country is the talk of the world, all right.  The tension is so bad that Macron has said there won't be a traditional joint final communiqué, and European Council President Donald Tusk is skeptical anything will be accomplished, pointedly saying, "Trade deals and the reform of WTO are better than trade wars," Tusk said. "Trade wars will lead to recession, while trade deals will boost the economy, not to mention the fact that trade wars among G7 members will lead to eroding the already weakened trust among us."

Getting along very well.  Nobody has punched him in his ugly face yet.



Two white supremacists in a pod.

Somebody else needs attention...



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

*h/t pourmecoffee

Beautiful letters

President Trump has sent highly unusual, Sharpie-written notes to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at least twice.

[...]

The May 1–7, 2017, issue of Bloomberg Businessweek — featuring a picture of Trudeau headlined "The Anti-Trump" — caught President Trump's attention, according to 4 sources with direct knowledge. Trump tore the cover off the magazine and wrote on it, in silver Sharpie, something to the effect of "Looking good! Hope it's not true!" according to these sources.

Before the White House mailed this diplomatic correspondence, it went through the normal clearance process inside the National Security Council. While some White House staff thought it was not the appropriate way to communicate with a foreign leader, they ultimately figured "it was done in good fun and would be interpreted as positive outreach," said a source with direct knowledge of what happened.

The Canadian ambassador thought it was a prank, according to 2 sources familiar with the situation. He called the White House to check, and a White House official confirmed to the ambassador that the note was real.

[...]

Months later, on Dec. 8, 2017, President Trump falsely told a rally crowd in Pensacola, Florida, that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada. Around that same time, Trump also mailed Trudeau a document purporting to show that the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada.

[...]

Trump wrote in Sharpie on the document: "Not good!!" or something to that effect, the source recalled. Trump's document only mentioned America's deficit in the trade of goods and ignored its surplus in services (the two combined would gave the U.S. its overall surplus).

A few weeks later, Trump received a handwritten letter from Trudeau.

[...]

"Dear Donald," Trudeau wrote in the letter dated Dec. 20, 2017, according to a source with direct knowledge of its contents, which 2 other sources confirmed. "It's been a busy year! Enjoy the Christmas holidays — you deserve it."

"One thing," Trudeau added. "You gave a great speech in Pensacola, but you were slightly off on the balance of trade with Canada. USTR says so! All the best for 2018, Justin."

[...]

Trudeau enclosed a printout of Canada's informational page from the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Trudeau underlined the section on the USTR website, which at the time reported that "the U.S. goods and services trade surplus with Canada was $12.5 billion in 2016." Trudeau circled the $12.5 billion and drew a cheeky little smiley face next to it, according to a source with direct knowledge.

[...]

In a conversation in the White House last year, Trump told aides he thought Canada was "the worst" country to negotiate with.

[...]

Trump now says very little about Trudeau, according to an adviser, and believes he and his trade representative Bob Lighthizer got the better of the Canadians in their trade negotiations.

[...]

Trump privately refers to Trudeau as a "wise guy," per sources with direct knowledge. He describes Trudeau as young and cocky, and he resents it when Trudeau comments on American politics.

[...]

Trump has also privately described Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland as "very nasty," according to senior administration officials.

Trump was pleased with the optics of the G7 last year, an adviser said. Trump says he dominated Trudeau there, the adviser added, and loves the viral photo of himself sitting with his arms crossed as world leaders hover over him. Trump also relished leaving the summit early — snub to Trudeau, who Trump said had treated him with disrespect.

[...]

Last week, Trump chided Macron on Twitter for "purporting" to represent the U.S. in conversations with Iran.

[...]

Trump's bromance with France's 41-year-old leader Emmanuel Macron has faded, and Trump privately places Macron in a similar “wise guy” category as the 47-year-old Trudeau.

  Axios

Impeach.

Dear Toddler: The world is tired of your tantrums

"Emmanuel".  Not President Macron.

France’s top diplomat on Friday defended his nation’s efforts to reduce tensions with Iran, a day after US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to say the French president doesn’t speak for the United States on Iran.

[...]

French President Emmanuel Macron had been expected to present Trump with a potential package to de-escalate tensions with Iran on the sidelines of the G-7 summit that Macron is due to host in Biarritz, France, August 24-26, said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group.

“My sense is that this is most probably another attempt by the president’s national security team to sabotage another mediation effort which has the potential to de-escalate tensions between Iran and the US,” Vaez told Al-Monitor, recalling that the US announced new petrochemical sanctions on Iran just before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe traveled to Iran in June with a message from Trump, “basically burning that initiative before it even began,” Vaez said.

[...]

Macron has been talking with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at length every week, as well as frequently with Trump, in recent weeks.

  Al-Monitor

That must be a nightmare.

It died

Come on.  We know what happened. Somebody assassinated it.  And if you don't believe it, look at the grass.

The sapling came from Belleau Wood, north-east of Paris, the location of a ferocious but pivotal battle in which 1,811 Americans died in June 1918 during the first world war.

[...]

Even at the time, the auspices were not good: jokes quickly spread on social media that Macron was trolling Trump over his environmental policies.

Once the cameras had departed, the tree was uprooted and placed into quarantine to avoid the spread of non-native diseases and invasive insects.

Gérard Araud, the then French ambassador to the US, explained the quarantine was “mandatory for any living organism imported into America” and said the tree would be replanted later. Images showed only a yellow patch of grass in the spot on the White House south lawn where the tree had been planted.

[...]

Now it appears the oak did not survive its time in quarantine. Its death was confirmed by a diplomatic source to Agence France-Presse. Just like the Macron-Trump love-in, it is no more.

  The Guardian

I can believe they didn't bother to try to keep it alive in quarantine, on the other hand, why is the grass yellow at the planting site?

Disgraceful.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

French riots

Across France, more than 75,000 gilets jaunes [yellow vests] demonstrated all day on Saturday in cities or blocked roads and toll booths, with some briefly storming the runway at the Nantes airport and others blocking major motorway junctions or targeting prefects’ offices and tax offices.

[...]

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, will hold an emergency meeting of senior ministers on Sunday after central Paris saw its worst unrest in a decade on Saturday. Thousands of masked protesters fought running battles with police, set fire to cars, banks and houses and burned makeshift barricades on the edges of demonstrations against fuel tax rises.

[...]

On Sunday morning, Paris authorities hired extra trucks to begin removing the carcasses of burnt cars on from the scorched pavements of some of Paris’s most expensive streets, amid graffiti calling for Macron to resign.

Piles of teargas canisters littered broken pavements in front of rows of shattered shopfronts and smashed windows, as TV channels showed non-stop footage of central Paris in flames during Saturday’s events.

[...]

Some 5,000 peaceful gilets jaunes demonstrators marched down the Champs Élysées at midday on Saturday, some carrying roses, many shouting: “Macron, resign!” and singing the national anthem.

[...]

The spontaneous citizens’ movement, began in mid-November protesting against rising fuel taxes but it has morphed into a much broader anti-government and anti-Macron one challenging inequality and poor living standards.

[...]

Violence erupted on the margins of [the] demonstrations.

[...]

[B]y early afternoon, the Arc de Triomphe was surrounded by masked protestors fighting running battles with police. The interior minister Christophe Castaner said thousands of troublemakers unconnected to the peaceful demonstrations had deliberately come to “pillage, smash, steal, wound and even kill”. He called them rioters who were “professionals at causing disorder”.

[...]

More than 400 people were arrested on Saturday, with over 300 still in police custody on Sunday. More than 130 people were injured, while one protester is in serious condition in a coma.

  The Guardian

On the margins. Masked. So who were the agitators?

UPDATE 12/4:  The French government is suspending the tax increase.

Let the French bashing begin

I'm surprised it took this long. I guess he had to wait until he talked to Sean Hannity.









Please don't.  You see how that's going here.

Oh, SLAP - Part 2

He has three options:  rage tweet when he gets back, pretend none of this happened, spin it all with some ridiculous tweets about how it shows they love him.  Which do you think he'll pick.  (I left off repent and concede, for obvious reasons.)

Oh, SLAP

French President Emmanuel Macron tore into “nationalism” in an apparent jab at President Trump during his Armistice Day remarks in Paris.

Speaking Sunday at the Arc de Triomphe beside Trump and other world leaders, Macron decried nationalism as “a betrayal of patriotism.”

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,” Macron said. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying our interests first... we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace, and what is essential: its moral values."

  The Hill

Cue the nasty tweets.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Making nice in Paris

The US and French presidents worked to project unity of opinion over whether Europe should create an army of its own, but their meeting got off to a fractious start.

[...]

Trump responded to his host as he arrived in France late on Friday, by tweeting that Europe should pay “its fair share of Nato”.

Macron’s office said Trump had misunderstood the French president’s comments. The leaders met on Saturday at the Élysée Palace and, asked about the tweet, Trump said Macron should “understand that the United States can only do so much,” adding that the US wanted to help. Trump said he and Macron were “getting along from the standpoint of fairness”.

  The Guardian

He whines a lot about fairness. It's hard to believe he never got his fair share as a child, but what else keeps him harping on that theme?

An official in Macron’s office said Trump had combined two different comments by the French president, and that the comments would be on the table for Saturday’s meeting. Macron said in an interview earlier this week that Europe needed to protect itself against “China, Russia and even the United States” in terms of cyberspace. Later, Macron reiterated that Europe needed to build up its own military because it could no longer depend on the US for defence.

No doubt Trump got his information from Fox News.

Macron said: “I do share President Trump’s views that we need a much better burden sharing with Nato and that’s why I do believe that my proposal for a European defence [is] utterly consistent with that.”

Clever lad.

In comment before the leaders went behind closed doors for talks, Macron referred to Trump as “my good friend”.

Way to play him. So sad one has to.



You know he's jealous of Macron.  Just look at that setting.  There are no gold walls at the White House.

Oh shit

He's supposed to be going to Paris to enjoy a fun filled military parade with the French President.

Macron's climate - trade line in the sand

In a fiery address to the UN punctuated by a claim that France will not sign a trade deal with any country outside the Paris climate agreement, President Emmanuel Macron railed against nationalism and stressed the importance of collective action in confronting the world's problems.

  Axios

It does seem rather bizarre that a signatory to the UN and a major player would go before the entire body and proclaim exceptionalism and unilateralism. But that's what America is in the age of Trump - bizarre.

Also, Macron crossed Trump in speaking about Palestine.

Trampling on the Palestinians and pushing unilateral initiatives will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Macron said taking a swipe at his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump's policy on the issue.

"What can resolve the crisis between Israel and Palestine? Not unilateral initiatives, nor trampling on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to legitimate peace. "There is no credible alternative to the two-state solution."
  Haaretz

Maybe the main reason he doesn't like Macron

Is because he keeps losing the handshake wars.



Did Macron grip that hard, or did the spray tan rub off?

How to express dominance when you can't yank an arm

Trump is reportedly running behind, causing the 11:20 AM meeting [with Emmanuel Macron at the G7] to be scrapped. The White House is working to reschedule the one-on-one.

It is unclear if the cancellation is truly due to logistics, or if the recent spat between the two world leaders contributed to the schedule change. Macron has threatened an embarrassing rebuke of Trump as punishment for his tariff threats, saying that the American President could be booted from a declaration of unity by the rest of the leaders to conclude the summit.

  TPM

After an opening day dominated by trade talk, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will shift the G7 conversation to other pressing global issues on Saturday — climate change and empowering women — but at least one leader has opted to skip part of the day's meetings.

U.S. President Donald Trump will leave La Malbaie, Que., early Saturday before G7 leaders are scheduled to have a working session on protecting the world's oceans and redoubling efforts to stave off catastrophic climate change. He will, however, take part in the gender-focused breakfast session billed by Canadian officials as a chance for leaders to draft "concrete actions for the G7 to advance gender equality and women's empowerment."

Why? Is he going to try to stop gender equality progress?

Trump will then duck out mid-morning to begin his nearly 20-hour journey to Singapore where he is expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on June 12, a tete-a-tete designed to encourage the rogue state to end its nuclear program.

You can understand why he has to leave early - he'll barely make it on time to Singapore. The flight takes four days, I'm told.

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

And, again this morning...





What a dick.

Here's video.