Trump 2025

[JK22]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-and-elon-musk-just-pulled-off-another-purge-and-it-s-a-scary-one/ar-AA1ycBKd?ocid=BingNewsVerp&cvid=ba407062e5344f82a4a245524aa78e21&ei=33

President Donald Trump has granted Elon Musk unprecedented power to carry out his war on the “deep state.” The justification for this is supposed to be that the government is corrupted to its core precisely because it is stocked with unelected bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people.

Musk, goes this story, will employ his fearsome tech wizardry to root them out, restoring not just efficiency to government, but also the democratic accountability that “deep state” denizens have snuffed out—supposedly a major cause of many of our social ills.

The startling news that a top Treasury Department is departing after a dispute with Musk shows how deeply wrong that story truly is—and why it’s actively dangerous. The Washington Post reports that David Lebryk, who has carried out senior non-political roles at the department for decades, is leaving after officials on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, sought access to Treasury’s payment system:

Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.

The news raises a complicated question: WTF??? Why is Musk’s DOGE trying to access payment systems inside the Treasury Department? It’s not clear what relevance this would have to his ostensible role, which is to search for savings and inefficiencies in government, not to directly influence whether previously authorized government obligations are honored.

Another question: Did Trump directly authorize Musk to do this, or did he not? Either answer is bad. If Trump did, he may be authorizing an unelected billionaire to exert unprecedented control over the internal workings of government payment systems. If he did not, then Musk may be going rogue to an even greater extent than we thought.

I contacted a few former officials at the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to try to gauge what this means. What was striking is the level of alarm they evinced about it. Here’s how the Post describes these systems:

Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

Former officials I spoke with were at a loss to explain why Musk would want such access. They noted that while we don’t yet know Musk’s motive, the move could potentially give DOGE the power to turn off all kinds of government payments in a targeted way. They said we now must establish if Musk is seeking to carry out what Trump tried via his federal funding freeze: Turn off government payments previously authorized by Congress. The White House rescinded the freeze after a national outcry, but his spokesperson vowed the hunt for spending to halt will continue. The former officials are asking: Is this Treasury power grab a way to execute that?

“Anybody who would have access to these systems is in a position to turn off funding selectively,” said Michael Linden, a former OMB official who is now director of Families Over Billionaires, a group fighting Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. “The only reason Musk wants to get himself in there must be because he wants to turn some things off.”

These officials describe these systems as almost akin to a series of faucets. Congress, by authorizing payments, fills the tanks and decides where the water will ultimately flow. The team overseen by the now-departing Lebryk in effect is in control of the spigots, these officials said.

What also alarms these officials is that this is unfolding even as a debt ceiling crisis looms. When the government is on the verge of defaulting on its obligations, these officials tell me, it’s Lebryk and his team who carefully monitor the situation to determine, to the greatest extent possible, on what date it will no longer be able to meet its obligations. This team monitors the water levels, these officials say, noting that this is how Treasury knows what to say in those letters that periodically warn Congress that a breach is approaching.

As it happens, this is precisely why we want career, non-political civil servants to be in charge of the spigots. To put it delicately, this is some really complicated shit, and we want the process to be administered in a totally non-politicized way. Letting someone like Musk anywhere near it risks corrupting it quite deeply.

“The payment systems are controlled by a small number of career officials precisely to protect them and the full faith and credit of the United States from political interference,” said Jesse Lee, who was a senior adviser to the National Economic Council under President Joe Biden. Or as Linden put it: “This is exactly the kind of thing you do not want political appointees getting involved in.”

All of which is why it’s critical to know whether Trump directly authorized this move by Musk. Trump’s executive order creating DOGE orders agencies to give it access to “all” unclassified records and systems. As the Post notes, that would appear to include these Treasury ones.

But we need to know whether Trump was aware of or directly authorized this particular effort by DOGE to access Treasury’s payment systems. Even if a relatively innocent explanation for this is possible—maybe DOGE merely hopes to study how efficient they are—the move clearly alarmed this longtime government veteran enough to prompt his resignation. Did Trump want Musk to have this access, and if so, for what purpose?

“Is this something that has authorization and approval from the White House and specifically the president?” asked Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer, in an interview. “Or is this Musk going rogue within the federal bureaucracy?”

If Trump did greenlight it, Moss said, it would mean he’s “authorizing Elon to shove his weight into the most crucial parts of our financial mechanisms,” and “exposes the basic functions of government to the whims of a non-governmental employee.” If Trump did not, it would represent a “complete abuse of authority and discretion” on Musk’s part: “He has no possible need for access to those systems.”

Whatever more we learn, this saga already demonstrates exactly why we want an apolitical, professionalized civil service, one in which career officials enjoy a variety of protections to safeguard their independence. As Jonathan Chait points out at The Atlantic, the whole point of the civil-service system is precisely that it ensures that challenging, consequential government jobs go to people who are actually qualified to execute them.

Whatever Musk intends with this new effort, this isn’t part of any war on the “deep state.” We’re witnessing a broad assault on that genuinely meritocratic achievement—one that could enable right-wing elites to corruptly loot the place, or install a highly “personalist” government marked above all by loyalty to Trump himself, or some combination of the two. And by all indications, that larger war is fully backed by the president himself.

Norge har helt presist det samme systemet som USA, med en viktig endring; det er under kontroll av Stortinget med et sett av forskjellige lover som skal hindre innblanding og manipulering, selv om den norske tradisjonen med dobbeltstandard gjør at det er akkurat i denne delen av statsforvaltningen de fleste skandaler skjer, og som de norske mediene er sterkt opptatt av som vaktbikkjer med stor glød. Uvedkommende og utenforstående er nærmest tabu - så det som skjer i USA er noe som kan oppfattes å være svært kjettersk som hvis å banne med gudspotting i nærheten av paven under den viktigste seremonien i selve Peterskirken. 

Uansett vekker det meget stor uro. 

Fryseordren har i det minst blitt dels skrinlagt, men det var gjennom et legalt inngrep som må fornyes inntil kongressen gjør noe, hvor demokratene sliter med å samle seg mens republikanerne er i rådvillhet mellom MAGA og ikke-MAGA. I slutten kan dommerstanden bli nødt til å gripe inn om kaoset bare skulle forverre seg. 

[Mr.M]

JK22 skrev (14 minutter siden):

The startling news that a top Treasury Department is departing after a dispute with Musk shows how deeply wrong that story truly is—and why it’s actively dangerous. The Washington Post reports that David Lebryk, who has carried out senior non-political roles at the department for decades, is leaving after officials on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, sought access to Treasury’s payment system:

kan man ha en sentralbank som nekter innsyn i hva de driver med?

en stat i staten? som myndighetene overlater trillioner å håndtere, men nekter å vise "digital" bokføring. Hvem vet hva som kan skjule seg der, hvis det er første gang noen har gjort fremstøt å sjekke det opp?

jeg vet selvsagt at motivet til Trump/Musk er grumsete, så spørsmålet er mer av prinsipiell karakter.

[JK22]

Mr.M skrev (30 minutter siden):

kan man ha en sentralbank som nekter innsyn i hva de driver med?

en stat i staten? som myndighetene overlater trillioner å håndtere, men nekter å vise "digital" bokføring. Hvem vet hva som kan skjule seg der, hvis det er første gang noen har gjort fremstøt å sjekke det opp?

jeg vet selvsagt at motivet til Trump/Musk er grumsete, så spørsmålet er mer av prinsipiell karakter.

Sorry; bare disse med klarering i tråd med gjeldende lov er tillatt, så hvis Trump gir Musk fullmakt har han - for hundre ganger - overgått hans mandat - eller hvis Musk gjør det på egen initiativ, er det ulovlig. Det er 6 trillion dollar som det handler om, under kongressens mandat. 

[JK22]

“Without any doubt Donald Trump is the most lawless and scofflaw president we have ever seen in the history of the United States,”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/01/trump-executive-orders-constitution-law

Trump’s disregard for US constitution ‘a blitzkrieg on the law’, legal experts say

Scholars warn of president’s lawlessness in actions such as federal funding freeze and birthright citizenship order

Donald Trump’s rapid-fire and controversial moves that have ranged from banning birthright citizenship to firing 18 inspectors general means the US president has shown a greater willingness than his predecessors to violate the constitution and federal law, some historians and legal scholars say.

These scholars pointed to other Trump actions they say blatantly broke the law, such as freezing trillions of dollar in federal spending and dismissing members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), even though they were confirmed by the Senate and had several years left in their terms.

“Without any doubt Donald Trump is the most lawless and scofflaw president we have ever seen in the history of the United States,” said Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s leading constitutional scholars and a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.

Tribe said Trump has carried out “a blitzkrieg on the law and the constitution. The very fact that the illegal actions have come out with the speed of a rapidly firing Gatling gun makes it very hard for people to focus on any one of them. That’s obviously part of the strategy.”

Tribe said the so-called pause in federal spending that the Trump administration ordered last Monday “was a clear usurpation of a coordinate branch’s [Congress’s] exclusive power of the purse”.

Before the Trump administration rescinded the freeze two days later, several groups had sued to stop the freeze, saying Trump had violated the constitution and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which lets presidents withhold funds in limited circumstances, but only if they first follow several special procedures – which legal experts said Trump failed to do.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, also voiced dismay at what he said was Trump’s flagrant flouting of the law in his first few days back in office.

“A stunning number of his executive actions clearly violate the constitution and federal law,” Chemerinsky said. “I cannot think of any president who has ever so ignored the constitution as extensively in the first 10 days of office as this.

“I certainly doubt that any president has done so much lawless so quickly that affects so many people,” Chemerinsky continued. “The freeze of federal spending potentially affects tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people.”

That freeze caused alarm and chaos across the nation as it disrupted Medicaid payments, childcare programs, meals for seniors, housing subsidies and special ed programs. Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the office of management and budget, said the freeze was needed to stop “the use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies”.

Federal judges moved quickly to temporarily block the spending freeze and the ban on birthright citizenship. Last Tuesday, a federal district court judge in Washington DC, Loren AliKhan, suspended the spending freeze. Facing huge confusion and criticism over the freeze, the Trump administration rescinded it on Wednesday.

On 23 January, a federal district judge in Seattle, John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, temporarily blocked Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour said. “I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, defended the president’s move to ban birthright citizenship. In a briefing on Wednesday, she said: “We are prepared to fight this all the way to the supreme court if we have to, because President Trump believes that this is a necessary step to secure our nation’s borders and protect our homeland.”

Many legal experts and Democratic lawmakers condemned Trump’s firing of 18 inspectors general, who serve as independent officials who audit and investigate agencies for waste, fraud and abuse. Those critics, along with Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, noted that Trump had failed to give Congress the required 30-day advance notice and specific reasons for the firings.

Late last Monday, Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the NLRB, and two members of the EEOC, Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels. All three – members of independent boards – were appointed by Democratic presidents and had several years left in their terms.

Kate Andrias, a professor of constitutional law and administrative law at Columbia University, called those firings “unprecedented and illegal”. Regarding the Wilcox firing, she said: “The National Labor Relations Act makes clear that president can fire board members only for neglect of duty and malfeasance. NLRB members can’t be fired just because the president doesn’t want them on the board.”

Andrias noted, however, that the supreme court’s conservative supermajority might rule in Trump’s favor on these firings.

“Trump might have some support from the supreme court on this,” she said, adding that the court, with its “radical anti-administrative law” attitudes, “could reject 90 years of legal precedent and agree with the president that he had the authority to fire members of independent bodies.”

Andrias compared Trump with another president known for sometimes flouting the constitution and supreme court: “Andrew Jackson also had a record of violating the constitution in ways to expand his power,” Andrias said. “But in modern times, it’s unprecedented for a president to act this way to aggrandize his own power and act in contravention of the constitution and federal statutes.”

Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton, said Richard Nixon also sometimes broke the law – most notably in the Watergate scandal – but “I don’t think he tried to overturn parts of the constitution. So maybe there, Trump has him beat.”

Zelizer said Trump’s spending freeze was “an effort to essentially ignore Congress’s constitutional power” of the purse and to “throw the Impoundment Act in the garbage”.

“I can’t remember another president who has tried to throw so much of the constitution out the window to do what he wants,” Zelizer added.

Tribe voiced concern that Trump’s actions were weakening the rule of law as well as respect for the law.

“We have to focus on the fact that the sum of this is greater than the parts. Violating the constitution and acts of Congress repeatedly not only creates rips in the fabric that occur with each violation, but shreds the whole thing,” Tribe said. “It’s only the very beginning of this administration. If people normalize this lawbreaking instead of pushing back, it will be very hard ever to restore the system of government that most of us grew up assuming it would be in place.”

Det er presist hvorfor disse republikanerne som ønsker å bevare det politiske systemet, konstitusjonen og USA må tvinges til å gjøre motstand ved å gå ut av partiet - for hvis disse skulle gjøre seg medskyldig, må disse da tar konsekvensene sammen med sine velgerne å se enhver man lever med kollapse og oppleve en reell borgerkrigstrussel i den nære fremtiden når store deler av etablissementet får nok og hente fram opprørsbanneret. Det er ikke mulig å samarbeide med en mann som har gjentatte ganger forbrutt seg mot 1789-konstitusjonen, det amerikanske lovverket og det politiske systemets eksistensberettigelse. 

Selv hvis lynkrigsstrategien skulle lykkes, finnes det alltid en feil - angrip, angrip, da hva? Det er når kraften ebber ut det vil komme reaksjoner, og det vil bli meget kraftig, men da må GOP-partiet ryddes av vegen for å skille ut de antidemokratiske MAGA-kreftene fra de ekte republikanerne som trenges å minnes om at de har patriotisk plikt mot land, folk og ære. En plikt som Lincoln ville ha forlangt om han hadde gjenoppstått og bevitnet dagens situasjon. I verste fall kan det lede til krig fordi hvis kongressen må stoppe presidenten bare for å få beskjed om at de er fratatt all makt, kan det gå meget galt - fordi bare halvparten er med GOP. Den andre halvparten vil ikke bare gi seg. 

Trump har nå gjentatte ganger begått forbrytelser som ville ha utløst riksrettsprosesser - så republikanernes beskyttelse av ham er i klar strid med alle sentrale prinsipper etablert av grunnlovsfedrene, slik at det kan kalles landsforræderi. 

[Mr.M]

JK22 skrev (18 minutter siden):

Sorry; bare disse med klarering i tråd med gjeldende lov er tillatt, så hvis Trump gir Musk fullmakt har han - for hundre ganger - overgått hans mandat - eller hvis Musk gjør det på egen initiativ, er det ulovlig. Det er 6 trillion dollar som det handler om, under kongressens mandat. 

så spørs det hva gjeldene lov sier da?

i Norge har vi Riksrevisjonen som jeg har inntrykk av har ganske store fullmakter.

Hvis det evt. ikke eksisterer et offentlig kontrollorgan i USA som har myndighet å kikke Sentralbanken i kortene, så er det et problem vil jeg si.

Mulig Musk er inne på noe, men "som vanlig" virker det gå litt for fort i svingene.

[JK22]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ally-peter-marocco-behind-evisceration-of-usaid-he-s-a-destroyer/ar-AA1yerU0?ocid=BingNewsVerp&cvid=d3f4d4a36b8349d2936ce3e3d507a7b2&ei=3

Det virker som Trump har seriøse planer om å utslette USAid. 

The Trump administration’s evisceration of US overseas aid has been presided over by a campaign ally who sowed a trail of enmity at multiple agencies during the first Trump presidency and has been publicly identified as allegedly having been present at the January 6 insurrection when rioters stormed the US Capitol.

Peter Marocco has accumulated power in the office of foreign assistance, informally called “F”, that traditionally has helped coordinate US foreign aid programs. But under Marocco, it has enforced a full-scale freeze on overseas aid and a stop-work order that has in effect halted operations and already led to hundreds of layoffs in the United States and overseas.

According to current and former USAid and state department officials, the office’s consolidation of power under Marocco has undermined congressional checks and balances and instead given authority to a non-Senate-confirmed appointee who is slashing and burning his way through overseas aid programs at USAid and the state department.

“He is not a disruptor. He’s a destroyer,” said a former USAid official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Marocco. “And it’s clear to me. The plan is to come in, destroy USAid, take it down, and then build it up again, the way they want to do that.”

Marocco’s return to USAid has not been formally announced and the department website still lists a previous director for the office of foreign assistance. Many staff only learned that Marocco had been appointed from emails and cables drafted by him ordering them to stop work.

On Friday evening, senior Senate Democrats warned that the Trump administration’s decisions to place senior USAid officials on leave and freeze foreign assistance without engaging with Congress “have created a maelstrom of problems that have put our nation at risk and undermined American credibility around the globe”.

They warned Trump away from reported plans to downsize or even subsume the agency into the state department. “It is imperative that we maintain an independent development voice and capability within the US government,” wrote the senators. “USAid is, by statute, an independent establishment outside of the State Department. Any proposal to modify that structure would require an Act of Congress.”

A former marine and conservative activist from Dallas, Marocco served short stints of just a year each at the state department, commerce department, defense department and USAid during the first Trump presidency. In 2020, a 13-page complaint by USAid staffers was placed in its dissent channel – a framework for foreign service staff to express constructive criticism – accusing Marocco of undermining and micromanaging employees in a way that “rapidly degraded” a small department focused on political transitions. Critics say he is now applying the same playbook of laborious reviews and vague directives to all of USAid.

Marocco was also allegedly photographed and filmed inside the Capitol building during the January 6 riots, according to volunteer activists who have posted a widely cited investigation. Marocco has not been charged with a crime. Asked about the allegation by D Magazine, Marocco did not address whether he had been at the Capitol, but described it as “petty smear tactics and desperate personal attacks”.

He joined Trump’s transition team in December as an adviser on national security personnel matters.

“Democrats and their allies in the media who think they are going to obstruct our ability to deliver on this mandate by going back to the same January 6 playbook of smears and faux outrage that was soundly rejected by the American people will be disappointed,” Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Politico at the time.

The state department declined to respond to questions regarding Marocco’s appointment, his alleged participation in the events of 6 January 2021, and the department’s review process for evaluating overseas aid and potential waivers to the program.

Former and current officials at USAid, the state department and the defense department told the Guardian that Marocco’s previous stints at those agencies had been characterized by secrecy, personal conflicts and arbitrary rules meant to hobble the bureaucracy. Some said they believed Marocco had returned to take revenge on his former colleagues.

“The reaction was recoil and horror,” said a former senior USAid official regarding Marocco’s appointment. “I don’t know if they really believe in development or humanitarian assistance unless it’s transactional.”

“He’s the most unqualified person to be sitting in any seat of government, let alone the person who has the keys to our foreign assistance,” said another former colleague who still works at USAid.

Marocco strode into the offices of USAid this week flanked by members of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (“Doge”), a special group Trump created, with clipboards in hand. Several hours later, almost 60 senior officials from the office had been put on paid leave. Veteran aid officials with decades of experience at the agency were escorted from the building by security, according to current and former USAid officials, and their email accounts were frozen.

“They wanted to decapitate the organisation,” said a current USAid employee. “And they did it by pushing aside the leadership and decades of experience.”

The purge followed confusion within USAid over the stop-work orders drafted by Marocco and signed by Marco Rubio, the new secretary of state, leading some to believe that limited actions could continue if funds had already been committed.

“We have identified several actions within USAid that appear to be designed to circumvent the president’s executive orders and the mandate from the American people,” wrote Jason Gray, USAid’s acting administrator, saying the relevant staff would be put on administrative leave.

Some employees have openly rebelled. In an email to all staff seen by the Guardian, Nicholas Gottlieb, USAid’s director of employee and labor relations, said that appointees at USAid and “Doge” had “instructed me to violate the due process of our employees by issuing immediate termination notices”.

Calling the requests “illegal”, Gottlieb said he “will not be a party to a violation of [due process]”. Hours later, he was put on administrative leave.

In a separate email to the sidelined USAid senior staff, Gottlieb wrote that the “materials show no evidence that you engaged in misconduct”.

“I wish you all the best – you do not deserve this,” he wrote.

The chaotic rollout of the ban has led to whiplash for critical programs around the world, from emergency Aids relief (which has been granted a waiver), to clean-water and sanitation programs, to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which the Washington Post reported on Friday had gone offline.

Yet there are few details of a vast review program, which is supposed to evaluate thousands of foreign aid grants as well as an expected torrent of waiver requests. And a number of the senior USAid staff put on administrative leave were lawyers who had helped prepare requests for exemptions from the foreign aid freeze, sources said.

The state department has said the waiver process has been used “successfully dozens of times in the first several days alone; however, many requests failed to provide the level of detail necessary to allow a thorough evaluation”.

Previous cables indicated that the people involved would include Marocco or the new director of policy planning, Michael Anton, another political appointee. The state department declined to answer questions from the Guardian about who is evaluating the reviews and how many staff had been detailed to the process.

“The lack of clarity on the waivers has been a huge problem for partners,” said one current USAid official. “When it comes to USAid-funded programs, there’s, like, crickets. No one’s been able to get information.”

Insiders have told the Guardian that Marocco has sidelined career staff at the office of foreign assistance and that just a few employees had been brought in to work on evaluating the programs. Waiver requests to USAid are being sent to Marocco’s office of foreign assistance, from where they’re forwarded to the policy planning staff, which has recently suspended all of its career civil servants and foreign service officers, leaving only political appointees to review them.

“We’re all trying to figure out, is there a review process? Who’s part of that review?” said the former senior USAid official. “Is it Pete Marocco and his two best friends?”

At USAid, other directives have been enacted that have both defunded and demoralised staff. Photographs of aid programs around the world have been literally stripped off the walls after a “directive has been issued to remove all artwork and photographs from the offices and common spaces across all buildings”.

“Now all the pictures have to come down and I go: ‘Oh, good. Are we going to burn books next?’” said one current USAid employee.

Musk’s “efficiency department” has crowed about slashing $45m in scholarships for students from authoritarian Burma.

The $40bn a year that the US spends on foreign aid is less than 1% of its budget. But the US expends $4 out of every $10 spent globally on humanitarian aid, according to the state department, and the sudden cutoff has led to thousands of layoffs among US contractors and local partners around the world.

“Got that late Friday,” said one implementer, an American citizen, who received a stop-work order seen by the Guardian. “And was fired on Monday as a result.”

The 90-day stop-work order and financial freeze meant that there was no one to actually prepare the waiver request, that person said.

Devex, a media platform for news on the development community, reported this week that USAid’s bureau for humanitarian assistance had also furloughed about 500 institutional support contractors, or 40% of its team, undercutting its ability to react quickly to a humanitarian crisis.

A former USAid official said the decisions could put millions of people around the world at risk.

“If there’s a tropical cyclone that hits Cox’s Bazar tomorrow, then how are you going to save all those people, and then how are you going to rebuild if there’s a stop-work order?” said a former senior USAid official, referring to the city in Bangladesh where more than 1 million Rohingya refugees are living. “You could have people sitting there for 90 days and sitting and waiting for what? That’s what worries more.”

Musk var med på å slå den viktigste nødhjelpsorganisasjonen i verden ut av drift, slik at flere titalls millioner mennesker risikere å miste mat- og medisintilgang om de ikke allerede har gjort det. Det er veldig tydelig at Maroccos strategi er å tvinge gjennom en nedleggelse ved å bryte ned organisasjonen fra innsiden, så USAid vil ikke lenge kunne fungere - og 40 milliarder dollar kan forsvinne som et resultat. 

Det er dessuten meget spesielt at Trump våget å angripe USAid tross advarsler fra demokratiske politikerne som gjort det meget klart at USAid er underlagt kongressens mandat og dermed kan ikke den utøvende makten gripe inn. Bare kongressen er gitt den nødvendige autoriteten for et slikt inngrep, så dette er et konstitusjonsbrudd - NOK EN GANG. 

Og selve Musk er ved å rive vekk matsekkene fra sultende barn, for bare nødkrisetjenesten er fremdeles i virksomhet, så folk som ikke er i akutt krise, kan risikere å oppleve matmangel. 

Hva da, Tesla-sjåførene? 

[Mr.M]

JK22 skrev (16 minutter siden):

Trump har nå gjentatte ganger begått forbrytelser som ville ha utløst riksrettsprosesser - så republikanernes beskyttelse av ham er i klar strid med alle sentrale prinsipper etablert av grunnlovsfedrene, slik at det kan kalles landsforræderi. 

det skal bare en stemme overvekt til, i representantene hus, for å tiltale Trump for brudd på grunnloven. Det burde være overkommelig å få til, når så mange representanter på kryss av partiene etterhvert har begynt tvile på mannen. Men, få/ingen tør ta initiativet muligens.

https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riksrett_(USA)

[JK22]

Mr.M skrev (12 minutter siden):

så spørs det hva gjeldene lov sier da?

i Norge har vi Riksrevisjonen som jeg har inntrykk av har ganske store fullmakter.

Hvis det evt. ikke eksisterer et offentlig kontrollorgan i USA som har myndighet å kikke Sentralbanken i kortene, så er det et problem vil jeg si.

Mulig Musk er inne på noe, men "som vanlig" virker det gå litt for fort i svingene.

Som Stortinget i Norge er det kongressen som har autoriteten. Som riksrevisjonen er underlagt Stortingets myndighet, er GAO (Government Accountability Office) i likhet underlagt kongressens myndighet. 

Da Trump lansert "Department of Government Efficiency" eller DOGE for kort, tilsidesatt dette noe av GAOs fullmaktene selv om den ikke er et føderalt ministerium, da dette forutså kongressvedtak som autoritet som sett med tidlige midtetidige departementer som United States Bureau of Efficiency fra 1916-1933, som Roosevelt var raskt med å fjerne. Ved å ikke være transparent for andre som GAO har det blitt trukket for retten som brudd på Federal Advisory Committee Act fra 1972. 

Det er ikke bare-bare å kutte i statlige finanser og byråkrati. Det som skjer ser ut til å være i samsvar med høyrenasjonalistenes våte drømmer i USA og mange andre land inkludert Norge hvor det er en sterk irritasjon med bistandspraksis. 

[Tussi]

JK22 skrev (8 minutter siden):

Det er ikke bare-bare å kutte i statlige finanser og byråkrati. Det som skjer ser ut til å være i samsvar med høyrenasjonalistenes våte drømmer i USA og mange andre land inkludert Norge hvor det er en sterk irritasjon med bistandspraksis. 

James 2:14-17 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

[JK22]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/you-are-making-it-hard-for-us-black-americans-for-trump-member-rips-president-on-cnn/ar-AA1yf76E?ocid=BingNewsVerp&cvid=6bde988bfae24d57aacc9b24596d3502&ei=22

Det begynner å gå et lys opp for "the Black Americans for Trump Coalition". * Gratulere med sucker-sukkertøyet.

Som også går til de muslimske stemmegiverne som nå er i demonstrasjoner og høylytt protester, spesielt etter Trump hadde sagt at han vil tvinge den gazapalestinske befolkningen ut og flere utenlandske studenter som deltok i en pro-palestinsk demonstrasjon var utvist. * Gratulere med sucker-sukkertøyet.

Endret 22 timer siden av JK22

[sedsberg]

2 hours ago, AtterEnBruker said:

Å herre... kommer de neste fire årene til å bli Amerikas "the great leap foreward"?

Kan fort bli flere år hvis han får det som han ønsker. Noe jeg vil tro han vil.

[JK22]

Mexico, on edge amid Trump’s tariff war

True to his style of tough negotiator, President Donald Trump has taken his tariff threat against Mexico, Canada and China to the limit. The Republican has insisted that “nothing” can spare his neighbors from the tariffs he intends to impose on them as of this Saturday: 25% for Mexico and Canada, and 10% for China. A few hours before the deadline to apply these measures, the president has gone a step further, by assuring that he will set taxes on imports of steel, aluminum, oil, gas, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. The U.S. warnings, for now, are only in discourse, however, the economic danger for Mexico remains latent. The second-largest economy in Latin America, and main importer of the US, is holding its breath waiting for an agreement in extremis between both governments to avoid the new taxes or, on the contrary, to confirm and know the size of the so-called “tariff wall” of the Trump era.

The US trade deficit with Mexico, of more than 157 billion dollars, has been one of the reasons Trump has used to impose new rules on trade with Mexico, but it is not the only one. Since his presidential campaign, the Republican had assured that he would impose tariffs on Mexican imports if Sheinbaum’s government did not stop the arrival of migrants and drug trafficking, specifically fentanyl to its border. This Friday she has again put in the balance, migration and drug trafficking. “We will impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico for several reasons, the first is the massive number of people who have illegally entered our country; the second, the drugs like fentanyl that flood our communities and, the third, because of the huge subsidies we give them in the form of trade deficit,” Trump said Friday in his conference.

The threat is not new, but the warning of a new tariff crisis has Mexico on the edge of its seat. Analysts and financiers warn that, if these threats are carried out, a blow would be dealt to the peso, exports, investments and remittances. In short, the echo of these measures, they agree, would weaken the economic growth of Latin America’s second largest economy in the coming years.

Alfredo Coutiño, director for Latin America at Moody’s Analytics, assures that Mexico will suffer from both tariff policy and deportations by the U.S. government. “With an overall tariff of 20%, Mexico’s growth would slow to 0.3% from 1.3% in 2024. A higher tariff would send the economy into recession, i.e., negative growth for the year. If the 25% tariff is applied throughout the year, the contraction of the Mexican economy would be between 1.5% and 2%,” the specialist predicts. The agency estimates that some 740 billion dollars in trade flows could be interrupted if the United States turns the tariff threat into reality.

Among the sectors most affected by a generalized tariff is the maquiladora industry, mostly located in the border area with the US. The director of the National Council of the Maquiladora and Export Manufacturing Industry (Index), Carlos Palencia, warns that in the worst case scenario, investment in fixed assets could fall by some 1.8 billion dollars a year, in addition to the loss of some 150,000 jobs, due to the evident drop in new projects and the landing of manufacturing companies. Currently, he adds, there are more than 6,500 companies in the sector awaiting the U.S. government’s decisions; these firms generate 3.3 million direct jobs in Mexico.

Palencia adds that it would be illogical for Trump to order tariffs left and right in Mexico, without first having carried out a market study of the Mexican goods that are most in demand in his country, for example, cars, auto parts, electronics, mobile devices, textiles for the medical sector, among others. “We have to know on which products they are going to impose the tariff, but if the US applies a 25% generalized tariff, they would be shooting themselves in the foot, because the capital of these types of companies is practically American,” he says.

Ignacio Martínez Cortés, coordinator of the Laboratory of Analysis in Trade, Economics and Business at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), assures that Mexico is living a déjà vu of the first days of June 2019. At that time, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador reached an agreement on migratory matters to stop Trump’s tariff threats. In his first term in the White House, the Republican threatened to impose an initial tariff of 5%, which would rise to 25%. After weeks of tension and negotiations, Mexico defused the tariff bomb with a commitment to toughen immigration policy and send more military to the border. History is now being repeated with two old acquaintances: the Republican at the head of the U.S. and Marcelo Ebrard, who served as Foreign Minister of the Mexican Government.

The specialist notes that since his first term in office and up to now, Trump has used trade threats and uncertainty to the maximum to pressure other countries and achieve victories on different fronts. “If Trump imposes tariffs on Mexico, the Mexican economy would be entering a sharp slowdown, with a recession threshold. Trump did a surgical job of analysis, he knows very well what the current situation and the pressures on the Mexican economy are,” notes the academic, who highlights Mexico’s high economic dependence on the US market, with shipments of more than 466 billion dollars per year.

Sheinbaum’s government is still confident of dodging Trump’s tariff bullet. The president advocated early Friday to maintain dialogue with the United States and “keep a cool head”. She stressed that the imposition of tariffs against Mexico will only cause an inflationary spiral that will harm the US economy. The Ministry of Economy put the cost overruns for the US market caused by new trade tariffs at more than 10 billion dollars. If at first Sheinbaum’s government put on the table that, after a US tariff would come another levy against them in response, in recent weeks, the cabinet’s approach has been more measured, with the focus on dialogue.

Despite Sheinbaum’s and her cabinet’s efforts against the clock to avoid a tariff war, so far, Trump is sticking to what he has said. Far from giving in, the Republican maintains the pressure against Mexico, at a time when its economy is not going through the best moment: in the last quarter of 2024, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 0.6%, compared to the previous quarter. At an annual rate, GDP grew last year by 1.3%, a decline, compared to a 3.2% rise in 2023. With these figures, analysts and financiers agree that a generalized tariff of 25% will place Mexico on the verge of a recession.

Husket det som hendt i sommeren 2019, det var en katastrofe for amerikanske konserner som opplevd stor tap og store deler av industrien i begge land måtte settes på lavgir; det var ikke meksikanernes forhandling som fulgt til avslutningen på vanviddet den gang, det var massiv press fra industrimagnatene som sammen med nesten hele administrasjonen fikk Trump til å gi seg mot en halv seier. Det var aktuelt i bakgrunnen av frihandelssamtaler mellom Mexico, Canada og USA som er helt meningsløst, små kosmetiske endringer utover selve overskriften; "North American Free Trade Agreement" (NAFTA) bli "United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement" (USMCA). Etter alle tre landene eniges om en ny avtale skulle den ikke bli ferdigbehandlet før i 2020. 

Denne gangen vil konsekvensene bli langt mye større fordi etter Hongkong ble integrert i Kina gjennom et massivt traktatbrudd samtidig som Xi utløste forsurede forhold i handelsrelasjonene hadde mange amerikanske og multinasjonale konserner med andel i det amerikanske markedet flyttet ut av Kina. De valgt å flytte til Mexico hvor det er mange flere høyutdannede enn i USA med god arbeidsmoral og lav lønnsold, en markedsvennlig regjering og kloss nærhet til USA slik at transportutgifter med skip, tog og trailer var ikke-eksisterende i sammenligning med Stillehavsfarten. 

Trumps siste handlinger tyder på at han ikke er ved hans fulle fem. 

[JK22]

https://x.com/JeremyKonyndyk/status/1885508095985492312

Lenken kunne ikke bli inkludert fordi det er ingen tvitring på den URL-en.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/folly-merging-state-department-and-usaid-lessons-usia

USIA was created in 1953 to provide a home for public diplomacy activities in support of U.S. foreign policy; in short, USIA took the lead in the war of ideas between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War II. The agency’s mission statement was to “understand, inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions, and their counterparts abroad.” It was, by all accounts, highly effective in its pursuit of that mission. The Cold War was won because the United States had a better economic system and because the United States had better ideas and values. USIA helped present those ideas and values, and USIA’s public diplomacy campaigns around the world played a major role in that victory.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a broad perception that the U.S. foreign policy machine was no longer fit to purpose. It was the “end of history”— liberal democracy had emerged victorious over communism, and the United States was eager to reap the benefits of this peace dividend. Against this backdrop, policymakers and appropriators pushed to decommission agencies that were deemed superfluous or unwieldy. Without a major global ideological foe, many felt that USIA no longer needed to be a stand-alone agency, and by the late 1990s, momentum for change was growing.

The idea of restructuring USIA was first put forward in Vice President Al Gore’s Reinventing Government blueprint. The plan was to fold USAID, USIA, and the independent Arms Controls and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) into the State Department. ACDA was happy to merge with the State Department given that its functions were diplomatic in nature. In contrast, USIA and USAID had different functions and skills from diplomacy and resisted the consolidation. With strong support from Senator Jesse Helms, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the backing of President Bill Clinton, a deal was cut. USIA became a sacrificial lamb, and its cultural, educational, and informational functions shifted to the State Department under the newly created under secretary for public affairs and public diplomacy, along with ACDA. USAID survived as an independent agency but was formally linked to the State Department with the USAID administrator reporting to the secretary of state.

In its “Reorganization Plan and Report,” the Clinton administration said that the goal of the merger was “to strengthen public diplomacy through its integration into the policy process.” When implemented, the restructuring did the opposite. Dismantling USIA and shifting its primary functions to the State Department crippled U.S. public diplomacy operations in ways that have been lasting and profound—a self-inflicted wound from which the United States is still recovering. Even the Heritage Foundation, which is currently advocating for a consolidation of the State Department and USAID, called the USIA merger “misguided” and noted that it had caused the effective collapse of U.S. public diplomacy.

A primary reason for the failed integration of USIA stems from the vastly different missions and cultures of the two organizations. The State Department has traditionally focused on state-to-state relations and has a deep aversion to risk. These entrenched norms were not compatible with the culture of people-to-people engagement and experimentation that had made USIA such a success. A former under secretary described it as “grafting a foreign body onto a human body, and the human body rejected it.” USIA had recruited and retained thousands of employees with skills like sophisticated audience analysis and storytelling that were distinct from those appreciated within the State Department. These skills were ignored, marginalized, and atrophied after the merger. Only in recent years has the State Department started to remedy the situation, creating more pathways for public diplomacy officers to get promoted into senior roles.

State Department and USIA budget functions were also merged, meaning the State Department had to choose between “a new couch for the ambassador” or an additional dollar for public diplomacy. Public diplomacy was (and is) seen as a secondary or tertiary function of the State Department. Budgets, promotions, and priorities reflect its inferior status, and public diplomacy activities have been consistently subordinated to diplomatic goals. Public diplomacy dollars have also been scattered across regional bureaus where non–public diplomacy experts make resource allocation decisions. As a result, there is a scattershot effect on the use of these scarce resources.

The consolidation was also short-sighted. Less than two years later, the United States suffered the horror of the 9/11 attacks, launching the Global War on Terror. The country had unknowingly embarked on a new war of ideas with a determined global enemy but without a preeminent, well-resourced, expertly staffed, and functional public diplomacy apparatus. At the same time, global competitors, including China and Russia, made significant investments in their own public diplomacy operations—spreading their influence throughout Africa, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia at the very time that the United States was seen as retreating.

As a consequence, the United States has spent the last 15 years trying to rebuild its public diplomacy infrastructure. This process has taken significant time, money, and effort—and U.S. public diplomacy capabilities are still not back to where they started. While there have been improvements in recent years, the United States essentially gave its global competitors from Russia to ISIS a decade’s head start in the war of ideas. We cannot afford this kind of misstep when it comes to global development.

A merger of USAID into the State Department would do several things. Development dollars will ultimately compete with diplomacy dollars; development will lose out just as public diplomacy has. The competition for senior foreign service slots will be among development and diplomacy, and similarly, development professionals will suffer.

Like USIA, USAID has unique capacities and expertise that would be lost if it were folded into the State Department. A merger would remove a development voice from the policy table and degrade international development expertise. Career professionals flock to USAID as a global leader on development, poverty reduction, and democratic governance. These are jobs that require specific training and expertise and cannot be successfully filled by generalist foreign service or civil service officers.

Moreover, USAID’s organizational culture embraces innovation, partnerships, and learning—attributes that have helped it pioneer lifesaving technologies like oral rehydration therapies, resulting in 4 million fewer children dying of diarrheal diseases each year than three decades ago. These approaches are valued within the development field but would wither on the vine of the State Department’s diplomatic mission and more traditional culture. This loss would harm our ability to impact and influence a set of critical issues—the global refugee crisis, the threat of pandemics, violent extremism, among others—that USAID is uniquely suited to address.

The USAID brand, while linked to the U.S. government, allows partners who would not otherwise work with the United States to partner with us. USAID has generated billions in parallel investments from other donors—bilateral and multilateral—by virtue of its recognized leadership and independence. That ability to convince others to follow our lead would be lost in Africa and other regions, where China is waiting to step in—with a far different set of values and interests. Moreover, if the United States were to lose its bilateral development expertise, there would be a temptation to “outsource” development work to UN agencies and multilateral development banks. These multilateral agencies have an important role to play, but they do not directly represent U.S. interests.

Finally, in contrast to public diplomacy, which represents a set of tools to inform and engage international audiences about U.S. foreign policy and values, USAID’s value is not merely as an instrument of diplomacy. Development is a distinct and longer-term objective in and of itself. Of course development can and does help advance policy objectives—from improving security in Central America to countering violent extremism throughout Africa, from building trade capacity in Southeast Asia to strengthening democracy and the rule of law in the Middle East.

But, development, as a process for transforming socioeconomic and political conditions and lifting people out of poverty, cannot be achieved if it is exclusively tied to short-term and rapidly evolving policy imperatives. Development outcomes need time and consistency to come to fruition. The U.S. government’s efforts to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS—in which nearly 20 million lives have been saved—have required substantial and sustained investment over 15 years. Likewise, improving security and creating the conditions for a peace agreement in Colombia have taken almost 20 years. Such achievements would not have been possible had USAID been operating on the State Department’s one- or two-year timelines.

The world is as fast moving and dangerous as it has ever been. Now more than ever, we need our full tool kit to engage and shape the environment beyond our borders. Short-term savings and “efficiency gains” should not obscure the long-term value of a specialized, stand-alone development agency. U.S. security, prosperity, and values would be severely harmed if we eliminated or dismantled all or significant parts of USAID.

Veldig interessant... veldig interessant for oss nordmenn som har vansker med å forstå deler av den norske bistandspolitikken, spesielt omkring Sør-Sudan. Så nødhjelp og bistand i virkeligheten er en innflytelsesmetode for å etablere diplomatiske forbindelser med andre land og fremme egne interesser ved å yte hjelp i synlige oppvisning av egne makt og givervillighet? 

Så hvis USAid forsvinne, vil USA miste store deler av ikke-Vesten. 

[JK22]

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/8qVP6Q/donald-trump-innfoerer-straffetoll-mot-canada-mexico-og-kina

Nå sitter markedet og måper; * Gratulerer med sucker-sukkertøyet. 

2100 milliarder dollar, det er mye - og mesteparten er på amerikanske hender fordi mye av vareflyen inn i USA er under kontroll av amerikanske konserner... Nå er det helt sikkert meget mange som hoppe opp og skjelve av sinne. Trumps stupiditet er ufattelig, Mexico og Canada er villig til å strekke seg langt, men det er tydelig at han egentlig ønsket å få slutt på frihandelen - NAFTA/USMCA er sterkt upopulært i den amerikanske arbeidsklassen som mente med rette at de hadde tapt meget sterkt på utkontrakteringen til Mexico med billig arbeidskraft og Canada med statlig velferd. 

På tid for markedskreftene å ta seg sammen og tenke. Skattekutt, reguleringskutt og korrupsjon vil være forgjeves om det globale markedet med USA i midten skulle ta sterk skade av Trumps uforstandige politikk fordi narkosmugling og migrasjonsstrøm kan ikke stanses med toll alene. Til det er etterspørsel etter rusmidler og illegale migranter i USA for sterk. 

Endret 20 timer siden av JK22

[shockorshot]

1 hour ago, JK22 said:

NAFTA/USMCA er sterkt upopulært i den amerikanske arbeidsklassen som mente med rette at de hadde tapt meget sterkt på utkontrakteringen til Mexico med billig arbeidskraft og Canada med statlig velferd. 

Noe som er artig, fordi det var han som reforhandlet avtalen i forrige presidentperiode og skrøt fælt av. Nå er det en elendig forhandlet avtale ifølge Trump, men må han ta skylden for det eller er det noen fra det republikanske partiet som påpeker det? Nei. De lever virkelig et skamløst liv.

Endret 19 timer siden av shockorshot

[kilik]

Hvis Canadas bilindustri går dukken, kan det vel bety flere arbeidsplasser på den amerikanske siden. 

USA er vel såpass stort at man i teorien hvertfall ikke trenger andre land og kan presse dem for hva de er verdt. 

På kort sikt vil det bli inflasjon på en del produkter. Det er nok ikke til å unngå, men med flere amerikanske arbeidsplasser som back-shores vil nok lønningene følge etter.

[Femtekolonne]

Blir spennende å se om han får ordnet opp på Gaza. Å flytte palestinerne og jevne gaza med jorden høres jo ut som en plan ikke alle er enig i.

[Dubious]

kilik skrev (38 minutter siden):

Hvis Canadas bilindustri går dukken, kan det vel bety flere arbeidsplasser på den amerikanske siden. 

USA er vel såpass stort at man i teorien hvertfall ikke trenger andre land og kan presse dem for hva de er verdt. 

På kort sikt vil det bli inflasjon på en del produkter. Det er nok ikke til å unngå, men med flere amerikanske arbeidsplasser som back-shores vil nok lønningene følge etter.

Hver dag passerer en lang kø av trailere over de to broene som utgjør grensa mellom to svært integrerte naboland. Mange av dem frakter bildeler til produksjonen i Michigan. 

Så går de dukken i Canada, så vil Amerika følge etter.

Tipper det er mange Amerikanere som jobber i Canada, og håper inderlig at de får sparken før Canadiske arbeidere. 

"Etterspørselen vil kollapse, og produksjonen vil stanse opp slik at millioner av mennesker mister jobbene sine. De fleste av dem i USA, sier hun til New York Times."

Endret 18 timer siden av Dubious

[JK22]

kilik skrev (36 minutter siden):

Hvis Canadas bilindustri går dukken, kan det vel bety flere arbeidsplasser på den amerikanske siden. 

USA er vel såpass stort at man i teorien hvertfall ikke trenger andre land og kan presse dem for hva de er verdt. 

På kort sikt vil det bli inflasjon på en del produkter. Det er nok ikke til å unngå, men med flere amerikanske arbeidsplasser som back-shores vil nok lønningene følge etter.

....det finnes ikke innfødt bilindustri i Canada eller Mexico, nærmest alt er beregnet på det nordamerikanske fellesmarkedet hvor alle bilprodusenter bruker komponenter fra alle land - amerikanske delvarer kom dit, likedan kanadisk/meksikanske delvarer til USA. Trump rett og slett vet ikke om det. For den amerikanske bilproduksjonen er meget sterkt avhengige av delvarer fra nabolandene, Japan, Sør-Korea og EU. Delvarer - inkludert bilmotorer og chassiser. Det har ikke vært produsert en eneste bil i hele verden uten fremmede komponenter i flere tiår. Sist gang i USA var i begynnelsen på 1980-årene, da hadde det vært kanadisk-meksikanske delvarer allerede den gang i lang tid. 

USA er i virkeligheten ikke selvforsynt med alt som trenges for et moderne samfunn. Det finnes råvarer og annet som ikke kunne frembringes innenfor amerikanske statsgrenser, mye av industrien er nedlagt, utdatert og småskalert i de siste femti år siden stålindustrikollapsen i 1970-tallet. Det er hva mange ikke forstår; østasiatiske og europeiske fabrikker er aktuelt langt foran amerikanske i spørsmål om kvalitet, utvidelsespotensialitet og fornyelsesevne fordi det stadig investeres i levedyktighet i et skiftende marked. I de siste tjue år hadde amerikanerne måtte importere og produsere på lisens det de trengte, det vist seg at fornyelsesevnen er vanskeligere og dyrere på amerikansk grunn. 

Spesielt fordi det innbar investering i meget stor skala, i et land hvor det er enorme finanser, men mesteparten er bundet ned i bankene eller utilgjengelig for den realøkonomiske virksomheten. Slik tar mye penger - og tid. Mange som hadde svidd sine fingre på Kina, hadde valgt å flytte til andre mer vennligstemte land og dermed investert meget mye i disse landene hvor det er billigere. Den altfor sterke dollaren gjør at man får langt mindre penger i hjemlandet enn i andre land. Så tollreisningen som Trump egenrådig hadde stått for, er et slag i ansiktet på flere tusen pengesterke forretningsmenn og investere som hadde valgt å forlate Kina og lette byrdene for USA. 

Så snart Trump reiser toll mot hele verden kommer det til å få meget store konsekvenser, for han innser ikke hvilken ubalanse det er; USA har mindre enn 20 % av verdensmarkedet, men 70 % av verdensfinansene som kan kuttes ned av rasende handelsstormakter - kineserne er i ferd med å selge seg ut, og de kan få følge av BRICS-organisasjonen. Så hvis dollaren som nå er bare 50 % av verdensvalutaen, skulle svekkes til dens reelle styrke, vil gjeldsbomba eksplodert for alvorlig. Hvis verdensfinansene skulle hentes ut av de amerikanske bankene, - krasj. 

USA har bare to fordel - den første er å ha dollar som verdensvaluta, den andre er kommunikasjonsteknologi. 

[Zork]

1 hour ago, kilik said:

USA er vel såpass stort at man i teorien hvertfall ikke trenger andre land og kan presse dem for hva de er verdt. 

 

Nei, det er det naturligvis ikke og nei, det kan de naturligvis ikke. Det er heller ikke slik at det magisk dukker opp arbeidsplasser og industri tilfeldige steder i USA når man ikke kan benytte seg av det man har importert fra andre tidligere.

Om noen tror det kun er velvilje og godhet som har gjort at USA ikke har forsøkt denne metoden før så har de skjønt veldig lite. De har ikke gjort det fordi det er galskap å gjøre det og vil skade USA vel så mye som andre land.

Mye av grunnen til Marshallplanen var at USA i de dager var smarte nok til å skjønne at å ha et sterkt Europa å handle med også ville styrke USA. Å tro noe land i dag er sterkt nok til å stå alene, gjøre som de vil og tvinge alle andre til å bare betale alt en krever er så fullstendig idioti at en må være trump for å tro det fungerer.

Endret 18 timer siden av Zork