Salem Political Snark

Trump's constant lying means he can't be believed about Iran's nuclear program

If there's one thing that can be said with certainty about Donald Trump, it's that he is a habitual shameless liar. This was annoying when he was a presidential candidate. As president, Trump's constant falsehoods are a clear and present danger to our national security.

All American presidents have shaded the truth to some extent. That comes with being a politician.

But in the past lying by the occupant of the White House about important issues was fairly rare. The most notable recent example was the George W. Bush administration lying about evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in an attempt to justify invading that country.

With Trump, the lies flow freely regarding matters great and small, important and unimportant. Devotees of the Cult of Trump aren't much bothered by this, because they checked their capacity for independent thinking at the Please Fool Me cloak room when Trump became a national political figure.

However, anyone who cares about the credibility of the United States, which is sinking like a stone as Trump's second term is proving to be even more of a lie-fest than his first term, has to be concerned, especially when it comes to national security issues.

After American warplanes attacked three of Iran's nuclear sites a few days ago, Trump went 0n national television to claim, without any evidence, that Iran's nuclear program had been completely obliterated. This was utterly unlike what any previous president would have said, since the proper response was to say that the attack was a success but it will take time to assess how much damage was caused to the sites.

Because Trump demands absolute loyalty from his acolytes, his complete obliteration claim couldn't be questioned by members of his cabinet -- even after a leaked preliminary report from a Defense Department intelligence agency said that it appeared Iran's nuclear program had only been set back by a few months.

So now the Trump administration is twisting itself into logical knots, trying not to contradict Trump's initial lie about Iran's nuclear program while not embracing the consequences that would follow if it were indeed true that the nuclear program had been obliterated. 

For example, if that were the case, then there would be no need to negotiate a treaty with Iran about not restarting enrichment of uranium or development of a nuclear weapon because there is no Iranian nuclear program that could be restarted. 

A Politico story, "The administration is struggling to back up Trump's bold claims on Iran strikes," says:

The Trump administration is running into a problem as it touts the U.S. strikes in Iran as an unqualified triumph: It hasn’t yet provided clear evidence to prove it.

The effort began after a preliminary classified U.S. intelligence assessment that leaked to the press appeared to undercut Trump’s assertions the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

In the last 36 hours, Trump and his aides have sparred with the news media, rushed out new statements from intelligence chiefs to counter the leaked report, and called a press conference to detail the many years of planning that went into the strike.

So far, officials have not been able to publicly provide convincing evidence that the entirety of Iran’s sprawling nuclear program was destroyed — a conclusion that would likely take spy agencies weeks if not months to establish. Assessments they have offered are light on details and flit between ambiguous language about whether Tehran’s nuclear program has been destroyed or just experienced a major setback — a lesser achievement.

Moreover, in working to debunk the leaked assessment saying Iran’s nuclear program may have only been set back months, Trump administration officials have stressed that it is too early to evaluate the strikes — though that’s precisely what they are trying to do.

...Trump has claimed any nuclear effort by Iran has been halted, saying, for example, in a social media post Thursday: “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability.” He has also said that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back “basically decades.”

Speaking at the NATO summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, Trump even said a nuclear deal with Iran was no longer necessary because Tehran has been cowed by the U.S. strikes. “They’ve had it,” he said at one point.

But there is some suspicion that Iran maintains other, secret nuclear sites the American airstrikes left untouched. And even though Israel has killed scores of Iran’s leading scientists and intelligence officials in the war, Iran likely retains enough scientific and technical talent to build a bomb if it wants.

There are many reasons to worry about Trump's incessant lying. To my mind, they point to the risk of having an American president who can't be believed. Our allies can't believe what he says. Our enemies can't believe what he says. This makes negotiating with the Trump administration extremely difficult, because any agreement can be undone when Trump changes his lying mind.

Which is often, because Trump doesn't embrace any strong  values. He's a flag that blows whichever way his ever-shifting mind blows in the direction of whatever is most advantageous for him at any given moment. 

This is why progressives like me look back with some fondness at presidents we used to heartily dislike: George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon. They were flawed, but in a traditionally conservative way. Meaning, their lies and mistakes were mostly in the service of a political philosophy, not their own personal self-interest. 

Trump is different. He only cares about himself, wrongly believing that what is good for King Trump is good for the nation. No, it isn't.

 

Trump's bombing of Iran likely will have unintended consequences

Currently President Trump and the rest of his administration's merry band of MAGA acolytes are puffing out their chests, all proud that seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 giant 30,000 pound "bunker buster" bombs on three underground nuclear sites in Iran.

But as I said in a post about the attacks on my Church of the Churchless blog yesterday, it's likely that things aren't going to go so smoothly from now on.

The best case scenario would be that the attacks were successful, Iran doesn't retaliate in a major way, Iran agrees to a peace deal with the United States and Israel that guarantees Iran won't reconstitute its nuclear program, and a pro-democracy movement takes hold in Iran that ends the fundamentalist Islam control of the country by a single person, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that the best case scenario will happen.

As the saying goes, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Iran will respond in some fashion. Then Israel and the United States will respond to that response. And so it will go, actions spurring reactions in a series of events that are impossible to predict.

Obviously it would be dangerous for Israel and the world if Iran ever was able to build a nuclear bomb and develop the capability to deploy it via a missile or some other means. Problem is, the March 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community said that Iran isn't building a nuclear weapon and hasn't reauthorized a suspended nuclear weapons program.

We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so. In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision making apparatus. Khamenei remains the final decision maker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.

So there was no pressing need to bomb the underground nuclear sites. It appears that Trump gave the go-ahead to do this because Israel's prime minister, Netanyahu, goaded Trump into action after Israel attacked Iran with the weapons at its disposal and needed the United States military to bomb the underground sites -- since only a B-2 bomber can carry the bunker-buster bomb, both of which Israel lacks.

As I said in my previous blog post:

Iran has been denying that it seeks to build a nuclear bomb. But it's been enriching uranium to levels that are far beyond what's needed for civilian nuclear purposes, such as generating electricity. Israel is justifiably concerned that if Iran did get a nuclear bomb, it could be used to destroy much of their country.

Problem is, life is inherently unpredictable. Wars, even more so. At the moment there's no reliable evidence as to how much damage the B-2 bomber attacks caused to Iran's underground nuclear facilities.

There's a strong possibility that the lesson Iran is going to take from the attacks by the United States and Israel is that it needs to acquire nuclear weapons as soon as possible. For nobody messes with North Korea, a nuclear power, while Russia invaded Ukraine after that country gave up its nuclear weapon stockpile following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in secret, perhaps with the help of Russia and North Korea. Or those countries could give a nuclear weapon to Iran, though they might not be willing to risk the blowback if this was made public. Today Vice-President Vance said that the United States isn't at war with Iran, it is at war with Iran's nuclear program.

Fine. But if Iran's nuclear program goes underground, not physically but secretly, how is the United States going to stop what can't be detected?

There's no way we're going to invade Iran like we invaded Iraq. If Iran quietly develops a nuclear weapons program that up until now it has held off on, the first we might hear about it is when Iran announces that it is a nuclear power with multiple weapons and the capability to deliver them.

As a final observation, the screenshot below of a post on X shows that the only reason Iran currently possesses such a large stockpile of enriched uranium is because Trump withdrew from the JCPOA agreement negotiated between Iran, the United States, and several other nations during Obama's second term.

After Trump tore up the agreement following his 2016 presidential win, Iran steadily enriched uranium from a negligible level until it reached about the same level as before the JCPOA went into effect. 

This means that Trump is having to deal with the problem that he himself created, since the JCPOA was working fine to limit Iran's nuclear capability until Trump trashed that agreement.

I'm worried that Trump is going to order B-2 bombers to attack Iran's nuclear sites

Usually I don't believe in magical thinking. But I'll make an exception this time.

Because if expressing an anxiety means that it is less likely to occur, then I'm damn well going to say "I'm worried that Trump is going to order B-2 bombers to attack Iran's nuclear sites" -- since doing that would be a disaster.

Here's why I think there's a decent chance that Trump is going to insert the United States into the conflict between Israel and Iran, which is looking increasingly like a full-on war.

(1) Trump is leaving the G-7 summit in Canada a day early in order to focus on the Israel-Iran war.

President Donald Trump abruptly announced that he would leave the G7 summit a day early and return to Washington shortly after posting an ominous social media message that appeared to suggest more carnage in Iran.

...The change of plans only added to the sense of uncertainty around Israel’s ongoing military operation in Iran, which Trump seemed to warn was about to intensify in an ominous and somewhat cryptic social media post after a day of meeting with world leaders.

“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life,” Trump wrote in a TruthSocial post late Monday. “Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!”

He closed it on an alarming note: “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

(2) Israel has expanded its bombing campaign to include targets in Iran beyond above-ground nuclear facilities and military officials. Oil and natural gas infrastructure is being bombed, as was Iran's state television. One goal now seems to be regime change spurred by wholesale destruction in Iran that might spur the nation's citizens to demand new leaders.

(3) Another Israeli goal is even clearer: draw the United States into finishing the job that Israel is incapable of on its own -- destroying Iran's underground nuclear facilities. If this isn't done, Israel believes that eventually Iran will be able to reconstitute its nuclear program and build several nuclear bombs.

(4) Doing that would require the United States to become involved in the war, since we have "bunker-busting bombs" delivered by B-2 bombers that supposedly are capable of penetrating into the underground nuclear facilities that Israel is unable to destroy on its own.

(5) Trump has been saying that the United States isn't going to be drawn into the Israel-Iran war. However, there's good reason to believe that the negotiations the United States had been having with Iran about a new deal aimed at preventing development of nuclear weapons were a ruse to lull the Iranians into thinking that Israel wouldn't attack while the negotiations were happening.

(6) So it's entirely possible that Trump is doing something similar now: saying that the United States isn't going to enter the Israel-Iran war as part of a scheme cooked up between this country and Israel to deceive Iran about our intentions.

Obviously I don't want to see Iran get nuclear weapons. Hardly anybody does.

But leaving aside the fact that the rules of war prohibit attacking another country that isn't clearly on the verge of starting a war (this would be a legal preemptive strike), there's no guarantee that using B-2 bombers to attack the underground nuclear sites would have the benefits that Israel thinks it would.

Maybe the sites are too well protected. Maybe there are sites that Israel and the United States aren't aware of. Maybe attacking the sites would inflame Iranian nationalism and pride, leading to a government that is even more hardcore and determined to have nuclear weapons than the current regime. Maybe bombing the sites would lead to a wave of terrorist attacks against the American people.

President Trump and his administration aren't known for well thought-out plans, to put it mildly. They're adept at talking a big game without being able to play one. That's why I have little confidence in Trump's ability to enter the war against Iran without screwing things up, big time.

Hopefully this won't happen. I'm just afraid that it will.

 

If criticizing Israel is antisemitic, then I'm an antisemite

Antisemitism used to mean what it actually is: hostility toward Jews, including hatred, discrimination, and prejudice. But lately in some circles the meaning of the word has expanded to something that it isn't: criticism of Israel.

This is completely wrong. It conflates two separate things, the Jewish religion and the nation of Israel. There are lots of people in Israel who strongly oppose policies of the current right-wing Israeli government, which is headed up by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Many, if not most, of those people are observant Jews. So are they antisemitic, somehow being prejudiced against themselves? Of course not. They simply disagree with what their government is doing. This includes how Netanyahu and his cronies are conducting the war against Hamas.

Yet in this country Trump and his acolytes have been trying to equate anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitism. That's ridiculous. There's good reason to believe that the Israeli government is committing war crimes against the two million or so people who live in Gaza.

Protesting this deserves praise, or at least a recognition that everyone in the United States, citizen and non-citizen alike, are entitled to express their views about the war freely. 

My own viewpoint is in line with how most Americans seem to see the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Hamas was wrong to start the war on October 7, 2023. Israel was justified in striking back against Hamas. However, the rules of war require that civilian casualties be minimized and that civilians not be forced to leave their homes or denied humanitarian aid such as food, water, and shelter.

Israel has failed to comply with both of those requirements. Gaza has been almost completely destroyed, with the population continually forced to move from one area to another by Israeli forces. An estimated 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza, with over 25,000 injured. That infuriates me.

I'm also deeply angered by Israel severely limiting humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, most of whom have no connection with Hamas and the October 7 terror attacks. Amnesty International tells it like it is:

Israel must immediately end its devastating siege on the occupied Gaza Strip which constitutes a genocidal act, a blatant form of unlawful collective punishment, and the war crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, said Amnesty International, marking two months since Israel reimposed a ban on the entry of aid and commercial goods into the Strip on 2 March 2025.  

By blocking the entry of supplies critical for the survival of the population, Israel continues its policy of deliberately imposing conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza calculated to bring about their physical destruction; this constitutes an act of genocide.  

Harrowing new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International throughout April reveal the catastrophic human cost of Israel’s two-month long total siege, where starvation and denial of life-saving essentials are being used as weapons of war in flagrant violation of international law. 

“The extent of human suffering in Gaza for the past 19 months has been unimaginable, and it is a direct consequence of Israel’s ongoing genocide. Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy, and Campaigns at Amnesty International. 

“For the past two months, Israel has completely cut off the supply of humanitarian aid and other items indispensable to the survival of civilians in a clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unlivable. This is genocide in action.  

“The international community must not continue to stand by as Israel perpetrates these atrocities with impunity. States, especially Israel’s allies, must act now and take concrete measures to pressure Israel into immediately lifting its total siege and allowing the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid and its safe distribution across all of Gaza. A sustained ceasefire is essential to ensure that can happen.” 

This week in the Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is holding public hearings to examine Israel’s obligations in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including the provision of humanitarian assistance. Amnesty International reiterates the critical urgency of allowing UNRWA, other UN agencies and humanitarian organizations, to carry out their life-saving work across the OPT without obstructions.   

Israel’s refusal to allow aid into Gaza also flouts repeated ICJ orders to ensure Palestinians have access to sufficient humanitarian assistance and basic services. 

So, yes, if criticism of Israel is antisemitic, then I'm proud to be labeled an antisemite -- because I abhor how Israel is using starvation and forced displacement as a weapon of war against the people of Gaza.

Here's three "accomplishments" by Trump that make this Democrat happy

We've now endured 100 days of Trump's second term in office. Those three-plus months have been a disaster for the United States and the world.

Trump has damaged economies by his insanely high and poorly thought out tariffs. Trump has failed to stop the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars. Trump has decimated vital government services through mindless budget and personnel cuts. Trump has been chastised by federal judges and the Supreme Court for failing to obey the rule of law.

But the news isn't all bad. Here's three "accomplishments" (the quotation marks point to irony) by Trump that make me happy as a progressive Democrat. 

(1) Trump single-handedly kept Canada's Liberal Party in power. Before Trump started to call the Prime Minister of Canada "Governor," a reference to his repeated threats to make Canada the 51st state, that country's Conservative Party was heavily favored to regain power through parliamentary elections.

However, yesterday Canadians voted to keep the Liberal Party in power under Prime Minister Mark Carney because the Conservatives were seen as being too close to Trumpism, being a sort of maple leaf MAGA, or MCGA. Here's an excerpt from a BBC story, "Trump made Carney's turnaround victory possible."

Mark Carney and the Liberal Party have claimed a remarkable victory in the Canadian election – and it appears to have come with a big assist from Donald Trump.

The US president's constant badgering of America's northern neighbour and taunts about making it the 51st US state since his return to office in January coincided with a dramatic reversal in fortune for the centre-left party.

Carney has been almost singularly focused on his neighbour, and this was reflected in his victory speech. After warning that the US wanted Canada's land and resources, Carney declared: "President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen."

Until Trump's return to power, Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party had held what looked like high and insurmountable ground in voter preference polls amidst general dissatisfaction with the state of the Canadian economy and almost a decade of Liberal government under then leader Justin Trudeau.

(2) Trump has erased $150 billion of Elon Musk's net worth. Before Musk bought Twitter and turned it into a right-wing shadow of its former self, I thought Musk was an appealing visionary and businessman. 

But seeing Musk steadily descend into sharing Trumpian conspiracy theories, along with blatant lies, soured me on Musk. My distaste deepened after Trump made Musk the head of DOGE, giving him free rein to fire federal employees for no good reason, take over confidential computer systems in Social Security and the IRS, and generally act like an annoying asshole.

At first Tesla's stock price rose after Trump was elected, as investors believed the company would benefit from Musk's close association with Trump.

It's been a pleasure to watch the stock price of Tesla sink as Musk's popularity with the public declined. Gosh, who could have predicted that if the CEO of Tesla starts trashing the values of Democrats, who are big fans of electric cars, they'd look elsewhere for an electric car purchase. (Lots of people predicted this, actually.)

So since so much of Musk's net worth is tied up in Tesla stock, Musk has lost around $150 billion since mid-December.

The steep decline in Tesla stock has contributed to Musk's net worth falling sharply over the past few months. Despite rising valuations for Musk's private ventures, the steady decline in the stock of his publicly traded car company has wiped about $150 billion off his net worth since mid-December. Still the world's richest person with a net worth of $335 billion, that's down sharply from a peak of almost $480 billion just a few months ago.

(3) Fireworks may be in short supply for the nation's 250 year anniversary of our independence in 2026. Our dog doesn't like fireworks. I'm OK with them, but since we live in a rural area where every year idiots set off illegal fireworks despite the high wildfire danger around July 4, I'd be happier with fewer fireworks.

Which Trump is well on the way to accomplishing through his tariffs on Chinese exports. Here's excerpts from a Washington Post story, "Trump is softening his tariff talk. But the damage may already be done."

With 14 months remaining before the United States’ 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, Stacy Blake should be placing big orders with the Chinese factories that supply her fireworks company in St. Joseph, Missouri. But she’s not. And she blames President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The same president who’s making plans for a “grand celebration” of this national milestone has imposed sky-high import duties that will make that star-spangled festival tough to pull off.

With the trade war causing U.S. orders to dry up, Chinese fireworks factories have begun shutting down. That threatens to disrupt the industry’s production schedule, leading to serious shortages, said Blake, co-owner of Schneitter Fireworks & Importing.

“We’ve got a huge problem ahead of us going into next year,” said Blake, who is also president of the National Fireworks Association. “This season is when Chinese manufacturers would be manufacturing our products right now for 2026, for the 250th. Very little production is happening. They have halted it.”

...Almost all of the fireworks that Americans purchase for personal use are made in China; three-quarters of the pyrotechnics featured in more elaborate community celebrations are Chinese.

In 2019, recognizing the lack of domestic production, Trump exempted the industry from his first China tariffs.

This time, however, he has not granted a similar waiver, leaving scores of small businesses facing crippling extra costs. Importers who cannot afford 145 percent taxes have told their Chinese suppliers to freeze shipments, which could mean some consumer favorites for celebrating the July Fourth holiday this year will be hard to find, said Blake, Schneitter Fireworks’ co-owner.

Without immediate relief from Trump’s tariffs, American importers will miss their turn in the Chinese production line for 2026. Fireworks factories will soon enter their annual summer shutdown. And when they reopen, they are scheduled to fill European orders before producing what Chinese consumers demand.

Outrageous: Trump wants to give Russia everything and Ukraine nothing

Trump has to be the worst dealmaker of any president. He's utterly incapable of making deals, both in his first administration and now. 

No deal to limit North Korea's nuclear threat. No deal to replace the effective Iran nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of. No deal to end the Israel-Hamas war. No deals with any of the countries he's imposed tariffs on. And no deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

All of these failures concern me. But Trump's abject failure to make any progress on ending the Russia-Ukraine war is particularly outrageous, because there's an extremely clear distinction here between the bad guy, Russia, and the good guy, Ukraine.

Every reasonable person understands that Russia invaded Ukraine for no reason other than a desire to reconstitute the former Soviet Union. That invasion was preceded by Russia taking over Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, along with about 20% of Ukraine's territory on its border with Russia.

Trump made a campaign promise that he'd end the Ukraine war before he even was inaugurated. It's now been about three months since Inauguration Day. Trump has made essentially zero progress toward brokering a deal between Russia and Ukraine.

The main reason is the same one that makes Trump such a horrible dealmaker. He can't be trusted, and he doesn't understand that a deal requires opposing parties to each feel that they're gaining something, while not getting everything each party wanted.

Trump, though, wants to give Putin, the Russian dictator who invaded Ukraine, everything he desires, while giving Zelensky, the democratically-elected Ukrainian president who has valiantly defended his country, nothing he desires. 

The headline of a New York Times story today pretty much says it all. But I'll also share some excerpts from the story.

President Trump and his top aides demanded on Wednesday that Ukraine accede to an American-designed proposal that would essentially grant Russia all the territory it has gained in the war, while offering Kyiv only vague security assurances.

The American plan, which would also explicitly block Ukraine from ever joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was rejected by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, whose long-running dispute with Mr. Trump broke into the open two months ago in the Oval Office. The proposal also appears to call for the United States to recognize Russia’s 2014 takeover of Crimea, a region of Ukraine.

“There is nothing to talk about,” Mr. Zelensky said. “This violated our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of Ukraine.”

...It was not clear whether the U.S. announcements were part of a pressure campaign to force Mr. Zelensky to make territorial concessions or whether they were designed to create a pretext for abandoning American support for Ukraine.

But the United States is essentially settling on a deal that favors the aggressor in the war, one that forces Ukraine to accept the forcible rewriting of its border and give up its hope of eventually joining NATO, as other former Soviet republics have.

European allies, who in recent weeks have been promising more military and economic support for Mr. Zelensky, have charged that Mr. Trump is essentially switching sides in the war, and that his real goal is to cast Ukraine aside and to find a way to normalize American relations with Moscow. Mr. Trump and his top aides have already begun discussing the prospect of lifting sanctions on Russia, and striking energy and mineral deals with Mr. Putin.

Whatever Mr. Trump’s motives, what happened on Wednesday signaled the possible abandonment of the American commitment to Mr. Zelensky that the United States would never engage in talks that excluded the country from determining its own fate.

Putin can't be trusted. A BBC story describes all the agreements and truces related to Ukraine that Russia has broken, starting all the way back in 1997. 

By invading Ukraine in 2014, Russia violated the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between the two countries signed in 1997. Article 2 said the sides "respect each other's territorial integrity and confirm the inviolability of existing borders between them".

Given that long history of Russian deception, it's completely understandable why Ukraine is demanding that a security guarantee be part of any agreement to end the current war. Otherwise Putin will reconstitute his depleted army and invade Ukraine again when he feels the time is right. 

However, Trump is demanding that Ukraine give up on ever becoming a member of NATO and refuses to have the United States guarantee Ukraine's security. No wonder Zelensky has rejected the Trump administration's proposal to end the war by giving Putin everything he wants.

Hopefully European countries will step up and do their best to replace United States support for Ukraine if Trump and Vance follow through on their threat to withdraw from peace talks if Ukraine doesn't go along with surrendering territory to Russia with no security guarantee.

China must be watching what's going on with glee, since if the United States gives a green light to Russia to annex the Ukrainian territory it now controls, this will send a clear sign to China that if it invades Taiwan, the United States won't stand in China's way. 

Trump gives in on tariffs after trying to wreck U.S. and world economy

MSNBC's Chris Hayes had a nice way of describing Trump's 90-day pause on his tariffs today: it was like an arsonist setting a building on fire, then returning to the scene of his crime and telling bystanders that  it was good only two-thirds of the structure was destroyed. (Not an exact quote, but I got the basics right.)

In the first four business days after Trump revealed his totally screwy "reciprocal" tariffs on almost every country, including those that have zero tariffs on United States imports, our stock market graded his tariff policy with a big F for fail by sinking like a stone, eliminating over $6 trillion in wealth. Today the market gained around a third of that back.

The market was poised for a more dangerous decline to mark the tariffs going into effect. What freaked out investors, Trump's advisors, and eventually Trump himself was how the bond market was reacting to the tariffs.

Usually when stocks have had a large drop, the price of Treasury bonds increases due to investors seeking safety and a guaranteed return. But today the yield of the 10-year Treasury bond increased substantially due to a marked decline in the price of the bond. 

That's very unusual. Basically it meant that around the world, including here in the United States, investors were losing faith in our nation. Instead of being a safe haven, government bonds were being treated as if they had been issued by a Third World developing country.

A New York Times story describes how Trump realized that he needed to change course of tariffs, fast. 

For the past week, President Trump has been urging calm in the face of the financial chaos that he created and resisting calls for him to rethink his approach.

“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he told Republicans on Tuesday as the massive tariffs he had imposed sent global markets into a tailspin. “BE COOL!” he said in a social media post on Wednesday morning. “Everything is going to work out well.”

At 9:37 a.m. Wednesday, the president was still bullish on his policy, posting on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”

But in the end, it was the markets that got him to reverse course.

The economic turmoil, particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields, caused Mr. Trump to blink on Wednesday afternoon and pause his “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, according to four people with direct knowledge of the president’s decision.

...Mr. Bessent played a significant role in steering the president toward the pause. But the real credit, Mr. Trump’s advisers admit privately, should go to the bond markets. Mr. Trump’s decision was driven by fear that his tariffs gamble could quickly turn into a financial crisis. And unlike the two previous crashes of the past 20 years — the global financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic of 2020 — this crisis would have been directly attributable to only one man.

...The tariffs had triggered a sharp sell-off in U.S. government bond markets and the dollar, which investors usually see as safe-haven assets in times of turmoil. After Mr. Trump announced the new tariffs last week, economists on Wall Street quickly raised their forecasts for inflation and lowered those for growth, with many warnings about a recession. Trillions of dollars of stock market value vanished in a matter of days.

At 1:18 p.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Trump announced on Truth Social that he would back off the “reciprocal” tariffs for 90 days while increasing tariffs on China to 125 percent. The pause, along with leaving a 10 percent tariff rate in place for most countries, was a version of what a number of people had urged Mr. Trump to put in place for days.

Problem is, now the United States still has insanely high tariffs that will lead to higher inflation, job losses, supply chain problems, and diminished confidence in the United States as a reliable trading partner. 

Trump claimed that his tariffs were necessary to bring manufacturers back to the United States from overseas. But few corporations are going to be willing to spend big bucks on building a new plant when Trump clearly has no idea what he's doing. He could reinstate the original tariffs at any time, or he could do away with raising tariffs at any time.

Chaos isn't what American businesses were looking for from the Trump administration. They wanted a favorable business climate marked by long-term dependability. Instead, they got Trump's whims. He simply feels that other countries have been ripping us off through trade imbalances, even though there is little hard evidence of this.

The stock market probably will have lots of ups and downs as Trump's negotiations with other countries move forward over the next 90 days. I expect that there will increasing numbers of stories about disruptions caused by his 125% tariff on Chinese exports. 

Almost all of my clothes are made in China, Vietnam, or some other Asian country. They're high quality and reasonably priced. I don't want to pay more for clothes, or anything else, just because Trump has had an obsession with tariffs for many years.

Unfortunately, that obsession hasn't led to knowledge about how tariffs work. Trump is still spreading lies about tariffs imposed by the United States being paid by foreign countries. In truth, tariffs are paid by the importer, an American company, who almost always raises prices to compensate in whole or in part for the cost of the tariff.

Another New York Times story is called "An Experiment in Recklessness: Trump as Global Disrupter." It ends with:

All this suggests a failure to look around corners — which is hardly new in the American presidency. Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in June 1930, thinking they would help create jobs, then went fishing. They instead accelerated the Great Depression.

The White House insists this time the result will be the opposite. It is a huge bet, one on which not only Mr. Trump’s presidency but the fate of the global economy rests. And no one can predict where the bottom is for the markets, or where the top is for the escalation with China.

“The speed and chaos surrounding President Trump’s policy rollout have created extraordinary global economic disruption; nobody alive has ever witnessed self-induced volatility on this scale,” Ian Bremmer, the founder of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm, wrote this week.

At the beginning of the year, the United States had the strongest economic position of any of the Group of 7 nations, he noted.

Now, he concluded, “President Trump has become the principal disrupter.”

Trump's tariffs are a loser for him no matter what he does

It's laughable when someone calls Trump a great dealmaker. Actually he's a terrible dealmaker. The only reason anyone claims this is that Trump paid someone to write a book for him called "Art of the Deal." 

His name is on the cover, even though he didn't write it, but that's a far cry from the reality: Trump is incapable of making deals because he isn't a strategic thinker and nobody trusts him to keep his word.

Look at the evidence. In his first term as president Trump failed to make any significant deals. His main claim to fame, or in this case infamy, was botching the United States response to the covid pandemic, which led to about 200,000 unnecessary deaths. 

Now, in his second term, Trump has failed to make a deal to end the Ukraine-Russia war. failed to make a deal to end the Israel-Hamas war, and is floundering in his attempt to use tariffs on other countries as a cudgel to make deals that reduce trade imbalances.

In each case, Trump has failed to stake out a consistent position that would lead to productive deals. Instead, he says one thing one day, then another thing another day, causing the leaders he's dealing with to recognize an obvious truth: Trump can't be trusted, which undermines his attempts to bend others to his will.

With the tariffs on almost every country in the world he announced last Wednesday -- Russia and North Korea escaped tariffs, which shows how much Trump loves authoritarians like himself -- it's impossible to know what goal Trump is pursuing.

It isn't fairness, because Trump imposed tariffs on countries that have zero tariffs on United States imports. It isn't reducing trade imbalances, because that's impossible to achieve (we buy lots of vanilla from Madagascar, as it isn't grown here, but Madagascar can't buy much from us, being such a poor country). It isn't bringing factory jobs back to the United States, because this would require keeping high tariffs in place for years to reassure corporations of a long-term change in tariff policy, but Trump has already begun negotiations to reduce or eliminate the tariffs he imposed five days ago.

The big problem for Trump is that regardless what he does with tariffs, he's going to be a loser.

That's what happens when a pathetically poor dealmaker tries to use blunt force to get their way without being clear about what they're trying to achieve, and without establishing a negotiating approach that could result in a win-win for both parties.

Currently China, Canada, and the European Union are threatening to impose counter-tariffs on United States goods in response to Trump's heavy-handed imposition of tariffs on goods exported from their countries. Given Trump's childish approach to disputes -- if you hit me after I hit you, I'll hit you even harder -- an international trade war seems likely.

That's why economic forecasting experts have raised the risk of a recession here in the United States up to about 50-50. Worse, this probably would be a recession with dreaded "stagflation."

Meaning, higher inflation caused by tariff-induced price increases as imported goods become more expensive, and higher unemployment caused by supply chain disruptions along with a weakening of both business and consumer confidence -- totally understandable given the trillions of dollars of wealth erased in the stock market after Trump announced his tariffs.

Exacerbating Trump's tariff problem is the absolutely screwy way the so-called "reciprocal" tariffs were calculated, as I laid out in "Not a surprise: Trump's tariffs are based on lies." 

Given Trump's notorious disregard for the truth, it isn't surprising that yesterday when he revealed his so-called "reciprocal tariffs" on goods imported to the United States from other countries, massive lies were used to support his massive and economically destructive tariffs -- which amount to a gigantic tax increase on the American people. 

Noted economist Lawrence Summers has said that Trump's tariff policies are the economic equivalent of creationism: a crackpot idea that has no evidence backing it up. This makes it much more difficult for leaders of other countries to take Trump seriously when they engage in tariff negotiations with him. He basically has no good arguments to use, other than his habitual mob boss approach: "Do what I say or I'll break your kneecaps with a baseball bat."

That may work with some small powerless countries. It won't work with larger countries, whose citizens and leaders don't like to be pushed around by the United States. 

Thus we're probably in for a very bumpy road, economically. Get used to high stock market volatility with big price drops mixed in with periods of optimism, only to be followed by more declines. This is good news for Democratic chances in the 2026 midterm election. However, it's bad news for both Americans and the world.

All we can hope for is that Trump changes his mind about tariffs and realizes this is a losing proposition for him. But betting on Trump being reasonable rarely pays off, unfortunately. 

My daughter is more optimistic about Trump's tariffs than I am. Hope she's right.

My daughter is the vice-president for sales of a designer eyewear company whose products are made in a European Union country. So she's got a vested interest in how Trump's tariffs turn out, since the European Union has been slammed with a 20% tariff on exports to the United States.

There's no difference politically between my daughter and me.

We're both avid progressives who couldn't stand Trump before his rollout of an incredibly misguided attempt to undo international trade through so-called "reciprocal" tariffs that actually aren't that at all -- since Trump's deeply flawed simplistic formula used to come up with his new tariffs has nothing to do with the tariffs other countries are charging the United States, so it isn't possible to call what Trump has done "reciprocal."

We talked by phone tonight.

My daughter, who lives in southern California, went to a Hands Off! rally in Santa Ana today, while my wife attended a Salem rally. (Me, I spent the afternoon mowing the fields on our rural property, since it was a nice day and rain is coming tomorrow.) Both of the women in my life came away energized by the protests against Trump's policies, all of which suffer from the not-so-minor defect of being totally crazy.

Where my daughter and I differ is how long Trump will persist with his insane tariffs. We agree that they make no sense. The United States has been doing just fine under the current system of international trade. We're a rich country with a low unemployment rate and a declining rate of inflation. 

It isn't as if Americans are pleading to be able to work in a factory making clothes or shoes. China, Vietnam, and other Asian countries can produce these things more efficiently and less expensively than we can. So this is an example of why Trump's desire to have everything Americans need or want made in the United States is such a stupid notion.

Which gets me to how my daughter has a different view of Trump's tariffs than I do. She thinks that Trump will do away with the tariffs in a few months. I believe that Trump will be more stubborn, keeping them for considerably longer, maybe well into until 2026.

But I hope my daughter is correct. And she may well be. I can see business executives deluging Trump with complaints about what his tariffs are costing them. The only way corporations would spend large amounts of money on building plants that build what currently is being produced in other countries is if they can be sure that the tariffs will remain in place permanently, or at least for many years.

However, Trump is notoriously mercurial. He changes his mind on a whim. So it's unlikely that many corporations are going to move their production to the United States when they know that the reason for doing this -- Trump's massive tariffs on imports -- could disappear at any time.

Thus Trump is in a bind. The only way to achieve his Make Everything in America dream is to keep the tariffs in place for quite a few years. Yet if he does this, a recession (or even depression) is likely, not only in this country, but internationally. That will lead to a big Democratic victory in the 2026 midterms and deepen Trump's reputation as one of the worst presidents ever. 

My argument for Trump sticking with his tariffs was pretty simple: he's motivated largely by a desire for revenge and retribution. Tump may sincerely believe that other countries have been ripping us off economically, though there's little evidence of this. So I can see him keeping the tariffs in place to punish our trading partners, even if the United States is hurt just as badly.

Soon we'll see who was right. I hope my daughter is, because the tariffs are a self-imposed attack on a key foundation of our nation's economic success: international trade.

Not a surprise: Trump's tariffs are based on lies

Given Trump's notorious disregard for the truth, it isn't surprising that yesterday when he revealed his so-called "reciprocal tariffs" on goods imported to the United States from other countries, massive lies were used to support his massive and economically destructive tariffs -- which amount to a gigantic tax increase on the American people. 

Trump used the charts below to illustrate his tariff plan. The column just to the right of a country's name is titled "Tariffs Charged to the U.S.A. Including Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers." That's a total lie, as I'll describe below. That column has nothing to do with tariffs charged to the United States, nor does it have anything to do with currency manipulation and trade barriers.

The column in yellow is titled "U.S.A. Discounted Reciprocal Tariffs." That's another lie, since the discount is from the figure in the other column, which as I just said has nothing to do with tariffs, so there's no way the yellow column can contain discounted reciprocal tariffs.

Today CNN had a segment about how the Trump tariffs were actually calculated, using Vietnam as an example. The calculation is absurdly simple. Indeed, childishly simple, given the tremendous economic pain these falsely calculated reciprocal tariffs will cause the world. 

(1) In 2024 Vietnam exported $136.6 billion in goods to the United States, and Vietnam imported $13.1 billion in goods from the United States.
(2) So the trade deficit between Vietnam and the United States was $123.5 billion, the difference between the $136.6 billion of Vietnamese goods bought by the United States and the $13.1 billion of United States goods bought by Vietnam.
(3) The Trump administration divided $123.5 billion (the trade deficit) by $136.6 billion (the value of Vietnamese goods bought by the United States). That figure is .90, or 90%. 

I first learned of this absurdly simple calculation from a post on X last night.

This proves that what Trump was saying at yesterday's Rose Garden reveal of the tariff amounts was a lie. Using Vietnam as an example, it is completely false that this country has a 90% tariff on United Stats imports.

Actually, Vietnam's tariff rate was 9.4% in 2023. So the Trump administration was off by a factor of almost 10. Instead of charging Vietnam the "discounted" rate of 46% on its exports to the United States, a truly reciprocal rate would have been 9.4%, or 10% to round up.

Trump kept saying that the existence of a trade deficit with another country means that the United States is being ripped off. That's ridiculous. International trade generally benefits both countries, the exporter and the importer. 

We Americans benefit from goods (like shoes and clothing) made in Vietnam and sold here. Because Vietnamese workers are paid a low wage by our standards, we are able to save money on our purchases. Vietnam benefits by being able to employ their citizens at factory jobs that pay a decent wage by their standards. It's a win-win.

The main reason Vietnam imports few goods from the United States is that their citizens can't afford the expensive stuff that we make here. So the trade deficit isn't a conspiracy by Vietnam to rip us off. It's a result of Vietnam and the United States having very different economies, with the U.S. being much richer.

Trump is completely wrong in basing his tariffs on an assumption that the United States should have an equal value of imports and exports with another country, or there's something wrong. Today I heard an economist liken this false assumption to a store owner being upset that they are paying more money to their hair stylist than the hair stylist is buying from their store.

That isn't the way an economy works. Money circulates in complex fashions. Trade deficits arise for all sorts of reasons. It may well be that some countries should reduce their tariffs on imports from the United States. But like I've said, the way the Trump administration calculates the tariffs they're imposing on other countries has nothing to do with how large the tariffs those countries have.

A Washington Post story, "Economists say the way Trump calculated tariffs makes no sense," says:

Economists say the crude formula the White House used to calculate what it’s calling “reciprocal tariffs” is too simplistic to achieve its goal of wiping out U.S. trade deficits — and, for that matter, they say that goal doesn’t make sense, either.

...President Donald Trump’s tariff plan, announced Wednesday, would impose a 10 percent baseline tariff on all imports from virtually all countries — plus an additional punitive import tax tailored for each of about 60 countries.

The math used to come up with those rates is what experts are lampooning.

A formula released by the U.S. trade representative ties those punitive taxes to the United States’ bilateral trade deficit in goods with each country — in other words, how much more the U.S. imports from those countries than it exports to them. The calculation finds the ratio between the U.S. trade deficit with a country and that country’s total exports to the U.S. It then divides the ratio in half to produce what the administration called a “discounted reciprocal tariff.”

Economists criticized the formula for its assumption that persistent trade deficits are a reflection of allegedly unfair trade practices by U.S. trading partners. They point out that the math apparently leaves out services — which make up the bulk of the U.S. economy and an important proportion of its exports — from calculations of trade deficits, which has the effect of making U.S. trade relationships look more one-sided.

They also say there’s nothing “reciprocal” about the punitive tax rates because they’re disconnected from any actual barriers countries impose on U.S. imports.

“They’ve got an indefensible foundation to an indefensible policy,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum.