Colleagues, please, we can’t talk about climate at an ECONOMIC meeting
Trump at the G7 is whining because Macron is doing things his way instead of Trump’s way. Isn’t the entire world supposed to do things Trump’s way? If not, why not?
Macron had ripped up the script before anyone even landed in the seaside resort of Biarritz: picking a fight with Brazil over Amazon forest fires, surprising the Europeans with a threat to block a trade deal with Latin America, and keeping allies guessing about what trick he would pull next.
Did Macron “pick a fight” with Brazil over Amazon forest fires, or is Bolsonaro picking a fight with all of us by clear-cutting the Amazon? Who is really the baddy here?
With mounting threats to the global economy, divisions over Iran, and the Amazon fires creating a sense of crisis about the environment, the French organizers also want to avoid leaks that could lead to the kind of public bust-ups that have marred other recent international gatherings. For better or worse, G-7 meetings are a critical institution when it comes to addressing truly worldwide problems.
What the French hosts can’t control is a U.S. leader who already seems on edge, after spending Friday lashing out at the Federal Reserve and China as the trade war he began risks tipping the world into recession.
Trump “already seems on edge”? Trump is permanently both deranged and stupid. He’s not in a mood, he’s always on the edge of some abyss or other.
As soon as they landed, U.S. officials complained that Macron was trying to fashion the weekend’s agenda to isolate Trump, framing it around climate change and straying from the G-7’s original purpose as an economic bloc. French officials at every level had been difficult to deal with in preparation for the summit, the Americans said.
How do these US official propose to separate economic issues from climate change? Do they think there’s no connection? Do they think global fires and rising sea levels and crop failures are not going to touch the economy? Do they think famines and mass migrations and wars float free of economics?
Mentioning an “edge” at all suggests he has a connection with reality, however tenuous, that just does not exist. Trump is off the edge, off the ledge. I would describe his condition as perpetual free-fall.
The world is burning and the only reason it’s being mentioned is to make Trump look bad? It’s exactly like raising concerns for the safety of women and girls is only ever done to make TIMs look bad. No other reason at all.
Addressing the climate crisis is going to disrupt the continued enrichment of people who deserve to be rich. What do they need a “climate” or “environment” for? They can truck in bottled water and stay at a nice resort with walls, and gates, and guns to keep out the not-nice people who aren’t rich like them, who are undeserving of anything but poverty, disorder, litter and all those things that white people never countenance.
Oh, and Trump needs no help isolating himself. Every time he walks into an empty room it gets emptier.
And also:
“Gentlemen. You can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!”
Heh, yes. I didn’t consciously think of it but that’s probably what I was channeling.