Invite Russia to the party or else
In case the summit wasn’t going to be acrimonious enough, Trump poured in a new ingredient:
President Trump on Friday said Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven leading economies, breaking with other world leaders who have insisted that Moscow remain ostracized after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“Now, I love our country. I have been Russia’s worst nightmare . . . . But with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting,” Trump said Friday as he left the White House. “Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run . . . . They should let Russia come back in.”
Yes, it’s just silly political correctness to try to discourage big countries from annexing smaller ones. Sensible grown-up realists like Trump know better than that.
Trump’s suggestion that Russia be readmitted to the G-7 was heavily criticized by political opponents back home, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said Trump was “turning our foreign policy into an international joke.”
“We need the president to be able to distinguish between our allies and adversaries, and to treat each accordingly,” Schumer said. “On issue after issue, he’s failed to do that.”
Pffffff. Political correctness run mad. France and Canada are our enemies, and Russia and China are our friends, as any fule kno.
In the past several months, Trump has pushed to completely overturn many of the post-World War II institutions put in place to strengthen global ties. These tensions have created immense strain ahead of the summit in Canada, with top leaders questioning if they are in the midst of a transformational disruption brought on by the United States.
“The rules-based international order is being challenged,” European Commission President Donald Tusk told reporters here. “Quite surprisingly, not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S. … We will not stop trying to convince our American friends and President Trump that undermining this order makes no sense at all.”
The trouble is, “trying to convince” Trump of anything is a mug’s game, because it assumes he’s amenable to persuasion or argument. He’s not. His mind doesn’t work that way. Nothing is joined up in there, it’s all just random firing, so reasoning with him is much the same as bowing to a rock or lighting a candle. You might get lucky and trigger a random firing that prompts him to do something reasonable, but the odds are low.
In one of those funny coincidences the EPA will loosen restrictions and bans on asbestos http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trump-962703
Russia is the only country with active asbestos mines.
That may be so, but look on the bright side. That asbestos is probably mined by slave labour, (dissidents, Putin opponents, anti-Stalinists, elderly Trotskyists, forgotten geneticists….) so it is probably about the cheapest asbestos in the world.
As for mesothelioma, that falls under ‘Science’: and that’s a mixed bag. Electrochemistry is OK, because that is the science that gives us gold-plating, which Trump can’t get enough of. But the rest is a garbage bin: climatology, and the chemistry and physics it is based on….. Fake news. Bad stuff…. Bad….
Seriously? Trump is the bestest at distinguishing between allies and adversaries. If they flatter and praise Trump, they are an ally. If they question or lecture Trump, they are an adversary. It’s elementary. So easy.
And, of course, if they allow Trump hotels, Trump casinos, the Ivanka Trump line, and loans to Jared Kushner, they are super-duper best of the best closest allies of all.
Anyone else think that sounds…dopey?
Dopey AND WORSE. I don’t know how I overlooked it. “We” don’t get to run the world and “we” should never talk about it that way.
A “Group of Seven leading economies” that includes Canada but not India, China or South Korea. When was Russia ever a leading economy? The G7 is essentially the obsolete Atlantic club plus Japan.
Yes I was just thinking that. Russia? Why Russia? Why Russia and not China and/or India? Brazil?
Ophelia,
The G20 includes those countries and many more of course. The organization seems to me to be a more realistic expression of contemporary economic realities than the G7. Apart from Japan and the US, the other G7 economies are rather small compared with China now and India in the future. Brazil is a typical Latin American nation, its enormous potential is routinely sabotaged by the country’s corrupt political and capitalist elites.
“…our American friends and President Trump…” made me chuckle. That’s a Venn diagram consisting of two separate circles.