No, not that. The soccer kids in Thailand all got out safely. Thank God for that. All are okay, last I heard. The world sighs with relief for those children and their coach. What a nightmare that was.
No, that tragedy has been averted. Miraculously so.
The new problem is that the leader of the European Union is unhappy with Donald Trump. Oh, my. God forbid. The President's plane should be landing any time now. Who knows what he will say tomorrow?
Despite the fact that the E.U. will take a financial haircut if Trump looks out for American interests, E.U. President Donald Tusk has decided to preen on the global stage. Read this:
Brussels – Speaking on the eve of the NATO summit here in Brussels, I would like to address President Trump directly, who for a long time now has been criticising Europe almost daily for, in his view, insufficient contributions to the common defence capabilities, and for living off the US.
Dear President Trump: America does not have, and will not have a better ally than Europe. Today Europeans spend on defence many times more than Russia, and as much as China. And I think you can have no doubt, Mr President, that this is an investment in common American and European defence and security. Which can’t be said with confidence about Russian or Chinese spending.
I would therefore have two remarks here. First of all, dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don’t have that many. And, dear Europe, spend more on your defence, because everyone respects an ally that is well-prepared and equipped.That last sentence sounds like a concession that E.U. members should pay their fair share of NATO obligations, as Donald Trump had earlier insisted. Then came the telling statement:
Money is important, but genuine solidarity is even more important. Speaking about solidarity, I want to dispel the American President’s argument, which says that the US alone protects Europe against our enemies, and that the US is almost alone in this struggle.
Europe was first to respond on a large scale when the US was attacked, and called for solidarity after 9/11. European soldiers have been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with American soldiers in Afghanistan. 870 brave European men and women sacrificed their lives, including 40 soldiers from my homeland Poland.
Dear Mr President, please remember about this tomorrow, when we meet at the NATO summit, but above all when you meet president Putin in Helsinki. It is always worth knowing: who is your strategic friend? And who is your strategic problem?
h/t: Sundance at The Last Refuge
Huh? Wait! What? Solidarity is more important than the money at risk? You think my mortgage lender will buy that line of reasoning? Or tax-paying Americans and their unemployed neighbors?
Notice how all talk of paying one's debts drops out of the conversation. Convenient, eh? Money suddenly isn't important, but solidarity is. Tusk shifts the conversation to who first expressed sympathy after the attack in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. The E.U., of course. Boy, oh boy, that sure saved a lot of lives, didn't it? But thanks so much for the call. It was a nice thing to do. And the right thing. So now we can go on doing the things we did before, right, what with solidarity and all? The U.S. continues to lose manufacturing jobs, the E.U. enjoys a trade surplus and thus can afford its immigration and welfare programs, and we skip on down the road, right? American workers be damned, right? Plus all those unemployed folks.
Who is he kidding? Tusk can stick his beak in his feathers all day long, but the U.S. still remains the largest global market in the world. If the E.U. can't sell their products here, they are in trouble. Trump knows that. So does Tusk, yet still he blusters. In effect, he is raising the ante while holding a pair of deuces. Meanwhile, Trump has forty-seven cards to sift through to find his preferred hand. Four aces, maybe ... or a royal flush? It's Trump's decision. Tusk will find out tomorrow how the game is played.
Don't doubt Donald Trump. When he says America First, he means it. He has the consumer market to back him up. Plus an invigorated manufacturing sector made possible by tax cuts and tariffs. He wants the U.S to be self-sufficient again. That's the essence of MAGA. Tusk knows as much. He's just jockeying for position on the global stage. Some call it virtue-signalling. It won't work. But, still, it makes Tusk look good among his self-preening peers. Come tomorrow, Trump will call Tusk's bluff and lay out his hand. At that point the preening ends and the bird-droppings begin. The E.U. will have another oh s**t moment when Trump calls their bluff.
Trump plays for keeps. Watch and see.
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