What's the point of negotiating, when one side keeps arbitrarily attacking via the same, illegal means?
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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This is exactly why Canada should just tear up CUSMA and just wait another 24 months. You can't deal with a bad faith partner.
The tariffs are on us. Other countries don't pay shit for Trump's foolishness.
We all suffer... Just look at the oil crisis he created. It's mindboggling what good all the money he destroyed could have done.
Oh absolutely. There's all sorts of other things he's done that have wreaked havoc all over the world. But he's got his blind worshipers convinced that his tariffs are putting the screws to other countries when it's just more attacks on the people he's supposed to be serving.
Guys, you might call me a conspiracy theorist but it occurred to me that this might be the only method of negotiating he knows, and it's not even a good one. He might not be the brilliant master diplomat he always claims to be.
He doesn't have the needed empathy and emotional intelligence to negotiate. Bullying is the only thing he can do
- Throws a tantrum at a country he doesn't like
- Makes Americans pay more for goods
- Art of the deal
Trump only cares for himself and his most loyal base. He doesn‘t care how it affects the US or the world at large. He uses tariffs for market manipulation and incentivizing bribes from companies who want to be excluded from his nonsense. The keyword is gold statue. I am convinced he‘s a much more simple, pathetic guy than most people realize.
The Artlessness of the Deal
He only knows how to bully in every aspect of life. That's why he enjoys rape so much.
🤯
Serious question, does that clown really want to create the biggest economic crisis ever?
If he doesn't think it will affect him personally, he doesn't care what happens.
It wont affect him the slightest because once the economy starts showing this effect he will be dead
Boomers think they will live forever.
Imagine a large sandbox where children play together. Then one big bully and his cronies show up to stomp all the sand castles and confiscate the shovels and buckets, saying his dad owns the playground. If a kid gives him a nickel, the kid gets the tools back. Nobody has a good time. Kids stop showing up. They meet somewhere else now. Everyone hates that bully. The bully doesn‘t care because he got a few nickels out of burning these bridges.
Trump is a playground bully who uses his position to bully people into making him gifts. And he probably thinks he‘s very clever doing that. He is perfectly aware his actions are destroying trillions of dollars in economic damages but the occasional bribe here and deal there have made him a billionaire. For all he cares the USA can burn to the ground along with the rest of the world. He‘s getting his bag like the criminal he is.
We live in a well-informed bubble, but most 'muricans still believe that he's showing the world how to be a strong nation by punishing their bad behavior with tariffs. Midterm elections are coming up, so he needs to up the ante (esp. since the Iran war doesn't really make him look good).
In other words: (short term) votes are more important than (long term) effects of his "policies".
And that’s basically the Trump doctrine. No long term planning. When the ugly consequences rear their head he pivots to another highly visible ‘show of strength’ of course again with no consideration for the consequences.
It's not most
I hope you're right. I hope it's not even most voters.
Yes
To a large extend this is just stock market manipulation for him and his buddies to profit from.
He already has. It takes a few years for these changes to play out. When the shit hits the fan, Americans will vote for the other guys to clean up, and when they can't in 2 years, they'll throw these bums back in. Rinse, wash, repeat.
We really need to take the fight to our own leaders.
Trump et al are despicable and a force of evil, but if Europe would actually stand up for itself, harnesses the power it already has and brought some urgency to our actual sovereignty this would not be happening.
And we, all of Europe, urgently need to wake up to the reality that this isn't some blip. This is the US with its mask off. Sure, it may be a few degrees worse than it used to be but the US has never been a genuine ally. People really need to stop hitting the snooze button.
It is ridiculous and embarrassing that we allow this to happen to us and that we spent literal decades not stepping up our game.
Or be more strategic.
Fake compliance and strengthen our position, just like we’re doing. Newer deals exclude the USA more and more, their economical basis is vaning.
A year ago or so I would have tepidly accepted this as an argument but there's nothing that shows any sense of urgency. It's not that there's nothing happening but it's nowhere near the level it should and there's still a sense of just waiting until he's gone. Except he was already gone and came back, which was completely predictable and he didn't fall from the sky to begin with.
The US had to be in a place where this was possible to begin with. The Democratic party offers zero genuine opposition safe for a few individuals but the establishment does everything it can to keep them out of power. No matter who takes office next, it's unlikely things will change for the better and even if so every four years the situation can go 180 again. The US is not just not a reliable partner, they've become an adversary and to some extent they always have been. We were just refusing to see it.
When it comes to defence and technology there's no coordinated effort to change things around. Trade is moving but slowly. The EU has the ability to crash the US economy tomorrow but we won't even use that fact as leverage.
Sycophancy, real or pretend, does not work. In the history of humanity sycophancy has never improved the situation and often made things worse. Appeasing a bully is the absolute worst strategy. And there's no need - we hold a tremendous amount of power but we refuse to believe in our own strength.
I disagree. There is happening a lot and detangling complex systems takes time.
I don’t get why people think cold turkey diplomacy is beneficial for anyone. People have to plan 5-10 years for transitioning or accept hardship for the citizens, what results in problems by itself.
I never said anything about cold turkeys.
But given that it indeed takes several years to transition an existing system urgency is needed. Every day we wait or half-heartedly do something it only takes longer and only creates more risk and long-term harm.
As for hardship - we're not exactly a poor continent. There's a whole lot we can do to support people and even (small) companies were it needed.
This "urgently" and so forth.. this hasty approach, leads to mentioned hardship and cold turkey.
EU is already doing a lot, while appeasing. There's a lot of investment in chip industry (e.g. RISC-V) happening and European companies like ASML are putting up against bullying. Communications and defense is more European than ever, e.g. with the frequency bands denied for SpaceX or big invests in Eutelsat...
This is just a scratch but there are a lot of things going on. Enough things to read the room, if you're willing to.
It's fine to disagree but don't make it like I said something I didn't.
When it comes to defence we are still spending the vast majority of our money on US weaponry rather than investing it into our own economies and helping our companies scale up. There's a balance but the tilt is quite wrong at the moment and has been for decades. There's no genuine effort into any kind of shared defence continent-wide (just ask Commissioner Kubilius).
The US is ordering ASML to stop exports to China and we are willing to even engage with the US over this instead of just giving them the finger. ASML has an extremely powerful position.
Everything we do is done with such fear of the US and to the degradation of Europe, even the steps towards our own independence are constantly cast in this light.
I am not further engaging in this conversation given that you twice chose to read words I never wrote.
That's just, how I read your text 🤷♂️
And yes, it is fine to disagree.
Defense is shifting largely, and many non-EU countries are following. I don't see your criticism.
What exactly does this do besides making americans pay more for stuff?
I'm not sure why I am asking for logic..
The rubes think he’s sticking it to the other countries. Then when costs go up they believe it’s the democrat’s fault.
All part of the plan
It's called "cut your nose off to spite your face", i.e.: even if I'm suffering for it, at least I've shown the bad Asians and Europeans who's the boss!
Mocking the Supreme Court once more? 😜
Somehow I feel they should fine him this time. Just a billion or two...
It worked so well the last time!
Hmm, problem is, in a way it does: threaten to the max to get any sort of concession from EU etc. And we gave it to him.
We already divested from US goods and services, right?
We divested from them, right?
American goods are not getting more expensive. the tariffs are always on imports, i.e. goods are getting more expensive in the US.
They've got a point though: we should no longer be buying U.S. goods for that would
- reward this openly hostile behaviour.
- play into Donnie's fantasy that tariffs will do anything to the U.S. trade deficit on goods.
- continue, if not deepen trade and technological dependency on a country that proved to be as fickle and unreliable as its diapered disaster of a president.
Wow. At this point it must be based on data that these are highly effective right? Economy in US doesn't seem so hot, but maybe more tarriffs will do the trick?
As I said in another post:
I’m also imposing tariffs on US products and services at home, but I’m much more radical 65 to 80% reduction at this time.
🤷♂️
Trump said that? Or you?
I don't even understand what comes after the "but".
How are these new tariffs? Best explanation would be an extension of existing tariffs which expired.
The new tariffs were a "like for like" swap with the regime that expired on Friday,