I guess the much-ballyhooed cease fire is over. And the price of oil just shot up again. Maybe the oil execs should pay Trump another visit.
Trump is at the NATO conference and has apparently decided the U.S. must cut trade with Spain, and the rest of NATO should, too.
President Trump lashed out at Spain early Wednesday during remarks from the NATO summit, urging the U.S. to cut off all trade with the European country over what he called a lack of contributions to defense spending.
“Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore by the way,” Trump said, sitting alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the group’s summit in Ankara, Turkey.
“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate. They don’t pay,” the president continued. “I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits,” he said.
“Watch them come running back. Oh they’ll come running back,” he added.
Trump also accused Madrid of treating Rutte “terribly,” telling the NATO chief he “shouldn’t carry” Spain.
I don’t know exactly why he’s pissed at Spain in particular. And I don’t much care. Trump still doesn’t understand what NATO even is and how it’s funded, and why contributions from nations are not equal (because they are based on GDP per capita).
But of course it’s also the case that presidents don’t have the constitutional authority to unilaterally decide to cut off trade with another nation. Only Congress can do that. We’ll see if Congress even responds, though. Most likely we’ll go through more rounds of Trump issuing orders and courts canceling them. I’m sure the other NATO countries realize this.
How is the rest of the conference going? Let’s ask Paul Krugman.
Yesterday, soon after he arrived in Ankara for the NATO Summit, Trump reiterated his demand that Denmark hand him control of Greenland. But reactions were subdued. As far as I can tell, our erstwhile allies are now treating Trump as the senile uncle who says crazy, outrageous things, but shouldn’t be taken seriously. …
…The combined effect of these humiliations for Trump and his minions has been a drastic reordering of America’s place in the world. For most of last year foreign leaders kept trying, desperately, to appease Trump. These days they’re mostly just humoring him, building a world in which his sundowning won’t matter.
It’s extremely unlikely that anything substantive will come out of this NATO meeting. And a year ago the prospect of a failed summit would have been a source of deep concern. Now it will be met with a shrug: Nobody expects anything but chaotic bluster from Trump, and what he does matters less and less.
Do read the whole thing. I especially appreciate what Trump says about Trump’s failure to deliver Ukraine to his buddy Putin.
I understand Trump flew to the NATO summit in his luxury “gift” plane from Qatar. I’ve read in several places that it took in the neighborhood of $1 billion of the taxpayers’ money to retrofit the thing to make it suitable to serve as Air Force One. Trump still expects to take it with him when he leaves office in 2029 (if not sooner). I say no, unless he reimburses the $1 billion back to the Treasury. Maybe not even then.
Update: Edith Olsmsted at The New Republic reports that Trump will be leaving the new plane in Europe and getting home some other way, presumably on some other plane. (The headline of the article says “England” but the article says “Europe.”) Trump’s excuse for this is that it’s being left on one of the big military bases so that “people can see it.” There is speculation that somebody discovered a security problem on the plane, even after spending $1 billion on it.
“The most likely reason for this is that the ‘new’ ex-Qatari jet doesn’t have the self-defense capabilities needed when flying from Turkey while in a shooting war with Iran,” The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg wrote on X. “The actual VC-25 aircraft does have those capabilities.”
George Conway, an anti-Trump activist, suggested that perhaps the plane hadn’t received all the necessary security capabilities “because Trump wants to keep it if he leaves office.”
As the world continues to frustrate him, Trump is turning to his chief source of comfort, remodeling. Scaffolding had been erected around the White House columns. Officially this is supposed to be for “standard restoration work,” but it’s widely believed Trump plans to replace the columns with fancier ones that would clash with the architectural style of the rest of the building. If we’re lucky maybe he’ll just decorate them with gold doo-dads that can be removed later.
There also are persistent rumors/reports that Trump wants to cut down the cherry trees along the Potomac that were a gift from Japan in 1912 to make room for a luxury golf course that nobody really needs. He is putting in a new helipad. Apparently he doesn’t like having to walk on grass. Sometimes grass is wet. Such a trial.
Update: I am just hearing Graham Platner has suspended his campaign. So Dems can choose a replacement to take on Susan Collins. I hope they don’t screw it up.
*I don’t know exactly why he’s pissed at Spain in particular. *
I think the main reason is Spain said the USA could not use Spanish ports or airfields in the course of attempting to invade Iran. Of course, he's still furious that the Spanish told him to get stuffed on increased NATO spending. The Donald never forgets an insult or rebuff and P.M. Sánchez really did it. The God-King cannot be seen to have clay feet.
From Krugman
*For make no mistake: everyone at that summit in Ankara knows that Trump, JD Vance and company both expected and hoped that their betrayal of Ukraine would lead to Russian victory.*
Where do otherwise apparently sane people come up with this level of delusion. To be honest, I just cannot grasp the propensity of many people in the USA to claim that any opponent or anyone trying a slightly different approach to an issue is a traitor. I remember reading that Joe McCarty wrote a book in which he accused General George Marshall of being a traitor and working for the USSR.
AOH got all sorts of criticism for visiting Syria when Assad was still president. It's much better to be utterly ignorant of things on the ground than actually see things for yourself?
At best, Trump went into the Anchorage with his usual lack of anything even resembling planning and expected his fabulous ability to make a deal to win over Vladimir Putin. Trump was not planning on handing over Ukraine to Russia. Trump just is too inexperienced and lacks the intellectual curiosity and rigour(?) to understand much of what he is told, and that's before his rather precipitous cognitive and personality declines recently.
BTW, this decline was evident in the campaign against Biden. It was pretty clear that both men were in cognitive decline: I expected it would be worse sooner in Trump's case than in Biden's. I was wrong.
Trump's approach was a poor strategy against someone probably three times as smart, much, much, more experienced, ten times better briefed[1], and with well established policies and demands.
I really don't know if Putin thought he might achieve something in Anchorage but all it cost was a little time and he gets brownie points from the rest of the world (excluding EU/NATO) for being willing to try.
I loved Krugman's 'To America’s everlasting shame, Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he didn’t “have the cards.”'
One of few sensible things Trump has said, probably since he got out of kindergarten. I think he can smell weakness both in allies and opponents. I like to think that Trump's close association with bankruptcies may have stood him in good stead here. Ukraine/NATO/EU/USA have lost this battle baring a *Deus Ex Machina* intervention by Aliens.
1. Trump had Marco Rubio as Secretary of State; Putin had Sergei Lavrov as Foreign Minister.
Sorry, but I think Krugman could be right about Trump wanting to deliver Ukraine to Putin, at least at some points last year. That explains a lot, actually. His policies regarding Ukraine have been wildly inconsistent, of course, but particularly in March 2025 when he berated Zelensky in that shameful oval office meeting and froze all support for Ukraine, the plan seems to have been to force Ukraine to surrender. if not entirely at least much of its territory, to Putin. That was the current state of Trump's plan to end the war. And after a while he changed his mind.
And on what planet was Trump telling Zelensky he didn't "have the cards" "one of few sensible things Trump has said"? The fact that Ukraine has continued to wear down Russia is pretty clear proof Zelensky has a pretty decent hand. Trump smelled "weakness?" In whom, Zelensky? Are you nuts?
Thank you
That last sentence made no sense, none at all.
None of your sentences made any sense. Follow the money. We were supporting Ukraine with cash and weapons after Russia invaded Under Trump, both dried up. To ignore the alliance between the two requires you ignore that Trump represented Putin's position with NATO this week. (Politico, today) When Russia got the boot from G8, Trump was (and remains) Putin's cheerleader. At Helsinki, Trump rejected the assessment of US Intel, accepting Putin's word that he hadn't interfered in the 2015 election (for Trump) despite the evidence. I can’t tell if you’re that dumb or if you just think we are.
The fact that Ukraine has continued to wear down Russia is pretty clear proof Zelensky has a pretty decent hand.
Yes, Ukraine is wearing down Russia so well that Ukraine just lost Kostiantynivka, Russia is hiting much of Ukraine, especially Kiev with nightly bombardments of drones and balistig missiles. Zeninskyy is scouring NATO looking for air defense supplies such as Patriot batteries that just do not exist.
It is clear that the new long–range drone/missile attacks on Russian petrochemical plants are affecting Russia but almost certainly less than the Western press is reporting. What it seems to be doing is really annoying the Russians.
There are reports of rather ominous troop movements in the Kiev and Sumy oblasts.
Oops there goes another Ukrainian oblast.
Trump smelled "weakness?" In whom, Zelensky?
Of course. Zelinskyy looks a lot like a dead man walking, politically anyway. But just Ukraine in total.
You might not remember, but I do, that back in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and sent a column of tanks driving toward Kiev, the world expected Ukraine to fall in a matter of days. Russia had a massively bigger military and a lot more resources. It's been more than four years. And in spite of Trump trying to undermine Ukraine repeatedly, Ukraine is surviving mostly by fighting smarter than Russia. And it's not surprising if the Ukrainians are getting frustrated with Zelensky. This always happens as wars drag out, and understandably so. And I'm sure Zelensky has his flaws. But "weakness" is not one of them.
*You might not remember, but I do, that back in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and sent a column of tanks driving toward Kiev, the world expected Ukraine to fall in a matter of days. Russia had a massively bigger military and a lot more resources. It's been more than four years. And in spite of Trump trying to undermine Ukraine repeatedly, Ukraine is surviving mostly by fighting smarter than Russia. And it's not surprising if the Ukrainians are getting frustrated with Zelensky. This always happens as wars drag out, and understandably so. And I'm sure Zelensky has his flaws. But "weakness" is not one of them.*
Oh, I remember. However it was obvious by Russian behaviour that it had no intention of assaulting a city of roughly 3M people with a total in-country force of ~180k.
What it did was intimidate the Ukrainian gov't and force it to pull troops from the forces in the Donbass where the main boby of Ukrainian forces were concentrated. BTW, it was General Milley, the Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff who predicted that Ukraine would fall in three days. This seems to have been a widely held view in the West.
The invasion worked. Warsaw, almost immediately agreed to talks and in March or April 2022 had a tentative agreement with Russia which seems to have been increased autonomy for the two Donbass oblasts/republics and the restoration of Russian language rights in Ukraine. This last was important as dropping Russian as an official language just after the Maidan Revolution was a key cause of the civil war.
This tentative agreement was quickly scotched by the US and UK with Boris Johnson visiting Warsaw to personally talk to Zelenskyy. It all went to $#%^# after that.
Putin and his top advisors had read the Warsaw Gov't correctly and had at excellent chance of getting what they wanted—basically the Minsk Accords. What, I am pretty sure they did not want was the two oblasts/republics. The international fall–out would be horrible and the cost of bringing them up to Russian standards in infrastructure, health care and so on would be a nightmare. The Crimean experience had illustrated this.
What they had not understood the deep desire of elements in NATO to destroy Russia.
*And in spite of Trump trying to undermine Ukraine repeatedly, Ukraine is surviving mostly by fighting smarter than Russia.*
Other than trying to extort money for arms from the European members of NATO, a typical Trump move, I have not seen anything that could conceivably be considered directly undermining Ukraine. Sanctions remain, the US is still supplying intel,heck I think Elon Musk's starlink is still there. I think there may even be another cash infusion in the works
Ukraine has not fought smarter. Through what seems to be a combination of incompetent US advice/diruction and Zelenskyy's stubborn refusal to withdraw troops who are being encircled, the Ukrainian army at the top has been dumb.
What has kept it in play is a combination of massive NATO supplies of money and equipment and the heroic defence by the rank and file who have performed miracles. You may have heard of the saying "Lions led by Donkeys" This is another case.
The insane Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kurst Oblast cost Ukraine perhaps 85–90K casualties for what looked like a publicity stunt. Other than the Kurst Nuclear Power Plant, fairly far from the border, there was nothing of strategic value there. A lot of trees and small farms but that is about it.
Oh, Zelenskyy has lots of flaws but I did not mean to imply personal weakness though that may be true too. The problem I was thinking about is that he was an outsider in Ukrainian politics with no natural constituency within the government or political factions. Therefore, particularly in the early days of his presidency, he was buffeted on all sides by various factions.
I was surprised that he managed to survive his first year in office. I expected that one of the Banderite Fascist (i.e. Nazi) groups like the Azov Batallion or Pervi Sector or Carpathian Sech to have assassinated him.
They appear to have come to that conclusion after their massive line of tanks that left Belarus in February 2022 reached the northern suburbs of Kiev, within roughly 15 to 25 kilometers of the city center. And if the Russians had taken Antonov Airport, the site of a major battle, it would have been easy for the Russians to airlift more troops and equipment into the Kiev area. One does not have to be an expert in military strategy to understand the initial plan was to seize the capital and the government, and thereby the country. So let me gently inform you I am not taking your opinions seriously.
It can be argued that was a dumb plan on Russia’s part, but it was still the obvious plan. Ukrainian resistance plus logistical issues caused the Russians to retreat in April. And after that Putin shifted focus to seizing land in the east and south. He’s had some success with that, but at extraordinary cost. So, basically, it’s clear you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ll give you a few more chances to say somethi8ng sensible, but note that I don’t have a lot of patience with people who post nonsense and tend to ban them if they piss me off.
Krugman (from an interview on MSNOW) used the term crony capitalism with reference to current administration actions. This practice rewards businesses for political favor not for competent business practices. The failure at the reflecting pool was one of a number of examples used to both show evidence the term was apt and also to illustrate problems associated with the practice of crony capitalism.
This is one big reason it is a bad idea to give this administration free rein on any project, as this seems their preferred and near exclusive method of business transaction.
This is not the only problem. The chief executive will demand overriding artistic license on these projects. Let us just say he tends to overrate his competency in many areas to an extreme. I would not give him artistic license on a putting course. You can bet there would be no hole with a windmill. The style is assured. Something in a godawful gauche it will be.
Maine Dems have been on Lawrence O'Donald of late in the Platner affair. Their commitment to handle the situation in a Democratic and local manner seems quite commendable. To outside help they are polite but firm. This is their job from the bottom-up the way it should be done. Democracy gets its soul that way.
It is like a breath of fresh air to see it properly done. Our job (if not from Maine) is to stay out of the way and admire and learn. Best we get our job done well.
Yes! We non-Mainers should keep out of the way, but we can and should express our support for their process under the circumstances. It cannot be perfect, as they have to play a rather bad hand at this point in the game. On the plus side, the primary campaign seems to have brought out a sense of urgency around the value of activism at the grass roots level; in the competition between small d democracy and corrupt oligarchy (which is neo-feudalism by the billionaire class), there are no heroes from outside coming to save us.
To hear trolls suggest that the four-year was a component of the Russian war plan all along is ludicrous. To hear that the strikes on Russian oil fields is only an annoyance can't be taken seriously. (Russia has banned the export of deisel fuel because of domestic shortages and they are importing oil from India.)
I wish I could confidently predict that Ukraine is on the edge of victory but winning through the collapse of the Russian economy is hard to predict. But the evidence of fractures are huge and spreading.
I'm curious if these are real stupid people or bots spouting the propaganda from Russian troll farms.
One suspects Russian troll farms are involved.
Yes! … and more than "one suspects…"; I suspected that upon my first reading of the post and I have hunch I'm not the only blog denizen who had that reaction! 🙂
Re trade with Spain, you can't cut it off. I read somewhere [too many sources to keep up with] The US trades with the EU, not with Spain. That would be like Europe refusing to trade with Florida.