To hear Donald tell it, this was a trip of historic proportions. What other American president got to see where President Xi lived. Certainly not Joe Biden, who skipped on visiting China during his term of office. Trump was more than glad to tell everyone about it on Air Force One.
Dotardly Don supposedly came back with all sorts of deals, or rather verbal agreements, for China to buy everything from Texas soybeans to Boeing planes to light up the friendly skies between us. You may recall Donnie was none too happy with China last year, engaging in a trade war that left both sides fuming. All's good now. Trump thinks to world of Xi. He was particularly impressed with all the pageantry the Chinese authoritarian leader put on display especially for him, like those "happy and beautiful" children cheering Trump. It was "an honor like few have ever seen before."
See how easy it is to manipulate this manchild. Shortly afterward he was scolding Taiwan for overstepping its bounds and that the Strait of Taiwan means nothing to him. I'm sure Pete Hegseth will hold up the 14 billion USD arms sale to Taiwan, as he has everything earmarked for countries unfavorable toward China and Russia. In short, the Happy Dumpster got played like no president before him. So much so that Xi must be grinning ear to ear as he herds the kids back into their pens.
What made this so-called summit egregiously worse is that a dozen billionaires tagged along with him hoping to get China to loosen up restrictions that are plaguing their growth. They were all feted like Donald in the Great Hall, although "Leon" seemed a bit bored by the proceedings as he already has an inroad to China with a massive gigafactory in Shanghai, where workers were locked up so that he could still produce Teslas during the height of COVID. Hard not to think these guys are plotting something that will render American manufacturing obsolete in the next few years.
Yet, Trump would have us believe this was all about "Making America First," his infamous tag line from his first administration. He was going to bring all these jobs to Americans. There would be "so much winning," to use his words, but here we are nearly ten years later and it looks like the US is falling even further behind our Asian counterparts. China was supposed to be the bad guy. The country undermining our economy. Now Donnie is singing their praises for all to hear. I have to think this won't play well among his MAGA cult, which has been suffering through greatly increased prices since the start of his war in Iran.
And where does Donnie stand on Iran? No where in particular. He was found leaning on Xi to soften Iran up so that he could strike a really good deal, but whatever deal he gets won't look much different than the one Obama got without firing a single shot.
To date the Iran War has cost at least 29 billion USD, according to the War Department, but Petey wants 1.5 trillion USD so that the US is never caught shorthanded again. In other words, they ran out of missiles, which is why we see this current stalemate. Not only is it pathetically embarrassing, it just shows how ill prepared the Trump administration was when it chose to launch an attack on Iran that failed to meet any of its stated objectives and has created a shortage in oil and natural gas than has been felt worldwide.
Donald's favorite airline, Spirit, was forced into bankruptcy after 34 years due to high jet fuel costs, emblematic of the overall situation as high fuel prices are stymying growth everywhere. Trump had inherited a robust economy but it is now in a tailspin with the likelihood of a recession all but certain. All for what? To bring Iran to the negotiating table?
Trump thrives on chaos. His personal wealth has shot up "600 percent" since he took office. Maybe not that much, but more than double, according to Forbes. His presidency has always been about him. He needed a get-out-of-jail card and the American public was foolishly willing to give it to him. Now he reaps the benefits of a man with virtually unlimited power since neither the Republican Congress nor the Republican Supreme Court will do anything to curb his executive authority.
Of course, Trump has to share some of this wealth with his billionaire buddies, especially those who helped him get back into the White House. Chief among them Leon Musk, whose personal wealth has risen astronomically. He is apparently worth more than 800 billion USD today! Never has so much wealth been consolidated in so few hands, with these billionaires buying up everything that isn't battened down.
You have to think his MAGA base is none too happy with the turn of events, but rather than taking it out on their "personal Jesus," they continue to blame "Brandon" for their plight. They are so deluded they are beyond reach today, as much as Jordan Klepper tries.
There seems to be no boundary Trump can't cross. You would think China would be that boundary, as the country has been villainized for decades in the conservative media, yet here was Trump coming back from Beijing as if he had been to Disney World. He was just glowing!
We will never see any of these benefits Trump is promoting as they are all for his fat cat buddies, who are hording their wealth for the coming Apocalypse that they all seem certain is right around the corner. Why else are they building bunkers? I'm surprised Mark Zuckerberg wasn't on this trip but then it was ostensibly about manufacturing and what does Meta produce? These little kid videos ain't going to cut it in Beijing.
Nevertheless, Zuckerberg and others are building massive data centers to power this mystical AI that is supposed to greatly enhance our lives, although Shark Tank host Kevin O'Leary is getting a ton of pushback in Utah. These data centers are massive and not only require a shit ton of electricity but a shit ton of water. Why the fuck would you build one on a high plains desert?
Sadly, the answer is simple. They don't need people anymore. Trump, Musk, Xi, Putin don't give a rat's ass about people. Too many mouths to feed especially as the human workforce becomes redundant. China courts have apparently ruled that workers can't be laid off on AI grounds, but you figure these billionaires may have been trying to get Xi to look into the case, since much of their manufacturing base is in China. Welcome to a Brave New World.
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