‘The president is obsessed’: Trump fixates on Xi call amid faltering trade talks
www.politico.com/news/2025/06…— Mike Walker (@newnarrative.bsky.social) June 3, 2025 at 10:48 AM
LOOK! Over there! Another Very Serious distraction from Don TACO’s flailing One Big Murder Budget Bill!… Never change, Politico:
… “The president is obsessed with having a call with Xi,” said one person familiar with the trade talks, convinced he can personally hash out deep-seated divisions between the world’s two largest economies mano a mano with Xi.
That conviction belies the difficult position the U.S. is in as it tries to pressure China to fundamentally reorder their nearly $600 billion trade relationship, without doing lasting political damage at home. And it renews questions about what Trump’s endgame is in a trade war with China that is increasingly turning into a game of chicken.
The person familiar with the trade talks, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about their private conversations, said the administration is under “a lot of pressure” because of China’s block on critical minerals, crucial components for everything from auto and electronics manufacturing to munitions production. “I don’t think Xi is too interested in exporting any more rare earths or magnets to the United States, he’s made his position clear,” the person added, though they predicted there’s a “good likelihood” Xi would take the call to at least hear Trump out. “The president has some leverage, and the question is when he’s ready to impose maximum pressure on the Chinese government.”
A former Trump official close to the White House, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the president’s strategy, said: “Trump feels like a call between principles is a way to cut through a lot of this noise, and get right to the heart of the matter.”…
But the former Trump official dismissed the idea that there are major downsides to pushing for a Trump-Xi conversation. “From the U.S. perspective, what’s the big downside to the call? You ask for it. If they don’t do it, it’s like, ‘well, you know, we’re trying, they’re not even trying,’” the former official said. “And if they do it, maybe we get some progress.”
LUCE: “.. You can't blame Xi for being wary of talking to Trump. In late April, Trump told Time that Xi had called him — ‘and I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.’ No such call had taken place.”
@edwardluce.bsky.social
www.ft.com/content/d64c…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) June 3, 2025 at 7:38 AM
… Nothing to do with Trump’s China policy is predictable, let alone equal. Does he care about Taiwan? Let’s toss a coin. Does he want the US to decouple from China? Spin the roulette wheel. Trump’s supposed coming phone call with China’s President Xi Jinping is unlikely to lift our confusion. China is the ultimate Trump riddle.
You can hardly blame the Chinese for being wary of talking to him. In late April, Trump told Time that Xi had called him — “and I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf”. No call had taken place.
Any reading by Trump of Xi’s psychology should thus be put down to an AI-style hallucination. China’s foreign ministry accused Trump of “misleading the public”, which by today’s standards was polite. But we should not mistake Xi’s avoidance of “wolf warrior” invective for submission to Trump in the tariffs war. China is not the UK. The Chinese are as confused about Trump’s endgame as everyone else.
If Xi does finally agree to a call with Trump — the first since he was inaugurated — the duelling Washington-Beijing readouts would make for interesting reading…
The China-US component of Trump’s on-again off-again trade war is in a category of its own. The rest are based on exaggerated or imaginary complaints. The EU is no likelier to concede that its value added tax is a trade barrier than Canada will admit to exporting fentanyl to the US. Both are fictions. By contrast, China’s dual-use technological ambitions pose a big geopolitical conundrum to America. How Trump addresses those — whether he scraps Joe Biden’s “small yard, high fence” restrictions on semiconductor trade with China — matters to everyone.
Yet we have little clue how much they concern Trump. The leverage goes both ways. The US could continue to restrict China’s access to AI technology and chips. But Trump has already relaxed some of this. Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang is an influential advocate with Trump of further relaxation. On the other side, China has a stranglehold on the world’s rare earth supply that is critical to a wide range of US production. Trump claims China has reneged on last month’s deal to resume its exports of rare earths to the US. In that pause, Trump reduced his 145 per cent tariff on China to 30 per cent.
Will he ratchet tariffs up again if China does not lift its embargo? There is no way of knowing. Once upon a time Trump thought that the China-owned TikTok was a threat to US national security. Now he is keeping the social media app alive — with a possible view of a forced sale to a Trump business partner — against the wishes of Congress and the Supreme Court. As goes TikTok, so might go Trump’s China policy…
… JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon: “China is a potential adversary . . . But what I really worry about is us.” Dimon was tactful not to name the US president. On the conundrum posed by Trump’s erraticism, China and the rest of the world are as one.
It's not even "chess vs checkers." China is simply playing checkers and Trump is "eating all of my red crackers."
(You know he'd never play as black.)— Erik Sternberger (@eriksternberger.bsky.social) May 23, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Really interesting (depressing) thread:
More broadly, with a few exceptions (hostility to Europe & alliances), it's not particularly useful to think of a foreign policy wrt Trump.
There's no clear end goal on China, as choosing btw hard decoupling vs rebalancing vs détente vs condominium poses an existential threat to Trump's coalition.— Judah Grunstein (@judah-grunstein.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 5:03 AM
On The Road – frosty – 2024 National Park Road Trip – Washington (1/10) San Juan Island and Seattle Part 1
TS
trump started this trade war with China – so why would China want to negotiate to trump terms – makes perfect sense to me that China will wait this out.
Lapassionara
The number of lies being told by this administration is just astonishing. Why would anyone believe anything they say.
Jeffro
something something fireflies beeping in a jar something something
Baud
I read those excerpts and I’m left with the impression that the media really loves all of this.
piratedan
@Baud: yeah, it’s like they can speculate about everything and if they are totally and completely wrong they can STILL get a complete pass because it’s Trump, its like everyone gets a 100 on their half-assed homework assignments because its substitute teacher time.
Baud
@piratedan:
And no real reporting effort required. All you need is a short phone call with anonymous sources.
Soprano2
@Lapassionara: I have no idea, but more often than not the press seems to take them at their word. They’ve learned nothing from the past 10 years.
Soprano2
@Baud: They do, having the constant content creator that’s FFOTUS is what they wanted. They made it obvious during the campaign. Covering competent government is boring, they hated it.
ETA this is the part that they really love – they can constantly speculate and never have to admit to being wrong, because who knows what FFOTUS is thinking? I think they found during his first term that they really loved this type of reporting. Shoot, everyone enjoys engaging like this more than engaging where you have to know actual information, because it’s easier and open to everyone.
piratedan
@Baud: wouldn’t be shocked if that was even required, they could go entirely on vibes or the age old, just make shit up and who is gonna know the difference?
siddhartha
I woke up early and reread Frederick Douglass’s “The Mission of the War” (1864). I would recommend it (apologies if already known).
It’s horrifying and grounding at the same time. It is a speech that can be given today. That’s the terrifying (and despair-inducing part). But, it also allows one to see that no matter who was elected, even Clinton or Harris, this shit would still not be dealt with. And unless that happens, the whiplash continues.
White people have to decide what country they want, as the Confederacy is adamant in its malice, cruelty, and bad faith. Will blue states continue to enable their own exploitation (and refusal of state’s rights) to subsidize–quite literally even today in a certain sense–slavery?
Even today, to quote Douglass, “I think we are in danger of a compromise with slavery.”
“The most hopeful fact of the hour is that we are now in a salutary school—the school of affliction. If sharp and signal retribution, long protracted, wide-sweeping and overwhelming, can teach a great nation respect for the long-despised claims of justice, surely we shall be taught now and for all time to come. But if, on the other hand, this potent teacher, whose lessons are written in characters of blood and thundered to us from a hundred battlefields shall fail, we shall go down as we shall deserve to go down, as a warning to all other nations which shall come after us. It is not pleasant to contemplate the hour as one of doubt and danger. We naturally prefer the bright side, but when there is a dark side it is folly to shut our eyes to it or deny its existence….”
This is not Civil War he says. It must be an Abolition War.
Baud
@siddhartha:
Good quote.
siddhartha
Good morning Baud!
Here’s another one:
“While a respectable colored man or woman can be kicked out of the commonest streetcar in New York where any white ruffian may ride unquestioned, we are in danger of a compromise with slavery. While the North is full of such papers as the New York World, Express and Herald. [FTFNYT], firing the nation’s heart with hatred to Negroes and Abolitionists, we are in danger of a slaveholding peace. While the major part of antislavery profession is based upon devotion to the Union rather than hostility to slavery, there is danger of a slaveholding peace. Until we shall see the election of November next, and that it has resulted in the election of a sound antislavery man as President, we shall be in danger of a slaveholding compromise. Indeed, as long as slavery has any life in it anywhere in the country, we are in danger of such a compromise….
You and I know that the mission of this war is national regeneration. We know and consider that a nation is not born in a day. “
Baud
@siddhartha:
Good morning.
That’s essentially what Jim Crow was.
Doug R
@TS:
I think Trump’s coalition needs China more than China needs the USA, especially now that Trump has former allies now looking for other trading partners.
rattlemullet
America will be so fucked by the time this moron is done with showering his stupidity here and abroad, America will never be the leader of the free world again. The only reason any would and will pay attention us at all is just like anyone pays attention to North Korea, we have a nuclear arsenal and our economy will be based on the production of weapons for the rest of the worlds despot nations.
Everything thing this motherfucker does turns to shit or money for him and his ilk.
8647 and 86 all republicans, fuckem’ all to hell.
bbleh
Concur w comments about media: Trump is entertaining, and more than half of what they sell now is entertainment.
As to China, why does anyone assume he HAS an “endgame” or even any “policy” at all? Even he has always said, he doesn’t do strategy or plans and just “wings it.” That’s what he’s doing here too. Every day is de novo. (Yet another symptom of advancing dementia btw …)
MattF
Trump creates distractions, the media cooperates. Good current example is ‘investigation’ into ‘cover up’ of Biden’s ‘infirmity’. Potential to enrage and divide many Democrats, attack people closest to Biden, major opportunity for performative cruelty— it’s just great.
Baud
@rattlemullet:
Some think that’s a good thing. I’m not one of them, but it’s out of my hands now.
mappy!
LAETATT (Lying About Everything All the Time) flavored Taco
TRUMP’S Tariff/Trade SCAM has Turned Into an Exercise of “Begging” Countries With Letters to Validate his Tariff Scam
Trump’s Vanishing America: Zelensky Steps Over, Canada Steps Around, Europe Ignores
YY_Sima Qian
It turns out the PRC may have better ability to limit the smuggling/transshipment of processed rare earth elements and rare earth magnets to the US, than the US could limit the smuggling/transshipment of GPUs to the PRC (gift links to NYT articles below):
The Trump Administration wants to disambiguate the trade war from the tech. war from the security competition, but the PRC sees them all as parts of a new Cold War the US insists on waging. At the same time, the Trump Administration fails to recognize that the PRC’s export controls of REEs & REMs are retaliation to the tech. war, thus not part of the deescalation of the trade war. Especially since day after folding in the trade war in Geneva, the Trump Commerce Department significantly escalated the tech. war by banning the sale of downgraded Nvidia H20 GPUs (specifically designed for the PRC market to meet prior export controls), warned all companies around the world (including the PRC) against using Huawei GPUs, & banned the sale & service of electronic design automation software to any PRC company. So we have a tit for tat escalation in the tech. war that will be almost as disruptive to global supply chains as the prior tit for tat escalation in the trade war, & more difficult to deescalate from as the tech. war is more directly tied to the security competition on both sides of the Pacific.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has been committing seppuku for the US’ scientific prowess, & the PRC is poised to take (& has been taking) advantage:
An example of what could be lost should the two sides continue to decouple scientifically & technologically (which has been driven from the US side):
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this, I am wondering if this
isn’t some role play character the reporter made up on an AI.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@siddhartha: incidentally, it’s worth noting that at the time slavery was putting the United States increasingly out of step with the rest of the West, much like MAGA is doing now.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
What I wouldn’t give to gave chatgpt as president.
Hoodie
Scott Galloway thinks that Trump’s tariff actions are 100% market manipulation so that people close to him can cash in, i.e., he drives stocks down by placing tariffs and then drives them back up after relenting, and a connected circle is telegraphed these moves. On his podcast with Kara Swisher the other day he discussed some suspicious trading volumes that support that conclusion. Therefore, “TACO trade” may just be some Wall St. types recognizing what’s going on and tracking those trades. I suspect the Chinese also know this and realize they can gain additional leverage if they play it right by ratcheting up a bit in each round of phony “negotiation,” which may be why they’re doing things like not lifting the embargo on rare earth metals after they dropped initial retaliatory tariffs. At some point Trump will likely have to give something up to return to a status quo that satisfies the markets, so there’s a good chance we end up in a worse position vis the Chinese than when he started this.
YY_Sima Qian
A stark warning from an astute observer of the tech./science/industrial trends in the US & the PRC. The headline written by the NYT editors is a cringeworthy clickbait, but the substance of the guest essay is well worth reading:
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yeah, well, Joni Ernst says that in the future, we’ll all be dead.
Baud
@Baud:
Gave = have
Suzanne
There has been so much about public life in the last decade that has been utterly terrible. One of the worst things about it has been the dawning horror that half of my fellow citizens looks at this lying piece of shit — and likes it, and they want more lies!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
ROFL
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Our media is pathetic.
Trivia Man
“A call between principles”? Let me help you out here – trump has no principles.
1) get rich
2) get praised publicly
3) stay out of jail
In that order and the list ends there.
(If i were the editor it would say “a call between principals”)
Suzanne
@Baud: So we’ve been trying to see what AI tools can do for us at work. We found that it can do a pretty good first draft of a building program, which is the list of rooms in the building and how much space they take up. But oh my God….. it cannot draw or even create a sensible floor plan. It’s so bad.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
They certainly do. He is the OJ trial of presidents.
siddhartha
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yup! The Douglass document and the articles of secession are so eerily uncanny. Douglass I believe is right to make the question moral rather than political (in the narrow sense). It is that lack of moral grounding that explains (again uncannily) what we would today recognize as the huge majority of Americans who just do not care, those we call “swing voters,” and the so-called lefties (or whatever they call themselves–the “my way” because I alone can decide what is actually “progressive” despite never personally living the consequences or the “highway”; the kind of people who need MORE than the Supreme Court being at issue to deem to bestow us with their vote).
Douglass: “There are vast numbers of voters, who make no account of the moral growth of a great nation and who only look at the war as a calamity to be endured only so long as they have no power to arrest it. Now, this is just the sort of people whose votes may turn the scale against us in the last event.”
Frankly, I would extend this to the “crisis” faced by Democrats regarding what the heck they actually believe.
Hoodie
@YY_Sima Qian: A modern equivalent on Swift’s Modest Proposal would be an LBO for the US. Someone like Canada could take on some debt secured by their natural resources to buy the US, spin off the crappy parts and build a solid competitor with some good assets (e.g., Canadian water, California ag, universities, etc.) and a younger workforce than China’s. In terms of Trump’s annexation idea, merge the US and Canada but fire US management.
Soprano2
Ooohhh, I like that I’m going to use it! It’s such an apt description of the current relationship between FFOTUS and the press.
Baud
@Suzanne:
That jives with my limited use of AI. It’s not bad for getting started and helping around the edges, but not ready for prime time yet.
One helpful thing I’ve used it for is extracting and organizing data from a document. That’s been a time saver.
I’ve also used it to generate small bits of code. I’m not a coder, so that’s been helpful.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: People would hate ChatGPT because wouldn’t lie to them.
E.
Just taught my four-year old the word “zugzwang” and right afterward lamented that such a useful word is so rarely used. And look right there, zugzwang.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Of course Xi’s averse to talking to the Orange Fart Cloud, it’s an operational response that he knows will drive the man insane.
Both China and Mexico have leaders who know exactly how to play this clown.
JFC, here I am rooting for China, that’s how upside down the world has turned all because 77 million ‘Murkins turned out to vote for the dumbass.
siddhartha
ok, I do have other work to do so here’s my last comment from my early morning reading that I wanted to share:
This is where I think Lincoln was “wrong”: “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.” He was brutally assassinated 5 days later.
We should judge. To own another person and to want to own another person is wrong (substitute anyone they hate here and what they have done and are continuing to do against them). These are bad people. Period.
I am not saying anything radically enlightening here or unknown, especially at BJ. I’m just rereading documents from US history to remind myself that the moral clarity can cut out a lot of bullshit (acting as though human trafficking or transphobia is debatable, for example). The purveyors of cruelty, malice, and bad faith have been at this shit for a long time. And it’s the same shit.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
Why would you want it to?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
I knew that Xi had not picked up the phone😂😂
rikyrah
@Baud:
They don’t have to actually report on the RESULTS of the policy.
They don’t even have to understand the financial repercussions of tariffs.
The harm that this is causing to our economy.
Our standing in the world.
How things can be shifting long term because of the Orange Menace.
See, all THOSE stories take actual research. Comprehension.
THIS BULLSHYT ?
Just he said, she said “palace intrigue” gossip that takes no thought at all😠😠😠😠
Dorothy A. Winsor
If Trump wants to talk to Xi, Trump has to go to him with tears in his eyes and say, “Sir…”
RevRick
@E.: Don’t you love it when someone talks “dirty” chess talk to you?
YY_Sima Qian
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yeah, that must be some cognitive dissonance, given your background.
Then again, the 1st 5 months of Trump 47 has been orders of magnitude worse than I could have possibly imagined.
zhena gogolia
@siddhartha: Thanks for this.
RevRick
@rikyrah: The fake Jews With Brews podcast thread on Bluesky offers an astute analysis of how Trump has thoroughly boxed himself in with his position on tariffs. He is learning the hard way that the choice is between the US gradually declining vis-a-vis the rest of the world or being shoved off a cliff by his dumbass tariffs.
zhena gogolia
@YY_Sima Qian: Not me. I could see this absolutely clearly. That’s why I was so incensed that we could not hold the line last summer. The stakes are so far beyond Biden’s stutter.
YY_Sima Qian
Reading between the lines of Bessent’s latest comments, it seems the Trump Administration is coming to the realization that The PRC’s near monopoly over many of the REEs & most of the REMs has the U.S. over a barrel, so a TACO maneuver is not out of the question.
At this rate, the PRC will probably breakthrough the U.S.’ control over leading edge semiconductor design & fabrication long before the U.S. can breakthrough the PRC’s controls over the REEs & REMs.
Refined REEs are only worth a few billion USDs a year, but lack of them can shutter production worth trillions, & wipe out wealth worth many more trillions.
YY_Sima Qian
@zhena gogolia: I imagined plenty of shamelessness, corruption, malice & incompetence, but I failed to imagine the willingness to commit seppuku across so many fronts.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Frank Lloyd Wrong.
//
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: In a more just world the United States, as the oldest “democratic republic” on the planet, would become the “elder statesnation,” if you will; demonstrating that democracy can only be maintained through universal suffrage; that truly all humans are created equal and can therefore find ways to live together in peace.
But this is not that world.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
It’s nothing new. (Warning: N word)
https://images.app.goo.gl/YQG67Qf5c88NbbzH6
https://images.app.goo.gl/HYxHmhPs9nebgnFu9
zhena gogolia
I can’t access the New York Times in Chrome. In Firefox it’s okay.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Deactivate Chrome’s garbage filter.
counterfactual
One wrinkle, there are rumors that Xi’s hold on power is shaky. He hasn’t done anything in public for over a week, and there’s a letter calling for him to attend a “self-criticism session.”
Baud
@counterfactual:
When did he become a Democrat?
Geminid
I saw that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani for New York City Mayor yesterday. She also named her next four choices as this will be the City’s second Ranked-choice primary.
Rep. Grace Yvette Clark has endorsed City Council Chair Adrienne Adams, while Reps. Adrianno Espaillat, Richie Torres and Greg Meeks have endorsed former Governor Andrew Cuomo. I think the primary will be held June 23.
Baud
@Geminid:
Did she rank Cuomo at all?
Librettist
MAGA:
https://www.wowktv.com/news/wyoming-county-mine-third-in-under-two-months-to-issue-layoff-notice/
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
Rim shot.
Baud
@Librettist:
Also MAGA
At least he’s not old like Biden.
Geminid
@Baud: I’m pretty sure she did not rank Cuomo. I expect Ocasio-Cortez aligns with the anti-Cuomo slogan “D.R.E.A.M”: Do not Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.
catclub
On the other hand, I bet there were lots of headlines like that in the late 1980’s and early 90’s with Japan in place of China.
predicting the future is hard.
Baud
@Geminid:
Should be interesting. I commented on the polling you provided in the late night thread. It’s getting closer.
Librettist
@Baud:
Wasn’t Doobie Brother guitarist Skunk Baxter a WoT expert during Bush II?
Yes men all the way down.
Baud
@Librettist:
I don’t remember. I recall they tapped some inexperienced young dudes to lead on the “rebuilding” of Iraq.
catclub
@counterfactual: I have watched more than one youtube channel that predicts/ describes various nations as being on the verge of economic collapse.
Russia is first but usually China and Japan are next.
I think ‘verge of’ is doing a lot of work.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@siddhartha: Here are few things to consider about Lincolns thinking.
Everyone, North and South big fear was Bleeding Kansas Part II after the war ended. Heck that’s why Lee surrendered instead of taking to hills. As it was, Missouri happened.
Two of Lincoln’s own Cabinet members were big time slave owners. Even US Grant owned a slave at one point (Of course US Grant, being US Grant, was disgusted and set the man free)
So things tend to be complex.
YY_Sima Qian
@counterfactual: Xi just met Lukashenko, who is in Beijing for a working visit (a strangely low key one), & there has been precedent where Xi largely disappeared from state media for a few days.
Rumors of Xi being in shaky position surface periodically, most can be traced to outlets tied to the Falun Gong, probably a combination of wish casting, trolling & sh*t posting. If anything, the escalations in the trade & tech. wars by Trump 45, Biden & Trump 47 have made Xi’s position far more secure, despite the body blows delivered by the COVID-19 pandemic (the opacity in the beginning, the escalating lock downs through ’22, & the exit tsunami at the end of ’22/beginning of ’23).
The heightening Cold War 2.0, especially the relentless tech. war, legitimatized in the minds of many/most PRC citizens Xi’s focus on economic resilience, technological independence, assertive diplomacy, pervasive securitization, suppression of dissent & civil society, aversion to Western/US influence, & disciplining the Party-State, prescient even.
Xi is in the middle of a serious housecleaning of the upper ranks of the PRC military & the state owned MIC. There is no thing to suggest that his position is anything but secure. If anything, the absences could be health related.
SW
TACO man has yellow fever 🙃
tobie
@Suzanne: It’s stunning how many people like the lies, the cruelty, the corruption. I’ve come to the conclusion that Trump’s loyal base is just like him. His supporters are sociopaths & cheaters with enormous self-regard. You have to be to like this shitshow.
YY_Sima Qian
@catclub: As I said, the headline is click bait, the substance of the essay is worth taking seriously.
What separates ’80s Japan & the ’20s PRC is that the PRC still has a lot room for catch up growth, being at the upper end of the Middle Income/lower end of High Income economy, Japan was already fully developed. The PRC has a much larger domestic market, & thus far less dependent on access to foreign markets, luxuries that Japan did & does not enjoy. The PRC has been proactively reorienting its economy in response to changing circumstances, pivoting from export reliance to domestic investment (infrastructure & real estate) & unleashing fintech/internet platforms in the wake of the GFC, then purposefully popping the real estate bubble & reining in the tech monopolies/oligopolies & pivoting to advanced manufacturing & hard tech. Japan has been kicking the can down the road for decades. The PRC is far less susceptible to US pressure, while Japan saw its dominance in semiconductors, shipbuilding & LCD displays weakened by South Korean & Taiwanese competition, partially nurtured by the US (government & businesses).
George
@bbleh:
I agree–FFOTUS has no real political endgame. I don’t know whether it is due to dementia, necessarily, or simply to his psychopathy. His goal, such as it is, is to increase his own wealth and power. To reach that goal, he uses chaos and pain because he likes damaging things. That, to me, summarizes him completely. People who look for more nuanced explanations are wasting their time.
Suzanne
@tobie: Yes. A lot of the cognitive dissonance I felt back in 2016 went away once I truly grokked that all of the things that I felt were disqualifying about FFOTUS were in fact aspects of his allure. The cruelty is the point, of course, but also the shamelessness, the trashiness, the dishonesty, the criminality, the idiocy. Also the points.
And then, the next step was to unpack why those things were so alluring to his minions, which led to: Because his people would do all of those things if they could and because those things piss liberals off and that is the highest good.
Jeffro
and you’d be correct
Baud
@Suzanne:
Can’t expect people who are living the dream to wake up.
Soprano2
@Baud: Just wow, that tells you something about the “talent pool” they have to draw from and their wisdom about filling positions.
YY_Sima Qian
Trump & Xi just talked:
Further commentary:
Bupalos
@George: I think the reality is that Trump really has no goals in the traditional sense of that term. He has profound narcissistic personality disorder and ADHD, and just lives every day on a rollercoaster of dispositional states and thirsty for narcissistic supply.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: in the book _you can negotiate anything_ i learned that when one of the counterparties has a much longer timeline than the other, that counterparty can often win simply by weighting things out. We all know but the US has a timeline and China doesn’t: We’re all waiting for those empty container ships to hit. Meanwhile China can use its foreign exchange reserves To subsidize exports To the rest of the world While they’re waiting us out. That’s not a long-term strategy but on the other handThey only have a few months to wait.
Librettist
@YY_Sima Qian:
TACO
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
It’s all your fault! See, if the XX in Baud 20XX had been 24, everyone would have come flocking to your banner, and we’d have inaugurated the liberal/socialist Golden Age here in America by now. But you let us down!!
//, obviously
Suzanne
@Baud: I feel like this is a hard reality to grok, though. Including for many commenters here. Because it doesn’t merely entail accepting that FFOTUS and the GOP are terrible. It entails accepting that close to half of America genuinely hates us, to the point of self-harm.
Most of us here are well-meaning and kind (not me), and that’s a difficult truth to face. There are times that I disagree with people’s takes around here, but it’s usually because I think they haven’t accepted this fully.
Bupalos
@tobie: I don’t think it’s true that Trump’s most fervent supporters are very meaningfully like him. Trump is a pretty unique and uniquely psychologically compromised individual that is notwithstanding a very cunning manipulator. I’d posit that there does have to be something wrong with you to support Trump, but it doesn’t have to be the same things that are wrong with Trump.
tam1MI
Trump launches “Biden is Old” investigation with aim of overturning all EOs Biden passed and all bills he signed into law.
::Slow clap::
Great job, Biden haters! Our future is dead, thanks to you!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@YY_Sima Qian:
I would love to get a live Chinese reaction to such talks. I assume staff were there and listened.
I can just imagine the Chinese equivalent of a collective, massive eye-roll at some of the crap that spewed from Hair Furor’s pie hole during that conversation.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, successive Chinese governments, as well as Chinese businesses, have turned that negotiation strategy into an art form. Western MNCs are generally in a hurry to close a deal, w/ an eye toward quarterly/annual earnings, & often ends up negotiating w/ oneself. It can be a maddening experience.
It’s only in recent years that most Western MNCs have internalized the lesson that a signed contract is merely the start of a judo match w/ the Chinese counterparty. If one is lucky, that judo match can be a long term one & prove hugely beneficial to both sides, over time. If one is unlucky, the match is short & ends in tears & recrimination.
tobie
@Suzanne:
Nailed it.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: China has always used unfair terms of trade and intellectual property theft, but then so has every successful developing country (including the US during its rise). It’s up to us in the USA to fight our corner (which we did not, for the longest time) and not sabotage ourselves (which is what we’re doing today).
YY_Sima Qian
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Both Xi & his predecessor, Hu, are extremely practiced at being stoic & bland, & sticking to the same ole talking point no matter what.
Being a call & not a face to face meeting also helps. But then, in person Trump might just turn obsequious.
tobie
@Bupalos: The chip on shoulder is what unites both. They need to see themselves at the top of the pile and feel that the praise showered others at their expense.
Bupalos
These formulations seem to me to get stranger all the time. It’s just not remotely true that half of America can be characterized as primarily defined and motivated by hatred of the other half. Or whoever “us” is, I suppose you’re entertaining greater diversity there maybe? It seems to be a very online thought.
catclub
authoritarian followers versus authoritarian.
Bill Arnold
@YY_Sima Qian:
That’s generous. The suicide appears intended to maximize USA’s humiliation, not honor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: I sometimes wonder if you are familiar with all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and… satire.
Bupalos
@tobie: There are some common threads I guess. But I think the idea that Trump and his supporters are actually similar kinds of people is really very much overstated. It either normalizes Trump or denies the normality of Trump supporters, and I think both are a damaging kind of mistake.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Trump can overturn any EO he wants to and can’t do anything about any law Biden signed.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Bupalos:
Exactly.
Such statements don’t stand up to any hard data analysis nor do they stand up to even anecdotal experiences most of us here can relate.
Never let it be said that self-professed progressives don’t fall into the same kind of mental thinking that they always criticize the right for having. The cognitive dissonance and projection on display in such cases is basically the same.
Sure, there’s a lot of Cleek’s Law at play here but not to the extent that is portrayed in certain quarters.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Primarily is doing a lot of work there. But the fact is, no one on their side is putting any pressure on Trump to cool it with his hatred of liberals and Dems.
Harrison Wesley
Just read that both Trump and Xi had positive things to say about their phone conversation. I don’t have a clue what was actually discussed.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: What’s even more maddening is that a lot of Western MNCs reaped tremendous benefits from selling to the PRC market &/or sourcing from the PRC based supply chain, for decades. What did they do w/ all that profit? Maximized shareholder value, as opposed to investing in the tech. of the future to stay ahead of potential competition.
GM & VW are perfect examples. The PRC was by far the largest & most profitable market for both companies throughout the 2010s. They did not read the writing on the wall & take even a portion of that massive profit to invest in the transition to EVs. So both were caught completely flatfooted when the PRC auto market rapidly shifted to BEVs & PHEVs during the course of the pandemic, despite both having massive operations in country that should have given HQ warning, & their state owned JV partners had heeded the transparent industrial policy from the PRC government to transition to EVs. (Despite that, these state owned automakers that once dominated PRC auto manufacturing were still too slow compared to the more committed privately owned players such s BYD, the Geely Group, Li Auto, Xiaomi, etc.)
Now, GM & VW (including Audi) have to try to stay relevant in the PRC market by building on the BEV/PHEV platforms developed by the Chinese JV partners, sometimes to the extent of rebadging the models from their JV partners. The same for Toyota, Honda & Nissan.
catclub
@RevRick: There is zwishenzug (spelling?) which is an in-between move.
so Zugzwang is move paralysis
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: I am not familiar with all the tricks, no. I just find the phrasing odd and sort of… internetty?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@YY_Sima Qian:
I agree with most that, specifically the take profits to increase shareholder value. That’s a sickness that’s endemic to the US corporate world period.
Regarding GM being asleep at the wheel vis a vis EVs, I’ll cut them some slack in that regard because the Chinese move to BEV and PHEV (PHEV = ‘The Worst of Both Worlds’ when it comes to a car) because nobody really saw that coming, gubmint policy initiatives or not.
Automakers worldwide are clearly in a boardroom struggle over this. GM’s US semi-pivot to EVs and the market share grounds they’re making are just now starting to pay off…here.
But yeah, they’re gonna have a harder time doing that in China given the entirely different market dynamics and gubmint policy there.
catclub
@Baud: Until the SC rules that GOP EO’s and rulemaking can overrule Biden’s laws. Never mind their ruling the opposite way when Biden was President.
YY_Sima Qian
@Harrison Wesley: If the PRC side is saying positive things, expect some form of TACO.
I believe the overriding objective from Beijing is deter as much as possible Trump & coterie‘s temptation to renege on deals, to wantonly escalate, & to operate erratically, by making it abundantly clear the costs of such bad faith/unpredictability, & abundantly clear which side has escalation dominance in this tit for tat. The purpose is to minimize the disruption from the US, as the PRC goes through its economic shifting of gear, to allow space to properly “de-risk” (de-couple, if necessary) from the US at the minimum possible cost.
catclub
@Bupalos:
You need to learn from the Piranha Brothers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos:
If someone comes back from a sporting event and says that their team got killed, do you ask about the funeral arrangements?
catclub
@Omnes Omnibus: I think you missed sarcasm.
Bupalos
I guess. Someone could be motivated by hatred to the point of doing themselves harm without that being their primary motivation… but I’m not sure there’s really a huge gulf there.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: Sarcasm was in a previous sentence in the piece.
Baud
@Bupalos:
Right now, we don’t know if economics can compete with the hate that Trump offers. People are still coasting off the Biden economy.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Are you saying that the statement was “they hate us to the point of self harm, but not literally?” Because I think that’s probably not the intention of the statement. I’m not sure I see how any of the other concepts you listed would really apply there either.
Chetan Murthy
Perhaps you’re aware of the EV1 ? EV from GM, they actually sold some. IBM bought some: they had ’em at our Hawthorne lab for commuting to/from the Hawthorne train station. Nice cars. And then the day came when GM decided to end the program, and IIRC bought back the cars to crush ’em. Couldn’t have popular and well-loved EVs out there, nosirree.
Some wag remarked that the greatest service Tesla provided, was convincing the assholes who run American car companies, that they finally had to stop -stifling- the EV market. B/c that’s what they were doing: explicitly stifling EVs. I’m no fan of Musk, but American car company CEOs …… grrr.
ETA: The EV1 was, like, 20+ yr ago.
YY_Sima Qian
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: A few days ago I posted the new that GM is converting its planned US$ 300M investment for a battery plant at Tonawanda, NY to a US$ 800M investment to make V8 engines. Not sure about the pivot it is supposedly doing.
A proper PHEV (I don’t think there is one in the US) can be the perfect transition from ICE to BEV, for people who still have range anxiety & where the charging infrastructure is uneven. Once people experience the BEV-like driving experience, it is hard to go back. The battery pack is large enough to allow for daily commutes on battery only, the small ICE only runs at the optimal RPM for max fuel efficiency to recharge the battery, or provide a horsepower boost on the highway.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: No, I am not saying that.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: Wasn’t the Prius a PHEV? Isn’t it still? I remember before Tesla was big, California was just Prius heaven. All over. I never understood why Toyota didn’t use that dominance to move to EVs. [though I later learned they thought the future was hydrogen. sigh]
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Tesla in the PRC made EVs credible & desirable to Chinese consumers, a big part of the rapid transition to BEVs/PHEVs from 2020 on. Manufacturing in Shanghai & selling to the PRC saved tens the company, which reaped enormous profits from the PRC (including by exporting from the PRC to the ROW ex-USA) from 2020 – 2022.
However, Musk got distracted & Tesla stopped iterating its models, which is suicidal given how competitive the PRC auto market is, & how quickly Tesla’s local competitors iterate & innovate. Now Tesla faces the real possibility of slowing dying on the vine in the PRC.
Paul in KY
@Baud: It would be sooooo much better!
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Prius is an HEV, whose battery is only large enough to capture some of the energy from regen during braking, & to accelerate the vehicle from stand still. PHEVs (plug-in hybrids) have proper sized batteries that allow for battery only ranges of dozens to low hundreds of miles, so that it can be driven as a BEV for most daily commutes & errands. Of course, PHEVs are still lugging around the ICE & tank of gas as dead weight when running on batteries only, so not ideal in terms of energy efficiency, but the ICE backup certainly gives the driver peace of mind when traveling long distances & where the charging infrastructure is spotting.
It is actually more challenging to develop a good PHEV than either ICE or BEV, to achieve the best fuel efficiency, the best performance, & the best driving experience (the ICE & the electric motors need to work in perfect sync). This is an area BYD has invested heavily for a decade & has a clear lead on.
AFAIK, PHEVs do not currently exist in the US.
Layer8Problem
@Chetan Murthy: My go-to Wendy’s was in Hawthorne! I think I dropped off an IBMer at the lab too.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: 😄😂😄😂
YY_Sima Qian
USian left-liberals-progressives, take note of South Korea’s example!
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: [googles] Prius has 44mi battery range. also: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1230-march-21-2022-more-half-all-daily-trips-were-less-three-miles-2021
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@YY_Sima Qian:
Incorrect, there’s plenty of them available here:
https://ncmec.chooseev.com/compare_phev/
As we BEV geeks like to say they’re the worst of both worlds. You’re still paying and dealing with all the maintenance associated with an ICE car, to date, PHEVs don’t have the initial quality and reliability of either a plain ole hybrid or BEV, and you don’t get crap in terms of all-electric range with them.
suzanne
@Bupalos: I think a huge percentage of men hate or at least disregard women, that many whites hate or at least disregard minorities, that many able/well people aren’t willing to even inconvenience themselves on behalf of the disabled or the sick. I think this country hates children and is willing to sacrifice them rather than accept any infringement of their God-given right to carry a firearm, or let them go hungry before some wealthy donor pays another dime in taxes.
So, maybe you don’t define those things as HATE, or maybe you want to quibble with the percentage. Fine with me. Have at it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chetan Murthy:
GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, has been a robust supporter of their pivot to EVs.
True, they’ve moderated that somewhat in the last 18 months given economic and political issues here in the states. But, both their R&D, production and market growth indicate they’re in it for the long haul.
GM’s EV line is robust and, quite frankly, really good. Yeah, I own a 2023 Bolt EV and it’s a fantastic car that they’re updating now with a next-gen version out for model year 2026.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: My information on the Prius must be out of date. I think you are referring to the 2025 model.
However, 44 mile range is not quite high enough unless you live in an urban environment, especially as real world range is probably much lower. The batteries & the battery only ranges are still much smaller the PHEVs offered by the Chinese automakers. (Probably because batteries are much more expensive in the US than in the PRC.)
Chetan Murthy
I’ll re-up my comment:
I’m not saying that Toyota should have continued to make Priuses with ICEs inside. Rather: Toyota had massive market share; they could have leveraged that to sell EVs to the same folks. Instead they did jack and shit.
YY_Sima Qian
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I stand corrected.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: They bet the farm on hydrogen fuel cells. They lost the bet.
tam1MI
@Baud: Trump can overturn any EO he wants to and can’t do anything about any law Biden signed.
Has the Supreme Court weighed in on whether a law signed by an incapacitated President is good? Because if you accept as fact the Big Lie that Biden was a dementia-ridden incapacitated husk, then the question of something he signed into law is legitimate becomes an issue.
Paul in KY
@YY_Sima Qian: Unfortunately, it has not been way worse than what I expected. Just about spot on with what I thought we’d have to endure if he and his evil team were returned to power.
Paul in KY
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s not ‘seppuku’ if you don’t believe it’s ‘seppuku’…
Peale
Xi is not going to take a call that Trump will lie about and use to humiliate him. He’s also not coming to Washington to be treated to a gotcha press conference like is the president of South Africa or Ukraine.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Shows how valuable/important that position is. God help us all.
YY_Sima Qian
Heh…
Paul in KY
@YY_Sima Qian: I think Xi is in a much better position than Putin vis a vis his hold on power, etc.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chetan Murthy:
The CEO of Toyota, along with Subaru and Mazda, had a press conference last year saying that they’re not believing the EVs are the panacea for automotive transportation:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2024/05/29/who-said-the-gasoline-engine-was-dead-not-toyota/
They basically doubled down on ICE powertrains:
https://insideevs.com/news/721237/toyota-subaru-mazda-ice-ev/
It explains why Toyota has done jack and shit vis a vis BEV development, instead tossed out 1 EV model (in the US) that’s overpriced and underwhelming.
And you’re right, if they pushed EVs under the Toyota brand, watch out. Case in point, the Honda Prologue EV.
It’s a GM product that’s basically a rebadged (along with some software differences and a different body design) Blazer EV.
It’s selling really well to those people who wouldn’t be caught dead in a GM product but Honda? They’re totally onboard.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: It’s the ‘living under the bridge with a curtain rod’ thing. That’s absolutely true.
Geminid
@Chetan Murthy: I don’t think Toysta has put that many eggs in the hydrogen basket. They know they can’t force that market to grow, especially when refueling availability is still minimal and “Green” hydrogen is still expensive
But hydrogen may still be a big part of the clean energy future. How big a part will likely depend on whether geologic hydrogen can be exploited. That question should be answered this decade in France’s Lorraine region. France’s government is formulating regulations under which the region’s large, known geologic hydrogen deposits will be recovered…or not recovered as it may turn out.
The EU has made a priority of utilization of hydrogen in heavy industry and the transportation sector, do if Lorraine can produce hydrogen the demand will be there.
Paul in KY
@Chetan Murthy: Oil companies, in general, do not like EVs.
Suzanne
@Paul in KY: 100%. If you are willing to live under a bridge with a sparrow on a curtain rod as long as you have more than the Black family in the next tent (or more likely, that you can guarantee that there isn’t a Black family in the next tent), and that you have a woman to cook that damn sparrow for you….. then yeah, you are hating to the point of self-harm.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Paul in KY:
A *lot* of sectors and sub-sectors don’t like EVs.
One of the biggest opponents of EVs? Car dealerships. EVs are a total game changer in terms of maintenance and reliability. Car dealerships live and die by their service departments. That goes completely away.
Then there’s car parts stores, oil change places and basically everything that’s been established to support the ICE automobile. EVs overwhelmingly impact their existence. Sure, ICE vehicles aren’t going away anytime soon but the transition to an entirely EV automobile world will result in some massive shake ups.
Eyeroller
@Baud: Can we overturn any Reagan laws still in force, especially from his second term, on that basis? It’s quite clear that St. Ronnie was severely demented during that time.
Kayla Rudbek
@catclub: yes, there were a lot of headlines like that back in the day (although I still think the languages of science for the 21st century will be Chinese and Korean)
Paul in KY
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Excellent points all!
Eyeroller
@YY_Sima Qian: I have a Volvo PHEV. It may be Chinese technology but the car was made in Sweden. It gets about 40 miles on a charge, which covers nearly all of my errands. I don’t drive much or far. But I still didn’t want a BEV as my only vehicle, not yet. I get gas maybe twice a year.
Kayla Rudbek
@Chetan Murthy: yep, Pirates of Penzance was written in the 19th century by the British team of Gilbert and Sullivan because they were mad about the US copyright laws of the time allowing their earlier work HMS Pinafore to be produced without paying royalties
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: so, you’re saying, sort of, that they love it that he can get away with it?
Gloria DryGarden
@tam1MI: that’ll generate some hate mail for jake tapper and his time-wasting book, for his stirring all that up, and getting folks to whip into a frenzy of believing it’s “worse than watergate”
surfk9
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I own an Equinox EV and love it. It is one of the best cars I have owned
rattlemullet
@Baud: It is better lead, which the exact opposite of what is happening now.
Sadly America now only leads with ignorance of world affairs, ignorance of the benefits of science and technology , ignorance of the benefits of the common good. The rapid destruction of the post WWII institutions will forever degrade the chances for living in a more peaceful world.
dnfree
@siddhartha:
I recently finished the new biography of MLK, “King” by Jonathan Eig. By the time I got to the end of it, it was like reading about the failure of Reconstruction. So much effort put in, so little actual movement or result when you look at the bigger picture.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374719678/kingalife/
The Audacity of Krope
@Bupalos: Seemingly willful in his obtuseness.
Kayla Rudbek
@YY_Sima Qian: someone needs to ask the US automakers if they’re in the vehicle building business or if they’re in the oil burning business