Last July Trump was really proud of his trade deal with the EU.
Trump said that the 27-member bloc also agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of U.S. energy and invest an additional $600 billion worth of investments into the U.S. above current levels.
He said that the bloc would also be “purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of military equipment,” but did not provide a specific dollar amount.
You might remember that after his “liberation day” tariff announcement of almost a year ago, Trump promised the world would line up to make deals with him. 90 deals in 90 days, he said. And he was still bragging in April:
U.S. President Donald Trump said overnight that global leaders are willing to do anything to make a trade deal with him as American tariffs come into force.
“I am telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass,” Trump said during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner in Washington,
“They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything sir,’” he imitated a begging foreign leader.
But by July, when the 90 days were up, he’d achieved only two — with the UK and with Vietnam. Which was making him look a bit stupid. But then the EU deal appeared to bail him out, although if you read beneath the headlines it was more of a framework than a firm deal. And enforcement was not part of the deal, so that the promises of purchases of energy or military equipment maybe would happen, but probably not. But Trump got his headlines about a major tariff deal success. He clearly was very proud of himself. You could say this was one of the biggest actual achievements of his first year back in office. Since, frankly, there weren’t many others other than his Big Ugly Bill.
And now Trump has thrown last year’s EU trade deal away with his push to acquire Greenland. Yesterday European leaders announced the trade deal is on hold. And now they are discussing among themselves how they will retaliate against Trump’s demands. Because they are absolutely not going to step aside and let Trump have Greenland. That’s irrational. See A stunned Europe gathers to respond after Trump increases pressure over Greenland. See also European nations weigh retaliation after Trump’s Greenland threats.
France is pushing for the bloc to use an instrument often dubbed its trade “bazooka,” which would allow for targeting or restricting American services in Europe, a major profit center for U.S. tech giants. That tool has not been triggered since its adoption in 2023. E.U. capitals shied away from using it last year during the tariff war with Trump to avoid a major escalation.
This will hurt the economy in Europe as much as the U.S., but what choice do they have? Because they’re not going to let Trump have Greenland.
Governing is hard, Donald. You should have noticed that your one Great Plan cancels out your other Great Plan.
I understand Trump has mused about offering $700 billion to buy Greenland. In comparison, the entire U.S. defense budget in 2024 was $872 billion. In 2024 the U.S. spent roughly $100 billion on SNAP food assistance. Apparently Trump thinks we can’t afford SNAP but we can afford Greenland? No wonder he thinks “affordability” is a hoax. He doesn’t grasp what it is.
And one of these days the Supreme Court is going to issue its tariff decision. What if, next week, they decide Trump really can’t just set tariffs by himself and has to go through Congress? That might save all of our asses, although I don’t trust the Roberts court to be that sensible. But if Europe found out Trump no longer has the authority to threaten anybody with tariffs, he’s got no leverage. Hmm.
A CNN poll found that 75 percent of Americans oppose Trump’s Greenland scheme. So why is he doing this? It’s not rational.
Many have wondered if Trump understands that Greenland really isn’t as big as it appears on maps.
This is such a cool illustration of how the Mercator map distorts the size of Greenland, which looks as big as the whole continent of Africa on that map but is actually the size of Mexico.
— Helen Kennedy (@helenkennedy.bsky.social) January 18, 2026 at 2:43 PM
Yeah, he’s that stupid. See also Trump’s latest Western Hemisphere fixation: Canada.
In other news, Trump got the brilliant idea to organize a Board of Peace and invite other nations to join. This is apparently to rival the authority of the United Nations, which Trump is pissed at because its escalator stopped and he didn’t get a renovation contract back in 2008. Anyway, he invited 60 nations to join, saying their first job was to solve the Gaza problem. A permanent membership costs $1 billion, but nations can get a temporary position on the board without paying. Trump is chairman for life. (The Financial Times says the proposed charter seems to give Trump veto power over decisions of the board.)
So far the only world leader who has accepted is Viktor Orban of Hungary, although I don’t know if he’s coughed up the $1 billion. Nor is it clear to me who will collect the membership fees. other than Trump himself, and what he fees are for. I’ll be very surprised if any other nation takes this seriously, though, or at least not seriously enough to pay any money.
Regarding Minnesota — see Paul Waldman, The President of the United States Is at War With His Own Country. It’s really more than just Minnesota; Trump is trying to punish blue states for being blue states. “The Trump administration is engaged in a comprehensive war, and its enemy is half of America,” Waldman writes.. “This war is being waged in rhetoric and regulation, budget cuts and violence. Its aim is to tear the country in two.”
But Minnesota is really catching hell now. Trump has ordered 1,500 regular troops to be prepared to deploy to Minnesota in case they are needed to put down “violent” protests, which I take it would be any protests involving mouthy White women with whistles. Frightening stuff. There also are reports that Gov. Walz has “mobilized” the state Guard, but they haven’t yet been deployed.
If Trump mobilizes regular troops, with ot without the Insurrection Act, it will wind up in court. Lower courts (my guess) will decide that whistles in the mouths of 'wine moms' do not constitute an insurrection, and the mobilization is illegal. It will go up thru the courts and Trump will back off before it hits the USSC. Because if/when the USSC defines what a legitimate insurrection has to look like to invoke the Insurrection Act, everyone in the military has a standard to use to declare when a call to use troops against citizens is illegal.
At which point, Trump will be in deep shit.
"although I don’t trust the Roberts court to be that sensible"
I'd bet a large sum that they will side with diaper don, they have been bought and paid for!
O.T. If you have 13 minutes or so check this out it's well worth it, old rockers still getting it done, in the woods no less!
The Breeders – Live in Big Sur
If you really want to bet I am reading you could get good odds. "Cryptocurrency prediction market sees low odds that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of President Donald Trump's tariffs" it says here. I think it could go either way. The Constitution is unambiguous that the power to set tariffs belongs entirely to Congress, so to rule in Trump's favor will take some world-class equivocation. Which they are capable of. But they must know they'll get slammed by legal scholars if they side with Trump.
All the conservatives on the SC were "bought and paid for" by the Federalist Society, with money provided by its Zillionaire donors. The SC will shoot down anything which those Donors don't like, regardless of Trump.
(See doug's comment below for details).
I saw this quote today:
"Unfortunately America is not the way it is because Trump is president. Trump is president because America is the way it is."
Delusional Donnie does not have a functional reasoning unit. He lost a pair of other units when MTG got a hold of him. With some normal levels of Freudian based fear, he might have seen that coming but that is why he is the president who is formerly known as fearless leader. Fearless no more as he tilts at windmills without Sancho MTG faithfully at his side. Off on a lot of quests on his white supremacy stallion. His main role as Pedophile Protector consuming much of his energy which one might guess was libidinal. No one has ever faulted him for having a weak or puny Id. Now he naps a lot and denies napping.
No Great Plan dissonance unit either, it seems. True he does not see that his quests are sometimes quite incompatible. One could suggest his multiple personalities do not even know the other ones exist, which would kind of explain why this is happening. We are at the multiple Bejamin per hour with this approach and better quit while we are still amused. Sometimes, a person cannot afford some types of enlightenment. This could be the case here.
It is MLK day, and James Clyburn appeared on Firing Line with Margert Hoover. It is available on YouTube. I am going to watch it again as it was quite a show. I fear he is more correctly seeing our future better than most. Yes, Jim Crow can have a second coming. It well could be the plan of those who planned 1/6. Is it not queer we do not yet know who did plan 1/6?
More on that later perhaps.
The majority of the USSC is Federalist Society. They are in favor of a ruling class being more equal, taxed less, less vulnerable in civil and criminal prosecutions, with more voting power through the preferential application of political power in discriminatory voting legislation, and unlimited corporate money in elections. They are pro-money, not pro-Trump.
When Trump, who is rich, makes stupid decisions that will make other rich people poor, the USSC will take out the Constitution to look for a loophole to rule against Trump.
Remember that the USSC carved out a loophole to keep the Fed independent when they were ruling that every other independent chair of every other independent agency could be fired by Trump, even when the law that created that agency said Trump can't.
James Clyburn has a different bent on the USSC.
He also claims governing is easy.
James Clyburn | Full Episode 1.16.26 | Firing Line with Margaret Hoover | PBS
I'd like to suggest that part of what we do here is conduct a running topic called "Nobody should be fooled by his statement that…"
In that spirit…
Nobody should be fooled by his statement that the EU has agreed to buy $750 billion worth of energy from the US. What does that mean? Does the US have a surplus of "energy" that we can sell? (Probably yes, cuz I think we're a net exporter…) Maybe he means the Venezuelan oil that he plans to steal. And whether its Venezuelan oil (yet to be extracted) or US oil where do the proceeds of that sale go? Specifically to the US Treasury? (Which I doubt… it might go to US Oil corporations or to some corrupt US official's offshore account.) How would this sale of energy benefit American citizens? If its Venezuelan oil, it won't do squat for 99.99% of Americans. If its US oil, the number of lower level oil company jobs it will save is likely a rounding error. So, it seems to me that the self-anointed master deal maker claims he has made a deal with European nations that does almost nothing for the average American (assuming the 'deal' actually exists).
Nobody should be fooled by his statement that the EU has agreed to invest an additional $600 billion in the US. What does that mean? Here are some possibilities:
a) It means EU investments will be made in the US stock market. At a minimum that would help prop up market valuations or fuel a rise in some stocks. There's money to be made in the stock market, so this might help middle class 401Ks, but it would help more the big investor class.
b) It means investing in the US bond markets: federal bonds, state bonds, municipal bonds, corporate bonds. This might help bond-issuers by pushing up rates. I'm not sure this helps Americans, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, either way. Bond markets have always mystified me.
c) It means investing in infrastructure: Highways, bridges, water supplies, electric grid, airports, trains (what else?). I can't image why EU countries would invest in these, but these would benefit all Americans.
d) Investing could mean real estate. Maybe "investing" means providing below market loan rates to real estate moguls.
e) Investing could be in crypto and/or speculative meme corporations.
I'm not an expert in these things, I'm just using my good imagination to try to figure out what might be the case, and…
I don't recall hearing that voters in 2024 were screaming at the top of their lungs to get candidates to understand that foreign investment in the US was a top priority. Does anybody think that either of the things touted in that "deal" is a huge win for the American people? So, he claims to be using the tariffs as a negotiating tactic, but here's what has happened: 1) The tariffs have caused big problems for small businesses, and have caused inflation which is a big challenge to ordinary Americans; 2) Reducing the tariffs to a level significantly higher than 2024 levels will not reduce prices; 3) The things that he got out of EU countries will benefit the top 1% and do little for ordinary Americans.
Am I right?
I guess the shindig called Davos is this week in Switzerland and Trump is invited. European leaders are reportedly hoping the forum will dissuade Trump. My guess is that Trump sees it as the opportunity to intimidate the EU leaders. This is where the stuff will hit the fan.
Trump is getting nothing from Venezuela so that's old history. Trump might get the message that the EU can and will trash our economy if we mess with them. And Trump could walk away, or he might feel the need to do it anyway.
But that's where the next scene of the comedy is.
I saw this headline this morning over on AP: "Top EU official questions Trump’s trustworthiness over Greenland tariff threat"
Questioning, really you are just now questioning his trustworthiness? A bit behind the curve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfbNIb2-0ks
Are you just now finally ready for a nice refreshing glass of Kool-Aid? It will be spectacular! Did you actually think utopia was the destination? Come On! Really?
Before you went down this hole so deep you might have checked for an exit. You had a number of chances to learn that from the mistakes of others. Following Hungary and Turkey seemed a good plan you say? Hmmm.
There were economic tremors today. Stock market down 870 points. T-bill yields way up, which means buyers are skittish about investing in the US. The dollar is down against other currencies. Now consider the Overlords of the universe, the ultra-rich. We are in the second Gilded Age, if you consider the concentration of wealth at the top. So much money that they have a major problem figuring out where to put all that money, because they can't possibly spend it. IMO, the stock market is high because it offers the highest return for the least risk, so long as there are no real or prolonged drops. (Exactly the thinking before the Stock Market crash.) But some have tried to diversify. Gold is at $4850 per ounce today – it spiked late in the day.
So we're all screwed if the stock market crashes, the dollar goes way down, and nobody will invest in T-bills. The EU might be able to spark a crash like that, something they'd never do to an ally, but if we take Greenand, we're an invading superpower. DJT and his delusions are a global threat – no longer speculation or exaggeration if he violates the UN charter. I do not think Europe will fire on US troops, but regime change through economic warfare is right up their alley.
Which brings me back to the ultra-rich. They stand to lose more than anyone, wealth it could take decades to rebuild. And they have power commensurate with their wealth. (They shouldn't, but they do.) When they decide to remove the mad king, congresscritters from both parties will salute and go to work. Impeachment, but do they want JD? If the VP is in it (depending on the subject of the impeachment) up to his neck, does he go also? Who will the Speaker be then? What happens when Trump orders DOJ and the FBI to disregard the impeachment and he orders the 82nd Airborne to the Capitol Mall to defend him? Yeah, this is crazy talk but we're talking losses on Wall Street that could go from hundreds of billions to trillions in days.
I wrote the comments above before Trump babbled at Davos. Through the incoherence and drooling, Trump backed down on Greenland. I'd love to see a phone log of calls to Trump personally from yesterday. It's my (possibly deluded) opinion that some of the members of Mir-Lago, or others too wealthy to care about Trump's little golf club were alarmed about a very real threat of "Sell America" over two issues of ego – the Nobel Peace Prize and WTF Greenland.
If I'm right, Trump got the word to back off on pissing off the world to the degree they dump T-bills and plunge the US economy into the Second Great Depression. Let's see if the USN leaves Venezuela, abandons the oil and the tankers. Let's see.
Domestic chaos doesn't carry the same risk to the Masters of the Galaxy. So Trump will be allowed to crack down on the darkies (except most of the resistance is white folks.) Attention shifts to the courts.
Did Europe notice that they have the power to back Trump down with the threat of an economic boycott and a "Sell America" program? What do you make of Trump making nice comments about Gov. Newsome (who is at Davies)?
If Greenland and Venezuela were the earthshattering ploy to distract from the Epstein Files, I think the media will go back to that story unless Trump announces we're going to conduct nuclear weapons testing on the moon.
The gold bugs are off to the races as they should be. They have many convinced that crypto is the new secure alternative to paper money. The crypto lambs do not seem to notice the lack of correlation between the price of the two. They will quite soon as fleecing time comes. They are also not aware much of the recent strength of the Euro in relation to the US dollar. They are noticing dollars do not work as well as they used to.
Let them eat chicken they say.
What they don't say is how chickens have changed. History may have lost the meaning of the let them eat cake remark. At that time in France the quality of the flour was deteriorating, and the royalty were not aware of what the common folk were getting was inferior might have been more the case. We have gone from a chicken in every pot to our chickens have gone to pot. Pour on the sauces and spices and make believe all is just fine. I like mine with extra micro-plastics. Yum.
If you believe that wait till you hear Delirious Donnie's speech at Davos. Where are the men in white coats?
Diaper Don showing his softer side yesterday when asked how he felt about one of his ice nazis shooting the mother of three (Renee Good) in the fucking face, it said:
“When I learned her parents, and her father in particular, I hope he still is, but I don’t know, were tremendous Trump fans. He was all for Trump. Loved Trump, and it’s terrible,” the president added. “I was told that by a lot of people. They said, ‘Oh, he loves you.’ He was. I hope he still feels that way.”
"I hope he still feels that way", is there a lower form of life anywhere in the Galaxy?