This just in:  Here is a quote from renowned economist Jeffery Sachs, a professor at Colombia University…”no one expressed a single word of respect for Trump during his (Sachs’) recent trip to Europe.”

Here is a link to Sachs’ article.  You should read it then pass it along.

The world has no respect for Trump.  They are also starting to look at us a bit sideways.  Who can blame them.  After all…Trump was voted in by us.

I wanted to just take a moment to point out the obvious – Trump’s singular style of negotiations.  We’ve heard stories about how he bullies those that did work for him in the past.  In those cases, it was always “his word against theirs” but it always seemed like he would put his team of lawyers after a contractor that he didn’t want to pay.

Let’s look at The Wall.  Trump cannot finance The Wall because he doesn’t make the national budget.  Also, those that make the national budget don’t want The Wall.  So here is what Trump did…He took the very successful DACA arrangement and threw it out the window.  It didn’t expire.  It wasn’t broken until he broke it…on purpose.

His next step was to tell the Democrats that if they wanted DACA back, they would give him his Wall.  The Democrats said, “No, we have better stuff to spend $25 billion on.”  So, Trump goes out to the world and says, “The Democrats are the reason we don’t have DACA.  I want DACA but the Democrats don’t want it.  It’s all their fault.”

This is effective because his faithful don’t check the facts.

Then… Trump wants better trade deals.  He doesn’t really know what that means.  After all, I have NEVER heard him mention a single factual thing about any trade deal.  It’s mostly stuff like, “We are being treated very unfairly.”  What does that mean?  Give us a single issue so we can agree with you.  But no…he can’t because he has no understanding of economics (see article linked to above).  Instead, it appears that he just wants some sort of deal, any deal, so he can say that he’s a big deal maker.  I point to the tax deal as an example of this.  It made things in our country far worse (Here is a link to a recent UN study on the impact of Trump’s policies).

His next step is to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the E.U.  He cites national security as his rationale.  He is telling a gullible base that we need to save our steel industry so we remain strong.  To save this industry, he has declared a trade war on all of our global allies.   His hope is that all of these countries will shake in their boots and give him some sort of concession on existing trade deals.

Instead, EVERYONE in the world is imposing retaliatory tariffs against the United States.  There are even companies that are refusing to make any further investments in the U.S. so long as Trump is in power.

So, Trump’s negotiating strategy is to find a big stick and say, “Don’t force me to hit you with this because if you do, it will be your fault.”

And the world…didn’t blink as he had hoped.

Instead, they are uniting against us and rightfully so.

Thanks to Trump, the United States of America has become the face of the “Bad Guy” in the eyes of the world.

We are not the leaders anymore…

Up, up and away…

Jim