I will say something about Trump. He has been very busy at the start of his tenure. What three results will be remains to be seen.
First time around he changed the language of politics and what it was OK to say. He’s shifting that again.
His influence is huge and will, I think, last.
It could … or it can backfire spectacular as with previous US Presidents.
Just needs that “a bridge too far” action he takes that “breaks the camels” back ito tolerating his peculiarities.
After Biden, it “feels like” patience is running out with the USA.
He has only 4 years to get things done. I suppose he wanted to start as soon as possible…
Of course, there are people who are worried that he might be able to change things enough so that his term is not limited to 4 years. That has happened before, of course…
I mean, it is a bit like having “root” permissions on your Linux system. Most days, you do your normal work as a non-root user. Because that’s just safer for you and everyone. But limitations are nonsense if you can just prefix the command with sudo.
I hope that didn’t go over your heads too much 
Once you burn all the bridges behind you there is often only one way to travel… OR it takes a long time to rebuild the bridges…
Rather like four months…the time for the push back to be initialised.
Starting the courts takes a wee bit of time
Maybe two. Because that’s when the make up of the house could change.
But US presidents in their second term have an advantage: They don’t have to worry about re-election.
Nice to have a bit of Unix talk. I now work on NT
So, movie references is apparently an autistic thing, but I cannot help it… I can just imagine that first call in the morning, Good morning Vance, morning Donald, how you doing? Aaight… Say, how are we going to mess up everyone’s lives today? Geez, I don’t know, I don’t know… Oh… look, over there! Let’s threaten tariffs with our biggest allies, and pretend they are abusing us!
There’s a phrase for it. This from the US correspondent of The Economist:
The zone is flooded. Can’t decide what news to focus on? You’re forgiven. That may be the point. America is again imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court. Donald Trump, who long decried foreign forays, is trumpeting a plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza and turn the strip into a sparkling riviera. USAID, with an annual budget of $40bn and plenty of soft power, may or may not be vaporised. Federal spending programmes are in jeopardy and civil servants are being purged. The Senate, meanwhile, is accepting every one of Mr Trump’s nominees for office (Matt Gaetz aside).
All this makes it difficult to attend closely to any one story. Take tariffs. Mr Trump marched America up a potentially disastrous hill a week ago (it feels much longer), threatening immediate 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, only to trot meekly down again on Monday after winning some Potemkin concessions. (He stuck with 10% tariffs on China.) For most politicians such a retreat would be humiliating: economic reality imposed itself; he dared not see America’s car industry whacked by disruption of cross-border supply chains. But who had time to digest this, or to ask what might happen at the end of the month, when he threatens again to impose those tariffs? For Mr Trump was immediately busy proposing his next wild idea, on Gaza.
In the window between my writing and your reading this newsletter no doubt some other news gusher will have been set off. (A beautiful American hotel resort on the Moon, maybe.)
How to deal with the flooded zone for the next four years? Some readers may be tempted to head to drier ground, to shun the news. Don’t. A better approach—certainly that’s our job at The Economist—is to discern what to focus on, and when. A well-worn phrase about Mr Trump is useful here: take all that he says seriously, but not literally. On Gaza, for example, take seriously his signal that America would support radical upheaval in the region. Mr Trump would like history to remember him as a man who remade alliances in the Middle East in favour of Israel and Saudi Arabia, to weaken Iran. That’s a deadly serious proposition. But his talk of holiday resorts and expelling Palestinians I would not (at least not yet) take literally.
Also Trump just doubles down. All the time. Everything is painted as a tremendous victory because he makes the best deals. When he can’t do that - and I notice a court just invalidated one of his recent executive orders - it will be that the judge is nasty, the worst judge ever, a disgrace, and has a personal dislike of him which they allowed to overrule the proper decision. Probably the judge is woke or a democrat.
And people like this. They don’t question this. And the attitude is catching. And it’s difficult for politicians like Starmer who are actually trying to be realistic and truthful. Nobody wants to hear about truth, they want to hear about how they’re going to be peeing Chanel No 5 into solid gold sewers.
Interesting to read how the Middle East wants nothing to do with the Palestinians.
Effect on SA:
IF we had a strong working Gov, SA could have use the opportunity and re-ignite local industries and become more independent again … but I don’t see that happening under the current regime.
And then this … sounds EXACTLY like Musk:
And then this … ja boet, dankie, maar nee dankie …
Must say, Trump is moving fast, the pushback is coming … I wonder if he will see 4 years in office if I squizz though all that he as singed, done, said, pushed for.
“Middle East Riviera”, Trump, who has no filter does bring forth a interesting view. As uniquely piquant as that may appear on face value, no-one wants the people living in Gaze close to their territories. No-one wants to deal with the matter:
They shouldn’t. If they take those people then Israel takes over Gaza and clears out the West Bank, or Trump builds golf courses and resorts, and the battle for a secure Palestinian homeland is lost forever.
It is already lost unless there is a major upheaval, reset, and everyone involved, and there are a lot of factors, people, emotions involved, are happy, satisfied in the end.
And that is near impossible it seems.
I heard that as well. I usually worry about such broad generalisations (I’m sure plenty of people in Gaza would not mind being relocated to Jordan or Egypt for free), but then again, even a small extreme minority is often enough to shun an entire people. I’ve heard people from both Jordan and Egypt say unequivocally that they don’t want people from Gaza anywhere near. They want the problem solved, of course, but not in their backyard.
The issue with the middle east, which nobody understands (and I am just writing here what I heard, and seems believable to me), is the massive levels of distrust. There is no middle ground to be found, no way to even start a negotiation. NT Wright’s approach (warning… religious language, skip if that is not your thing!), is to acknowledge that if anyone deserved something radical being done for them, it was the Jews who survived the holocaust. But at the same time, a great many things went wrong, and we need to acknowledge that. Furthermore, the modern Christian idea that somehow there are future prophecies as yet unfulfilled and therefore… Israel can do no wrong… is deeply problematic.
Jip, read same. Saudi was upset when Trump suggested they take some immigrants.
Goes further.
Western Countries that support Palestinians at arms length, also won’t accept immigration it seems.
“Demanding” a Palestinian state, I think it is a way too simplistic view.
Israel, with their resent ruthless, yes, ruthless actions to get to Hamas once and for all, with all that supported Hamas ito funding, why for the love of all that is common sense, where they allowed to operate all these years right inside Gaza?
Don’t misunderstand me, I know how Hamaz did it … but the consequence of the majority not standing up against Hamas for example, the funding Hamaz kept on receiving, I think, brought this to a boiling point, the ruthlessness of Israel.
Irrespective of any and all religious context, Israel, never been a good idea to push them too far.
Gulf of the crazy foreigner… classic!
Interesting …
Imagine the USA looses all trust from partners internationally … all because of one man’s actions, loss of “trust” started by Biden’s presidency.
USA is financially bankrupt due to their debt. All it takes is a small thing to happen and the house-of-cards tumble.
China, France and Germany …
https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/812042/south-africa-to-ask-china-france-and-germany-for-help/
