Category: Art Of The Deal

Pushback

47 Art Of The Deal 140 Comments

A Manhattan court has ruled against Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs as a result of a lawsuit brought against the US government by importers affected by the tariffs.

A three-judge panel at the US Court of International Trade, a relatively low-profile court in Manhattan, stopped Trump’s global tariffs that he imposed citing emergency economic powers, including the “Liberation Day” tariffs he announced on April 2.

The order halts Trump’s 30% tariffs on China, his 25% tariffs on some goods imported from Mexico and Canada, and the 10% universal tariffs on most goods coming into the United States. It does not, however, affect the 25% tariffs on autos, auto parts, steel or aluminum, which were subject to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act – a different law than the one Trump cited for his broader trade actions.

Update by Kate: The order didn’t last long.

Art Of The Deal

47 Art Of The Deal 33 Comments

National Post- Trump says Canada’s Golden Dome membership costs $61 billion — or free as 51st state

In a post to Truth Social, he said the cost to join in the “fabulous Golden Dome System” — the multilayered missile defence program to counter foreign threats to America, even those coming from space — would be US$61 billion should Canada choose to remain “a separate, but unequal, Nation.”

But join the U.S. as its “cherished 51st state” and protection from the defence program will cost Canada “zero dollars.”

“They are considering the offer,” Trump wrote.

47: Most Favored Nation

47 Art Of The Deal 34 Comments

@RapidResponse47;

@POTUS on Most Favored Nation prescription drug pricing: “We are going to pay the lowest price there is in the world. Whoever is paying the lowest price, that is the price we’re going to get — so we’re no longer paying ten times more than another country.”

More: On accusations that signing an executive order implementing Most Favored Nation prescription drug pricing is “price control,”

Art Of The Deal

Art Of The Deal Claws of the Panda 27 Comments

Protests by workers demanding back wages are spreading across China in a sign of growing discontent among millions suffering the brunt of factory closures, triggered by steep U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports amid an economic downturn.

Across the country – from Hunan province’s Dao county in central China to Sichuan’s Suining city in the southwest and Inner Mongolia’s Tongliao city to the northeast – hundreds of disgruntled workers have taken to the streets to protest about unpaid wages and to challenge unfair dismissals by factories that were forced to shut due to the U.S. tariffs.[…]

Analysts at U.S.-based investment bank Goldman Sachs estimated that at least 16 million jobs, across industries, in China are at risk due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 145% tariff on Chinese imports

Via

Art Of The Deal

47 Art Of The Deal Claws of the Panda 14 Comments

Zerohedge;

To begin the week, we highlighted a potential breaking point emerging in the global economy due to the escalating tariff war: Chinese plastics manufacturers—heavily reliant on U.S. petrochemicals—now face production halts as shipments are increasingly being diverted from the world’s second-largest economy.

Bloomberg cites new ship-tracking data showing that a very large gas carrier hauling U.S. propane has diverted from its initial destination in China to a new port of call in Japan.

The data showed that BW Gemini is hauling 46,000 tons of propane from the U.S. The gas tanker left Phillips 66 Freeport LPG Export Terminal in late March and was initially headed for Yantai, China. However, in recent days, while traversing the Pacific Ocean, the port of call was changed to Imari, Japan. […]

Chinese plastics factories that depend on a gas they mainly import from the U.S. are contending with the prospect of widespread shutdowns as the world’s two largest economies bunker down for a prolonged trade war

The note titled “Chinese Plastics Factories Face Mass Closure As US Ethane Supply Evaporates” focused on ethane, a petrochemical feedstock to produce ethylene, one of the most critical building blocks in modern manufacturing.

Down The Primrose Path

Art Of The Deal Ukraine 59 Comments

Zelensky’s statement is up.

Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format. We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively.

“Volodymyr Zelensky plays Triumph the Insult Comic Dog”

Art Of The Deal Trump Ukraine 182 Comments

Taibbi;

Forget the WEF, the WTC, and WHO. After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington today, the new reigning international body is WTF! Did that really happen?

Zelensky’s much-anticipated meeting with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance Friday afternoon led to one of the weirdest Oval Office scenes in history. What started as nervous diplomacy ended as a Three Stooges pie-fight, with the black-costumed Ukrainian leader leaving as two eyeholes covered in cream.

Trump and Vance fared better, but were clearly taken by surprise. Both were expecting Zelensky to sign a deal forking over $500 billion in rare earth development rights in exchange for American funding during the the last three years of war. Not until early into the photo op did they realize they’d been punked.

This was the beginning of the end of the Zelensky legend. He came to Washington as the tough-talking spokesmodel for the “rules-based international order,” and left as a costumed pre-teen sent home with an empty trick-or-treat basket:

It’s paywalled, but you can read it with a free trial.

And Mark Steyn: The Beltway rumour is that, on his flight to DC, Zelenskyyyy was telephoned by Victoria Nuland, She-Wolf of the Donbass, plus Susan Rice and Anthony Blinken and advised to get tough with Trump. If true, that’s gotta be the worst episode of “Phone-a-Friend” since the plucky little Ukrainian started playing Who Wants to Be a Billionaire (in Euros)?

Down The Primrose Path

Art Of The Deal Trump Ukraine 30 Comments

A pretty good observation from Jay Currie

Reaction to today’s Oval Office activities are an absolutely accurate indicator of the pro or anti-Trump sentiments of those reacting. From Euro astroturf in support of Z to subsidy journalists rising as one to condemn the bullying, they all hate Trump.

For those of us who are not particularly offput by Trump 2.0 and his team, it was a rare glimpse into the way serious politicians are able to spot and slap down a phoney if he goes off script.

There was a mineral deal on the table and there were 40 minutes of conversation of which only a few had Zelensky wandering into dangerous ground. For the TDS brigade the fact there was any dangerous ground was obviously Trump’s fault.

Zelensky occupies a strange position. If you don’t support him you are a Putin puppet and, now a Trump tool. The idea of Peace in Ukraine on anything but Zelensky’s terms is unthinkable to the blob. That would be conceding to Putin.

Trump telling Zelensky that he had no cards to play offended every Eurocrat, USAID recipient and deep stater. There are some truths we just don’t talk about, you brute.

Trump’s a realist. He knows Ukraine is not winning. It’s losing (and after today’s Zelensky tantrum, has probably lost.) Not winning is getting in the way of Peace. Which Trump is not willing to put up with.

Supporting Zelensky ensures that the pointless, unwinnable war continues. A Peace Treaty which conceded the eastern, Russian speaking, parts of Ukraine already occupied by Russia, ends the war on about the best terms Ukraine can hope for.

You may hate Trump and think Putin the devil incarnate, but prolonging a futile war for even one day longer is evil. A fact which Trump knows but which blob members are willing to live with in order to signal a bizarre, pointless, sort of virtue.

With luck Zelensky’s behaviour in the Oval Office today will end any but humanitarian aid to Ukraine. At that point the final pretense that Ukraine can “win” will disolve and with it, I suspect, Ukraine’s Army. Why die in a lost cause.

The Euros will breathe a sigh of relief, they did not want to take on the military and monetary responsibility of Ukraine. They can’t afford it. Zelensky will, if he’s lucky, go into exile. Then we’ll see what can be salvaged. It will be a nasty business but not as nasty as war.

Give him a bump.

Related.

Down The Primrose Path

Art Of The Deal Ukraine 94 Comments

And now, for the rest of the story.

I watched the entire press conference with Zelensky. There was 40 minutes of discussion up to the argument. Most people saw at most the last ten minutes. The whole video gives the proper context.

When I first watched the argument without the proper context, I thought it was possible that Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky or were even trying to humiliate him. That’s not what happened.

You had 40 minutes of calm conversation. Vance made a point that didn’t attack Zelensky and wasn’t even addressed to him, and Zelensky clearly started the argument.

In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always “we’ll see.” Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.

For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would’ve signed a deal.

The argument started when Trump pointed out that it would be hard to make a deal if you talk about Putin the way Zelensky does. Vance interjects to make the reasonable point that Biden called Putin names and that didn’t get us anywhere.

The Zelensky/Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.

Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration. The point Vance made was directed against Biden and the media, taking them to task for speaking in moralistic terms. This offended Zelensky, and that began the argument.

I’ve been a fan of Zelensky up to this point, but this showed so much incompetence, if not emotional instability, that I don’t see how he recovers from this. The relationship with the administration is broken. Ukraine should probably go with new leadership at this point.

You know it’s bad, when Senator Lindsay Graham has bailed.

He did look mad. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has terminated U.S. support for restoring Ukraine’s energy grid immediately after Zelensky was kicked out of the White House.

Read this, too:

Zelinsky tried to “pre-suade” POTUS (“you will feel it in the future,”), which POTUS immediately recognized and pushed back on, HARD.

Neurolinguistic jousting with the master. Didn’t go well.

Full length video is here.

Art Of The Deal: Mexico

Art Of The Deal 16 Comments

DEA’s Most Wanted in U.S. Custody

In a stunning move just days before the Trump administration is set to impose sweeping tariffs over Mexico’s role in America’s fentanyl crisis, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum engineered the largest single-day extradition of cartel leaders in history, delivering 29 top-level traffickers—including one of the most notorious figures in modern drug war history—into U.S. custody.

Among those flown north on Mexican military aircraft Thursday was Rafael Caro Quintero, the infamous cartel boss accused of ordering the brutal 1985 torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena, a crime dramatized in the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico. Other high-profile extraditees include Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, alleged brother of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader “El Mencho,” as well as key leaders from the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi hailed the mass extradition as a turning point in the war on cartel violence. “As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” Bondi said in a press release. “We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers—and in some cases, given their lives—to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels.”

This was done at no small risk to herself, so credit where it’s due.

47: Cabinet Meets With Tech Support

47 Art Of The Deal 44 Comments

This is simply brilliant.

I’m not even going to guess how Democrats pretzel themselves to oppose it, only that “fascism” will be involved. But grab a coffee and watch the whole thing when you have time. There’s plenty about Canada as well.

Art Of The Deal

Art Of The Deal 35 Comments

As we watch events unfold, let’s go over some clear patterns in how Trump does things back to Trump I and is continuing these patterns. Today’s lesson is on leverage.

This is good.

As is this;

You could actually feel the “eye rolls” in DC when Trump, out of blue, said that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. Some would assume that it was an ego thing. It wasn’t. It was a simple method of establishing standing and leverage. Another misassumption was that the change was a message to Mexico. It was. But, more importantly, it was a message to the rest of the world. America First, wasn’t just a campaign slogan. It is Trump’s way of governance. Every leader across the globe sat up and paid attention to that seemingly esoteric move. It has been the Gulf of Mexico for 400 years. In less than a week map companies, tech companies, airlines etc. were all making the change. Such an immediate response in the annals of bureaucratic government are “impossible” and unheard of. And yet… Every single government leader across the globe cringed and realized the changes sought and wrought by the Trump Administration wouldn’t be a long drawn out process. They wouldn’t have time to delay, stall, and drag out any changes with which they disagreed. They could either cooperate or feel the immediate repercussions. That, in its own right, is a created leverage that scares the hell out of most politicians. Change is scary enough for most. But, immediate change is a nightmare.

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