One of the early warning signs of dementia is living in the past and repeating old situations. So it seems Trump could be in line for that as he was roleplaying “The Apprentice” in front of the world.
Probably thought the people around him were the producers. His “that’s why I let this go on for so long”, apparently meaning “look how terrible Zelenskyy is”, was especially telling. He just thinks it’s a great show.
Vance was in a second layer and thought he’s the main character in an old western or thinking about how great this scene will look in his next book. He’s also mirroring the style of former Russian PM and now loudspeaker Medvedev.
Really, people who don’t understand the world outside the borders of their country maybe shouldn’t rise up to jobs where they work internationally.
So sad to see “negotiations” being held in a way that demonstrates they have no clue about history, geography, political theory or anything else outside a spreadsheet.
Or that the US contributed such a big slice of the costs because they are the biggest economy and a country larger than Europe. Of course a single small European country can not contribute the same. Some PP have shown the statistics and figures.
You’d have to compare it using individual US states. But he does know that the contribution is measured in % of GDP, which is an indicator for varying economies. The way he always said “Rare earth” or “rare metals” also showed that he doesn’t even really know what that is and he always sounds checked out of reality. It's all just theatre.
Same as the dogma that they only want to be active within the US borders. How does the talk about Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada, Gaza and space fit in with this? It’s an obvious contradiction, so one of the two sides must be a lie.
They don’t have the right to own any of that. Musk can go to the Moon or to Mars, but there is nothing that says anything there belongs to him or to the US.
The saddest thing is that what they thought was great TV was livestreaming the fall of the American Empire. Great, now you got one over the embattled guy.
But in the future, everyone knows that contracts with US politicians mean nothing, as their golden statue boy demonstrated you can change your mind any minute and explicitly said that what his predecessors legally binding agreed to has nothing to do with him. Why should any other politician then still adhere to contracts?
The boycotts will become stronger and more committed after everyone saw this video.
Scientific cooperations will move elsewhere as the funding could be cut any moment which is too risky when you are going to invest a couple of years in this.
Investments from abroad will reduce, as you can’t rely on the laws and the moment you finish that production space, someone will pull the rug under you because Trump saw a conspiracy theory on TikTok about the thing you wanted to create.
More people will get ill or have accidents because their food safety and health care is compromised and infrastructure isn't maintained or checked often enough. That will make the population less resistant.
Russia and China will gladly move into cooperating more than already with countries in South America and Africa and divide that influence space up between them. Already now China and Russia are buying agrarian land and mines and capture poorer countries with infrastructure deals that are impossible to pay back.
I don’t doubt btw that not all payments in the civil service and agencies are necessary, nor do I think the war should go on forever.
But the way this is handled isn’t smart, it’s inefficient and stupid. It will cost so much to lose experienced and necessary workforce and conceding everything to Putin is pretty much the worst negotiation tactic ever.
I also encourage everyone who didn't yet do it to watch the full video on youtube (from the Guardian and probably other news sites) as it shows the whole trainwreck and there were two groups of journalists; after the first shouting the audience was exchanged and a second group came in for a fresh round.
What we saw yesterday was the USA declaring that they are now a Russian satellite state.