Seth

I believe that the main reason some foreign countries are fence sitting to some degree where their relationships with the U.S. are concerned is because they see us as a political mess, thanks entirely to the anti-Trump activities of the Democratic Party. They aren't sure who's going to be running the country after the 2020 e******ns and see the completely opposite possibilities.

If the Democrats are in charge, they reason, it'll be back to an apologetic America and easy pickings on taking advantage of us as they had during the Obama years.

If the Republicans come out on top with Trump still at the helm, they'll know where we stand and fall in line accordingly, since a strong and united America is an infinitely more dependable and trustworthy friend than either China or Russia.

My money's on the latter, but that's a digression.

Llewellyn (Lew) Rockwell's Mises Institute is a good organization that embraces most, if not all, American conservative values from a quasi- libertarian perspective and their outlook isn't to be taken lightly, but I believe their views of President Trump are inaccurate, based largely on their perceptions of him drawn from his ego (nobody ever said he was brimming over with modesty, LOL) and his comportment (direct manner?) in public.

My own belief is that he is much, much smarter than they seem to believe and I have every confidence in him to come out a winner when he leaves office in January of 2025, with America the world leader and in infinitely better shape than our nation was when he first took over the presidency.

So I'll have to disagree with Rockwell and Luongo's perspective because I think they're both biased against Trump (or at least his policies and abilities) and I think Thomas Luongo's article is jumping the proverbial gun.

ACP45 Loc: Rhode Island

Thanks for the considered and thoughtful response.

I have been fence sitting on the Trump issue for quite some time. Is he really a brilliant 4 D chess master with a loyal following and support from those in the military and intelligence community, or just another figurehead put up by those in power behind the scene? Is he just a zig to the right after 8 years of the zag to the left, but ultimately going in the same general direction of those who really control this country? Is the concept of Q real, or just a psy-op?

At this point in time, I fear it is the latter. Consider all those advisors with whom Trump has surrounded himself, especially the most recent Pompeo, Bolton, and Haspel (neo-cons). Consider how Trump jumped the gun on the Syrian missile strike on the fictitious Syrian gas attack, and the off, on, off, on issue of troop withdrawals. Consider the economic sanctions on Venezeula, Iran, and any other country that does not march to the US's bidding. Consider Trump's stance on the Julian Assange "I don't know anything about Wikileaks" issue, the sealed indictment, extradition request, and US pressure and bribes to get Ecuador to terminate his asylum. Consider Trump's veto of the US support for the war going on in Yeman being conducted by Saudi Arabia. It may be premature, but I am concerned that we are about to go to war with Iran at the behest of both Israel and Saudi Arabia. I could go on, but I think you get my point.

Rose42

England was a world power and ‘nationalist’. There was a time when the sun never set on the British empire. Rome was the same. Your assertion is incorrect. Every world leader has put themselves first.

None stay on top forever. I don’t think its because of nationalism. That’s cop out.

JIM BETHEA

"Seth" ~ FINALLY, someone that understands actual reality!! If only more people knew and understood Trump?? I agree that he is not short on ego, however, I have known few people with his success that didn't like to be noticed ~ Unless a person is mission-driven, then they may never understand the ones that don't have the word "impossible" in their vocabulary! Whether the people understand him or not, you can be sure that he is at the top of their "list" when they are seeking his endorsements, donations, social involvements and help with any problems they may be experiencing!

Fully understanding him since the 1980s, I can say that he has done many great things for so many, and unlike most the call in the cameras crews, he has chosen to remain anonymous on most that he has done or achieved ~ His and Ivana's personal qualities are very obvious within their children & now his & Melania's are reflected in Barron.

JEALOUSY & FEAR create his enemies!! Real winners that have made the sacrifices, that most others refuse to do, support and praise others that have, because of the fact that they all know that it's not all glimmer & glitz ~ I knew that many would be jealous of Trump because most that are looking for the easy ways and the shortcuts in live think that it's not fair that they are not healthy, wealthy and wise too ~ NEXT you have the ones that fear the Trump presidency!! The ones that hold the most malice are the ones that have always controlled our country and were at a point of completing their scheme until Trump popped up!! lol ~ Trump understands that our country needs to be operating with a sound money platform ~ He understands that were can't continue to allow our country to be flooded with people who only take and can add no value back to our society.

We first have to understand that there are some really corrupt & very greedy people in DC, which will sell you, me or the rest of the American people out in their quest for more & more power & money!! They are either politicians of the many "garden variety" of leaches that feed from backroom deals ~ Over 50% of our politicians become lobbyist once they leave or are kicked out of office!! What was one of Pres Trump's first order of business??...."ban politicians from becoming lobbyist for 5 years from becoming "lobbyists"..

The Euro Elitist that have owned our monetary and tax collections systems since 1914 are in panic because they know that Trump knows ~ lol ~ [he and his team are actually implementing a huge change in our money & tax system that going to rock the country] ~ The ones that have been running the show do not like a president that can't be bought & controlled ~ Last one was Reagan and he started exposing their massvie tax system fraud when he appointed the "Grace Commission"...they didn't like Peter Grace announcing that "not one penny" of our #1040 tax revenues goes to "not one gov agency"...it all goes to their Fed Resever to pay interest on the hypothetical national debt..

Foreign Relations: as you stated: FOR SURE other foreign leaders are confused and sorta "sitting back to see what is going to happen in our country" ~ China sees this is an opportune time for them to make some major moves for their world dominance ~ N Korea is running scared that if they de-nuke leaving them little to no defense, and then something happens to Trump so that another "regular bought & sold" president replaces Trump, then where would his country be?? Forget Russia...Putin wants people to leave the lower federations alone [Ukraine and all "stans"] because he still considers them to be a part of Russia's motherland ~ However, the Russian old federations are very oil & gas rich and the greedy g*******t of the world "have to have the last jelly bean in the jar!! Plus Putin is adamantly opposed to allowing these Central Banksters to takeover Russia with their enticements of "easy money"..

Lots more & lots more Seth, but phones are starting to ring to start my day ~ but I was impressed with your post...

JIM BETHEA

People are taking Trump's comment of "nationalism" out of context [especially the Dem/now Socialist & f**e media] because he was not implying that we should cut America off from the rest of the world, he only meant that we should take care of our American people, because we start taken in and supporting a flood of people coming into our country that add no value to our society...Hell, when he was first elected he was off circling the global meeting with practically all other allied country leaders!! He did piss off a lot of these "freeloading" countries that were not paying their fair share for their US protection & help!! lol

But of course, this ideology of taking everything that Trump says as out of context and trying to put some denigrating spin on it is nothing new!! They do this because they don't have any other tools in their toolbox to try to destroy him with ~ Just watch all of these 20 plus Dem and nutjobs that are running for POTUS? NOTHING...they are already starting the "chicken in every pot"..."BMW in every yard"..."Free Everything"...and for their negative rhetoric is that same old bulls**t "r****m".."bigotry"..."womanizer"..etc etc ...hell everyone knows their same old e******n tactics of "I'll fix everything for a v**e and then another 4 years of forgeting about them!! "Groundhog Days and the American people that are now awake are not going to fall for these worn out schems like in the "Ole Days"...lol

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Yes, indeed...

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

Walt..

Asking you a question now, not a taunt..

what has trump done the influenced the economy?

He walked into the best recovery in the world from the greatest recession in 70years.

for 6 years the economy was growing before trump waddled on the scene..

he gave tons of money to himself and the very rich so that drove the stock market as the buy back made them richer.

What do you like better? the tariffs that are costing us even to buy a wash machine? or that caused the shut down of 5 automobile plants.

His clever trade wars which have driven the trade difficult the record ext reams?

Perhaps it is not economics you like but his instruction for his lackeys to not respond to congressional subpoenas..

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

President Obama apology tour was only one more trump supporters wishful dream..


https://www.laurinburgexchange.com/opinion/16559/sorry-there-was-no-apology-tour


The claim that Obama apologized for America began to take shape shortly after he became president. Karl Rove, former adviser to George W. Bush, wrote an article titled “The President’s Apology Tour” for the Wall Street Journal on April 23, 2009, just three months after Obama was inaugurated.

Rove based his opinion on four quotes made by Obama, writing:

“Mr. Obama told the French (the French!) that America “has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive” toward Europe. In Prague, he said America has “a moral responsibility to act” on arms control because only the U.S. had “used a nuclear weapon.” In London, he said that decisions about the world financial system were no longer made by “just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy” — as if that were a bad thing. And in Latin America, he said the U.S. had not “pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors” because we “failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas.”“

None of those quotes contain an apology or anything similar to it. The Latin American comment was nearly identical to what George W. Bush said in his 2000 campaign. The Prague and London quotes are certainly not apologies, and the Paris quote is taken out of context.

The quote President Obama made in Paris that Rove criticized is, “In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive. But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.”

SchneckenFresser

Sorry, Walt Moreno, but ya can't rewrite history. All your nasty lies about Obama's economic policies are based on conveniently forgetting the economic catastrophe of 2008, the principal cause of "..such widespread poverty and misery.." And the number of people on food stamps is a symbol of a compassionate government, not a failed president. Remember the auto industry, among many other of Barack Hussein Obama's wins. Read up on your history before you think you can peddle your basket of diversion/lies. Thinking persons know better than accepting your version of the past, slick as you are in presenting it. And your crowning declaration of, "Thank God Trump knows what he's doing!" is a real howler, when the wide world knows that Drumpfelthinskin is a vile, selfish, mendacious, bumbling failure.

JIM BETHEA

Please stop with this bulls**t about Trump inherited Obozo's great economy ~~ Sounds like a repeat of yesterday's CNN & MSNBC's news actors......

I guess it was Big O's influence that made the 40% increase jump of Wall Street the day after Trump was elected? The money people understand "CONFIDENCE & ABILITIES"... the proof is in the pudding!!

He's trying to get control over Obozo "doubling our National Debt" [Big O created more debt in 8 years than all other Pres in our past history combined]

When are people going to learn that Obama was a "plant" for the g*******t and started with their CFR??

The alleged financial meltdown was when China, Russia & India caught onto all of the Wall Street CDOs and subprime mortgages tricks and STOPPED BUYING ~

Now the Rothschilds have invited China into their IMF which allows them to trade in SDRs ~ so if China stops buying our US bonds & notes along with using other currencies besides the US dollar then our social programs and entitlements [free stuff] will cease to exist...

Trump was running 476 worldwide successful corporations while Obama's mentors/handlers were trying to get him to put down the crack-pipe...lol......Even the Rothschilds CFR couldn't clean-up Obama US Senate history of the "worst attendance record of a US Senator in Senate history!!!

They did manage to get all of his "history sealed" at a cost of $35 million to the taxpayers expense!!

SchneckenFresser

Rant on, Jim Bethea, we all know you are a Drumpf troll on his payroll.

JIM BETHEA

Obama's last trip to China was so disgraced when the Chinese gov wouldn't even send out a departing ramp to Air Force One ~ Obama had to go out of the rear cargo door!!!

Trump was greeted with roses from the children and the full "red carpet" walk ~ He & our First Lady were the first Americans EVER IN HISTORY to be invited into their Royal Palace!! It's called 'RESPECT"

JIM BETHEA

GOOD ONE... know it is just that I reseach and write about Facts, plus I have followed Trump since the 1980s in real life facts ~~ Not what Soro's trolls and the "bought & sold" media tricks try to influence the weak of mind...Little Hint..Rothschilds bought out Reuters and 46 leading newspapers in the 1880s to set their propaganda campaigns to influence or soften the blows for their upcoming theft of over 10% of US territories for their Railroad Act & their upcoming take over our monetary and tax systems with the corporations known as the Federal Reserve and IRS...For the ones that want to deal in facts; all of these corporation's charters can be researched at the Delaware Sec of State....1914...lots more but I don't want to create an overload...lol

permafrost Loc: Minnesota

trump own stock in those corps, which you say is 476, he runs nothing..

when he went broke owning casinos, put his abilities well lower then the cess pool of his supporters..

Seth

I believe that Trump is actually in favor, as he has said, of getting us out of every prolonged military engagement he can, which actually makes sense from a businessman's perspective (unless the businessman's business is arms sales), but changing situations and something of a strategic chess game with Putin and Xi are causing what appear to be policy changes at something of a rapid frequency.

Again, that comes back to their testing us because of our perceived internal political mess. While Trump is trying to get our military resources and readiness back on track after neglect if same by his predecessor's administration (one need only take a daily look at UPI Defense News to see the frantic pace at which we're moving to get our own military up to snuff and arm our allies in various regions), it appears that China and Russia are trying to spread us thin in some regions and "set up shop" in others.

Trump is being tested by potential enemies, and the resistance he gets from the Democrats is only making his job more difficult, which is in turn endangering America and the American people.

Where certain South and Central American countries are concerned, their instabilities are posing a danger to us, because the U.S. is the main destination of the refugee flows that began and that continue to expand the crisis situation on our southern border, to say nothing of the billions it's costing the U.S. taxpayer. The only practical solution is to force those governments to get their affairs in order, and short of invading them, economic sanctions are the only lever we possess.

I believe Trump is his own man, because it's the only way he knows -- there's no way he'd be part of the deep state or allow himself to be their instrument.

He is fighting against the g*******ts whose ambitions would challenge our sovereignty and who use mass immigration as a tool to destabilize a country through intensive m**************m and parasitic effect on the workforce and overall economy.

My money's on Trump all the way.