It Would Be Folly To Take Trump at his Word: About Anything

Richard Mellor

 

It’s difficult to stomach, watching or listening to Donald Trump. He is such a disgusting creature but I have pointed out on more than one occasion I take what he says with a pinch of salt. This not to minimize the havoc his presidency is going to unleash of workers, the poor, immigrants and the US population in general. 

 

But we cannot take what he says literally. He is a snake oil salesman in charge of the largest business enterprise he has had and he’s failed at all of them; U.S. Inc will be no different.

 

He is a dealmaker don’t forget, it’s like a TV show for him. I was just talking with a friend about his threats in the video. For Trump it’s laying the groundwork for negotiations. In the case of Greenland and Canada, we should take in to account that for some time now there have been ongoing reports about the tension between Russia and the US as well as Norway, over increased exploration in the Arctic. Trump is laying the ground work for concessions from Greenland as China is already mining there from reports I’ve read and building infrastructure along the Panama Canal.  And we can be certain that his remarks about Canada becoming a US state have the same goal.  

 

Arnaud Bertrand on X had some interesting comments on the subject as well pointing out that even if the US did place extreme sanctions on Denmark or even invade Greenland, there’s little Europe can do about it. Trump, he writes, “…..sees that not only is Europe weak but also in the absolutely disastrous strategic situation where it is "defended" by him! Which means that Europe is effectively trapped in a mob-style protection racket and is about to relearn the old geopolitical adage (attributed to Thucydides): ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’".

 Not only that, there’s few countries in the world that didn’t lose their possessions or huge swathes of their nation to European colonialism. And continental Europe, particularly the. UK and Germany has supported the Zionist genocide against the Palestinian population. You can read Arnaud Betrand’s comments here. But I do not think Trump has intention of taking Greenland or Canada or the Panama Canal for that matter.

 

In an earlier commentary I pointed out that Trump is not going to be able to do whatever he wants. Not in Congress or the Republican Party. There are divisions and conflicting interests everywhere. Trump has stated that his first priority is extending the tax cuts which would cost about $4 trillion. But his mentor, or one of them, Steve Bannon says that his first priority should be to the workers and middle class people who voted for him.

 

I think the following comment from Robert Wright in response to the Fox clip on Twitter and above is much closer to the mark. Wright says: 

“The problem is: 1) when a president says stuff this crazy, it's genuine news and merits coverage but 2) for Trump, almost all coverage is positive reinforcement--behavior that gets headlines is behavior he repeats. This dynamic will cause much turbulence over the next 4 years.”

 

I think that’s a fairly accurate assessment and the turbulence is already here.