His MAGAsty Meets His Majesty - Trump Thread #163

[Spandauer]

America's very own mad king.
Oh, the irony.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYukmba5Vg

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5518997-schrodingers-strait-trump-thread-162a?page=1

The Bulwark calls the DoJ the Department of Just-Indict-Someone re James Comey charges.
This is the US Treasury's version of it.

The CIA has estimated Iran can hold out for two more months. Iran thinks longer. Trump was close of play was last night to signing his deal. This weekend will be 'interesting' once again.

Yup. And how long can the world hold out ?

Is nobody telling Trump that Iran has been under near crippling sanctions for decades? Offhand, I can't think of any regime that has fell just because of sanctions. Maybe apartheid South Africa ? Not the DPRK for sure. Nor Putin.

Re blockades. Battle of the Atlantic in WW2. That's more complex maybe. But it never worked.

Maybe the world needs to crowdfund some new expert advisors for Trump. In fact, thinking on, he can have Boris for free. That might be a win win.

UAE are defo doing some sort of 5D chess here. And it seems to be working for them ?

UAE is playing the liar role in a world where promises are kept. It's a Philosophical concept of how a person going against the grain can reap personal benefits. It only works when everyone else conforms and only for as long as everything remains the same.

Iran is now on to UAE activities to counter their blockade but I have no idea whether they have the resources to respond. Will this encourage other vessels to try the same tactic? Are the GCC willing to underwrite the risk, as I believe insurance companies have withdrawn coverage for this war/incursion/Trump jolly.

Answers on a postcard to ...

Quote : "UAE is playing the liar role in a world where promises are kept. "

Has Trump ever kept a promise though ?

Has Trump ever kept a promise though ?

I believe that the Democrat was spot on when she replied to a question on Trump - that only a Psychiatrist could answer.

Has Trump ever been honest though?

Personally I think not, he's incapable.

Go UAE, go UAE, give me an U, give me an A, give an E, UAE!

Trump wil not go to the UN, Congress, Courts or anything with power. No, no, no. They could tell him what to do.
And he wants to tell them what to do.
It will be another week or blockade, lift blockade in point A, but there is the other country blockading in point B. Pass, not pass. Shoot, baby, shoot. And talk a bit more BS, lots of it!
Oh, the ceasefire stands. We are having a wonderful ceasefire.

Just guessing here, but I bet the UAE did it with US navy help.

Maybe the UAE have paid Iran ?

Yes, I think that’s very likely indeed.

Snipettes from a Guardian analysis.

“Netanyahu, being the conman that he is, used Venezuela as an example,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, said. “He said to him: ‘Look what you did in Venezuela. It was painless. It was effortless. It was beautiful. You changed the regime.’
“Then he begins bombarding Trump with intelligence data showing that Iran had expanded its missile production and its missile-launching capabilities, and still has 450kg of highly enriched uranium,” Pinkas said.
...
“He told Trump: ‘The Iranian economy is in shambles. The people are on the precipice of revolt. The Revolutionary Guards are losing control. Life in Iran is intolerable. This is our time,’” Pinkas said. “‘What we could do together is bring down the regime … think that together, jointly, we can win the war in three, four days.’”
...
According to multiple reports, US intelligence and military officials stressed the risk that Iran could attack US allies in the Gulf and close the strait of Hormuz.

But Netanyahu – and US administration hawks including the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth – prevailed, arguing that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were overrated and would not have the strength to hit back.

They were proved wrong on every count. The Iranian people did not rise up, the regime did not fall, the Kurds did not attack from the north-west and the Revolutionary Guards were able to inflict withering damage on US bases and Gulf monarchies, close the Hormuz strait and trigger a global economic crisis.
“Some 30 days into the war, by the end of March there were signs that Trump was very disappointed with Netanyahu,” Pinkas said.

...
“President Trump is going to want to have this war more or less behind him by the time he goes to Beijing,” Shapiro said. “Otherwise, he will be in the position of a supplicant seeking Xi Jinping’s help to get them to convince Iran to accept his terms or to make concessions they haven’t made. And that’s a very weak position to be in when he would rather focus on getting some of the Chinese-US economic relations on a more stable ground.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/09/tensions-emerge-bejamin-netanyahu-donald-trump-alliance

There is no way Trump's brain can handle all the ramifications. He must be raging at Iran for not collapsing, and pissed off at the prospect of having to go to Xi with a 'help a brother out' plea.
The only certainty is that his ego won't admit that he took bad advice from the start.

That old phrase, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, comes to mind so often with these people.

Thanks to Trump and co. there are a cornucopia of ways to shift vast amounts of money around without leaving any trail.

Iran know this (and most likely helped build some of the infrastructure that enables this).

SINGAPORE/LONDON, May 7 (Reuters) - With their location trackers shut off to avoid Iranian attacks,

That sounds suspiciously pat (and therefore wrong). If the actual navigable bit of the straits is around 30km, then trackers or not, you could see ships in the water.

Thank you for that link, @logicisall, interesting article. What struck me most in its ridiculous pettiness from a so-called world leader, was this paragraph:

“I think Trump’s jealous of Netanyahu because Netanyahu is one of the few people who can generate more press than he does,” Bolton said, pointing out that despite Trump’s imposition of a ceasefire, “he’s still giving Netanyahu a pretty free hand in Lebanon.”

Seriously?

Seriously. I honestly think the whole of Trump's life and all his actions are an existential howl for attention.
And I am - for what it may or may not be worth - a retired psychotherapist.
He is deeply, deeply insecure and fearful of his own mortality and ultimate meaninglessness.

I have occasionally wondered what Trump actually 'thinks' about when he's alone.

My DH and I discussed what having an inner dialogue means. DH reckons he doesn't really have one, whereas I believe that I do.

Trump gets up every day and it's what... Crickets?

It's hard not to think that Trumps head is full of a lot of voices.

Oh, I’m sure you’re right, my wonder is more at the fact that there is actually an elected head of state manifesting this behaviour unfiltered, not that Trump himself is exhibiting it, if you see what I mean?

@SerendipityJane

...APORE/LONDON, May 7 (Reuters) - With their location trackers shut off to avoid Iranian attacks,
That sounds suspiciously pat (and therefore wrong). If the actual navigable bit of the straits is around 30km, then trackers or not, you could see ships in the water.

And failing that they would be visible by other means, e.g. basic (a.k.a. "primary") radar, WW2 style, which will display a contact even if that target doesn't want to cooperate by transmitting.

The main things these location trackers, or transponders do (and this applied to ships and aircraft) is allow extra data to be transmitted to those interested e.g. registration, Sat Nav derived position, course and speed, and other info.

Ah yes that is astonishing and a very sad indictment of the state of world politics.
Unfortunately the people with the desire to lead are often the least qualified to do so. And want to lead for the wrong reasons.
And Trump is the very epitome of this, and the peak of politics' failures that it has happened. We need different systems, structures, intentions, culture around politics altogether. Much much more emphasis on it being a public service not an ego-feeding career. More understanding of how bloody difficult it is. The narcissists need to be dissuaded from entering politics altogether. How you then incentivise and attract more truly altruistic people I don't know though. Bloody tough gig for anyone genuinely in it for the right reasons.
There are some, of course.

Interesting answer. If everyone tries this, we will then have Shrödinger's toll booth.

I’d put my money on Iran wangling this without Trump even realising it.

If it was done properly, using the c-word, it would be impossible to trace.

And here be a lesson for us all really.

I have an armchair interest in UNCLOS. But my interest is Islands really, and ownership. So I sort of just assumed all the politicians and so on were being honest re charging. Cos sounds about right. But actually no. It's not true.

THEY CAN CHARGE.

On another thread yesterday, I posted a link to UNCLOS and somebody else said LOOK AT ART 26. It was a slap own head moment. ALWAYS FACT CHECK WHAT POLITICOS SAY. Here is y my reply to that poster, pasted below:

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Browsing through UNCLOS, and see this bit re fees.

"Article 26 Charges which may be levied upon foreign ships 1. No charge may be levied upon foreign ships by reason only of their passage through the territorial sea. 2. Charges may be levied upon a foreign ship passing through the territorial sea as payment only for specific services rendered to the ship. These charges shall be levied without discrimination. "

So its clear that no charges should be made ideally.. But there is a compromise. A fee can be charged for services. We can assume that is normally for pilotage. But see how open it is. The state could, for example insist on a specific pollution insurance. They could really make up any fee they want.

And as I wrote the above, I wondered about the Bosphorus. Do Turkey charge ? And it turns out yes, they do.

Turkey raises the fee for the passage of ships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles (gmk.center)

"Starting July 1, 2025, Turkey is bumping up the fee for ships going through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits by 15% to $5.83 per net ton. This was announced by the country’s Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloglu, according to a statement from the ministry."

There is precedent for charging. And freedom of navigation does apply to the Bosphorus. But there does appear to be an earlier treaty. The Montreux Convention of 1936. But UNCLOS should have superseded that. Needs investigation.

I am just a layperson. But Rubio has expert advisors to tell him.
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I wonder if one of them is his Dad's voice 'Nope, still not proud of you, son'.

I think Trump's own voice in his head is asking who he hasn't got revenge on yet.