Cipheron on 27/1/2025 at 08:01

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Worked in the immediate sense, but Trump just burned a lot of goodwill and political capital to achieve basically nothing.

Right now the Colombians are talking about how to diversify and reduce their reliance on exports to the US so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. So they'll be making bilateral deals with everyone except the US going forward, while they work out how to extricate themselves out of trade deals with an unreliable partner who threatens them.

lowenz on 27/1/2025 at 08:40

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He just needs to destroy worker rights / work regulations for his Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, that's of course his goal.
AfD nationalistic rhethoric is just rhethoric, it's a liberal (in the original sense) party just like the GOP, FdI/Lega in Italy, FN in France, ER in Russia etc. etc. etc.

Starker on 27/1/2025 at 10:00

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You are pointing at something that former US presidents like Obama managed to do regularly and as par for the course. The fact that he needed to do all the macho posturing in the first place is not a point in his favour.

Starker on 27/1/2025 at 15:18

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Obama never needed to, and he was the deporter-in-chief. That's the point -- the US now apparently has to threaten other countries to get even the simplest of things. And it's not that it's anything new -- big countries use their power and influence to coerce smaller countries into doing their bidding all the time. It's just that most of the time they do it in a way that allows the smaller countries to save face and doesn't escalate things.

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Let's make an analogy -- the richest man in town goes to a local store and spits on the floor. The shopkeeper then refuses to sell him beer. He pulls out a baseball bat and threatens to wreck the store unless the shopkeeper sells him some beer. The shopkeeper backs down and sells the man beer.

Now, this method undoubtedly "works", but what has happened is not that the man has gained respect with his actions, as he mistakenly thinks, but he has actually shown the shopkeeper as well as other people in town that he is 1) a bully and 2) unstable.

South America in particular has a long history of the US wrecking their store, so any such behaviour is likely to cause more resentment than it usually would. It's not just Colombia who's taking notice, it's basically the whole of South America. For example, Brazil has now also demanded explanation for the treatment of deportees and even Bolsanaro has spoken out against this. And this kind of resentment is only likely to drive these countries into closer relationships with China.

heywood on 27/1/2025 at 15:33

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Their egos can't coexist or share power. Besides, they have opposite visions for the world: Trump is a textbook reactionary, Musk is a futurist. And they are motivated by different things. Trump is interested in his brand, culture wars, and basking in the glow of big crowds Hitler style. Musk is interested in building his personal global business empire and wants his legacy to be some monumental achievement like going to Mars.

Just wait until Musk realizes that the $280M spent this cycle didn't buy him the power and influence he thinks it should have. I'm pretty confident we'll see the alliance break up before the next election cycle.



The latter half of the 20th century was when we had the biggest middle class, the fewest people in poverty, and the best educational standards in our history. It was when we led the world in technology and productivity and won the cold war to stop the spread of communism. We were more unified as a nation than before or since.

We already had it your way in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was a time of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, out of control business cycles, sweatshops and tenements, most kids leaving school by 13 to work so the family could eat, culture wars, lynchings, the KKK, the spoils system, Tammany Hall and corrupt to the core political machines.



Exactly. Same with Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Egypt, Jordan...
He's pushing our allies and trading partners right into China's hands. Speaking of which, maybe we should go back to engaging with China and try again to steer the CCP away from authoritarianism. With the way things are going, we have no hope of containing them, so we may as well make Chinese world domination as benign as it can be.