Trump’s Foreign Policy

[Grifman]

This is just nuts:



Mexico is not going to stand by while US troops invade Mexico. There are going to be US casualties, maybe IS prisoners. And what about civilian casualties? What if Mexicans shoot at US choppers? Will the US call in air strikes? This will get out of control very quickly.

[GreenGoo]

United States of America: Rogue State.

Fun stuff.

[LawBeefaroni]

Funny how when it's fentanyl from Mexico he'll send in the troops but when it's OxyContin from Purdue he'll settle with the Sacklers and shield them from liability.

[Blackhawk]

If we start invading our neighbors for the hell of it, he's going to find that it's very, very difficult to get new recruits.

[Daehawk]

Im not reading this thread and will probably step back more from this area of the forum now that Trump is in. But I saw this title and had to ask myself....does he even have any foreign policy other than withdrawing and quitting most everything or trying to tell others what to do?

He's a little kid in an old shit his pants body and feeble dumb mind and Im am WAY past sick of hearing or seeing him so for the next 4 years I plan to avoid him, the GOP, and politics as much as possible and hope for better times and his old age passing to the next dimwit.

[Kraken]

I don't believe anything that gasbag says. We'll see what really happens. It won't live up to the spectacles that we're being promised.

[Punisher]

If we start invading our neighbors for the hell of it, he's going to find that it's very, very difficult to get new recruits.

There's always the draft...

[Kraken]

Regarding the Mexico brouhaha, there are conflicting opinions.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and President-elect Donald Trump agreed in a phone call that their countries will have a “good relationship,” she said Thursday, and she dismissed his threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexico’s exports if it didn’t stop the flow of migrants and fentanyl to the United States.

“There will not be a potential tariff war,” Sheinbaum told reporters in her daily news conference.

Sheinbaum and Trump have given dramatically different versions of the call Wednesday. Trump said on his Truth Social platform that Sheinbaum had agreed to “stop Migration through Mexico,” which would mean “effectively closing our Southern Border” immediately.

That prompted a response late Wednesday from Sheinbaum: “Mexico’s stance is not to close borders but to build bridges.”
...
Gabriel Guerra, a former Mexican diplomat, said the change in tone from Monday indicated that Trump wasn’t seeking to impose tariffs but to score a political victory.

“He can now say his communiqué [on tariffs] was so strong and powerful, and the best communiqué in the history of the world, and he got Mexico to quickly comply,” said Guerra, a communications consultant.

But in reality, he said, Sheinbaum’s comments suggest she hadn’t committed to any dramatic change. “This is going to be tinkering with what we’re already doing,” he said.

Remember, everything is performative to trump.

[Alefroth]

And the suckers will swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

[GreenGoo]

Maybe the army can pick up the missed wall payments while they are in town.

[Holman]

Im not reading this thread and will probably step back more from this area of the forum now that Trump is in. But I saw this title and had to ask myself....does he even have any foreign policy other than withdrawing and quitting most everything or trying to tell others what to do?

His foreign policy will be aimed at getting himself and his cronies safely into the untouchable international-oligarch class.

Legitimate US interests will be tertiary at best.

[Grifman]

One problem - among many - with the proposed cartel plan is the asymmetrical options the cartels have. Theses guys aren’t a continent away, they are right next door. We raid their operations - they send ops teams, or even better, drones across the border, targeting US border infrastructure or civilians.

What’s the U.S. going to do if the border fences or walls are blown up in multiple locations, or Border Patrol posts are hit, or half a dozen ranches go up in flames with families killed. The cartels can always escalate in ways that will inflict a great deal of pain at minimal cost to them.

[GreenGoo]

But not to the pentagon, and even more importantly, not to drumpf, his friends, or his grift centers.

I wish I was being facetious. What's worse, is that the right wing misinformation machine will minimize, diminish, and memory hole anything the cartels do in retaliation. Or use it as a weapon against the left.

It's dystopia time in the US. The lack of concern for facts and reality has made it all easy peasy.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

[Blackhawk]

What’s the U.S. going to do if the border fences or walls are blown up in multiple locations, or Border Patrol posts are hit, or half a dozen ranches go up in flames with families killed.

Declare a state of emergency, take emergency powers, deploy the US military on the southern border (and thus onto US soil, opening a can of worms Trump would love to have open), institute a draft, delay elections due to the 'extreme circumstances', the possibilities are limitless. Yeah, that's a slippery slope, but it's exactly the kind of slope that other oligarchs have pushed their nations down to establish and maintain power.

[LordMortis]

I don't see TFG being a draft president. I do see him being an appeal to youthful jack booted thug expressions of alpha military, look the other way for abuses of "don't call it martial law" president.

[Grifman]

What’s the U.S. going to do if the border fences or walls are blown up in multiple locations, or Border Patrol posts are hit, or half a dozen ranches go up in flames with families killed.

Declare a state of emergency, take emergency powers, deploy the US military on the southern border (and thus onto US soil, opening a can of worms Trump would love to have open), institute a draft, delay elections due to the 'extreme circumstances', the possibilities are limitless. Yeah, that's a slippery slope, but it's exactly the kind of slope that other oligarchs have pushed their nations down to establish and maintain power.

Well, if you want to go that far, sure, maybe, but I’m not going there, at least not yet. And that’s not really the topic here. But that doesn’t seem to be the plan. The plan is to eliminate the cartels, and that’s just not going to work.

[Blackhawk]

We have no clue what 'the plan' is. We just know what he said the plan is. And no, I don't think that my post is an accurate prediction (which is why I added the bit about the slippery slope), but is meant to suggest that strikes into America from those he doesn't like may be something he sees an advantage in.

Taking actions by the GOP at face value when the real intent was something else entirely is a big factor in how we got to where we are.

[GreenGoo]

I think at a bare minimum, for a news org to hire someone, they need to confidently admit that drumpf lost in 2020 and that the Jan 6th mob acted criminally and therefore it is right and just to charge and convict those proven guilty. No weasel words. No redirecting. Straight up.

Period.

Now we can look at your resume and see if you have any actual journalism qualifications.

[hepcat]

The plan is to eliminate the cartels, and that’s just not going to work.

My guess is the plan is to get some of that sweet cartel money Trump knows they have after watching Narcos on Netflix a few weeks ago. He sends in a troop, scares them a bit, then lets them know it can all stop….for a price.

[Holman]

One problem - among many - with the proposed cartel plan is the asymmetrical options the cartels have. Theses guys aren’t a continent away, they are right next door. We raid their operations - they send ops teams, or even better, drones across the border, targeting US border infrastructure or civilians.

What’s the U.S. going to do if the border fences or walls are blown up in multiple locations, or Border Patrol posts are hit, or half a dozen ranches go up in flames with families killed. The cartels can always escalate in ways that will inflict a great deal of pain at minimal cost to them.

They don't want war. They merely want to move profitable products to hungry US markets. And they have plenty of ways to do so, some of which don't even involve crossing the Southern US border.

Armed pressure against cartels in northern Mexico will just push them south, where they will struggle for supremacy against other cartels there. But the flow of drugs will continue as long as Americans are looking to use drugs. It hardly matters which cartel is shipping them.

That's just capitalism.

[Daehawk]

Legalize all drugs problem solved.

[Max Peck]

Of course it's a joke. Canada would be two steps behind Puerto Rico on the road to statehood, post annexation. You clearly can't have a bunch of pissed-off former Canadians voting for Democrats, now, can you.

Trump (Jokingly?) Suggests Canada Become 51st State

I hope you’re getting used to waking up to the stupidest news you’ve ever heard because the latest dispatch on Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration antics is really something. Last week, Trump reportedly suggested to Justin Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state.

That sounds like a joke, I know — and it probably is? But maybe not!

Apparently, Trump floated this idea during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, which the Canadian prime minister suggested after Trump tried to conduct serious trade negotiations via Truth Social. When Trudeau warned that Trump’s threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada would have dire economic consequences, the president-elect suggested the U.S. could just annex the second largest country in the world, per Fox News. The remark was met with nervous laughter, but it’s unclear if Trump’s audience was laughing along with him or was simply stunned

[LordMortis]

Of course it's a joke. Canada would be two steps behind Puerto Rico on the road to statehood, post annexation. You clearly can't have a bunch of pissed-off former Canadians voting for Democrats, now, can you.

Trump (Jokingly?) Suggests Canada Become 51st State

I hope you’re getting used to waking up to the stupidest news you’ve ever heard because the latest dispatch on Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration antics is really something. Last week, Trump reportedly suggested to Justin Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state.

That sounds like a joke, I know — and it probably is? But maybe not!

Apparently, Trump floated this idea during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, which the Canadian prime minister suggested after Trump tried to conduct serious trade negotiations via Truth Social. When Trudeau warned that Trump’s threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on all goods from Canada would have dire economic consequences, the president-elect suggested the U.S. could just annex the second largest country in the world, per Fox News. The remark was met with nervous laughter, but it’s unclear if Trump’s audience was laughing along with him or was simply stunned

Wouldn't it be states 51 through 61? And then wouldn't that have too much potential to mess with GOP gerrymandering?

[Max Peck]

Wouldn't it be states 51 through 61? And then wouldn't that have too much potential to mess with GOP gerrymandering?

You forgot about the 3 territories (literally) on top of the 10 provinces. But it wouldn't be any states, initially, just one big unincorporated territory with even less self-determination than Puerto Rico.

[El Guapo]

Wouldn't it be states 51 through 61? And then wouldn't that have too much potential to mess with GOP gerrymandering?

You forgot about the 3 territories (literally) on top of the 10 provinces. But it wouldn't be any states, initially, just one big unincorporated territory with even less self-determination than Puerto Rico.

Probably the conservative providences / areas would become states, and the rest would be one giant "Rest of Canada" state.

[Max Peck]

Wouldn't it be states 51 through 61? And then wouldn't that have too much potential to mess with GOP gerrymandering?

You forgot about the 3 territories (literally) on top of the 10 provinces. But it wouldn't be any states, initially, just one big unincorporated territory with even less self-determination than Puerto Rico.

Probably the conservative providences / areas would become states, and the rest would be one giant "Rest of Canada" state.

Even most "conservative" Canadians are more like Democrats than Republicans, and not politically reliable at a general population scale. I'm convinced that the plan would be to treat an annexed Canada as an unincorporated territory, probably with administrative subdivisions based on the provinces and territories. Eventual statehood would only happen some time after the territory has been colonized by proper Americans.

[Holman]

Canada fantasies aside, what do we think Trump's actual foreign policy will be?

Clearly he has an isolationist streak, but only in the sense of refusing aid to foreign countries because it costs money. Foreign emoluments will continue to be welcome.

Obviously he wants to join the Authoritarian club because he loves the idea of being "respected" for his wealth and power.

Leaving (or just passively quiet-quitting) NATO seems very likely. He knows Europeans laugh at him.

He considers Zelensky a personal enemy. Ukraine is absolutely fucked on day one.

Taiwan? Also fucked in due time.

His greatest diplomatic achievement will probably be arranging for Saudi-led countries and Putin to sit it out while Israel attacks Iran. Surprisingly, this will somehow not lead to lasting peace in the Middle East.

[Kraken]

Trump's foreign policy will be guided by flattery and bribes, favors and grudges, and the interests of whomever among the serious people has his ear at any given moment. Trump is a bully, so America is going to bully anyone who dares stand up to him.