Hypocrisy Runs Rampant in Trump Administration
Southern Border Wall– Build a Wall and Mexico will pay
- Mexico is not paying for the southern border wall.
- 4 years in office and he has never asked them to pay?
- Mexico’s then president said no; just in response to media reports. Without ever having to face the actual question/order from Trump.
- American citizens have paid 6.1 billion to reinforce 76 miles of existing wall and $3.8 billion has been taken from the US military for a grand total of about $10 billion that has accomplished the following: 90 miles of replacing existing structures and 3 miles have been added to that.
- A private organization called We Build the Wall” has constructed half a mile of new wall on private property.
- 3 new miles at $10 billion–3.3 billion dollars per mile. This is an area where there have never been any reported crossings.
Ban all Muslims from entering the United States until “we can figure out what the hell is going on.” He called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
- There are such obvious flaws in this legislation. Most obvious is the answer to the question doesn’t respond to what the citizens of the United States were most concerned about, that is, it’s not a question of attacking of religion it’s a question of preventing dangerous people who may be behind mass killings in the United States.
- The major attacks such as:
- The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and at other locations; the Boston Marathon bombing in the Orlando nightclub attacked were all carried out by persons from countries that are not on this list.
- In fact, they were carried out by countries that the United States panders to, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kyrgyzstan.
- Ironically, the Orlando nightclub was by US-born terrorists.
- The demonstration of the hypocrisy of this legislation is that Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi defector and critical journalist working for the Washington Post was murdered by agents of the Saudi government. Yet, the President and his feckless son-in-law Jared Kushner, continued to extol the virtues of Saudi Arabia.
- It is important to remember that 15 of the 19 9/11 attackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Two others were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon and the other from Egypt.
So the obvious question is: Why are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates not on the list of banned countries? The even more obvious answer is that the Trump family, and now the Kushner family, have deep business ties with Saudi Arabia. It is common knowledge that Trump has booked hotel rooms and meeting rooms to the Saudis. Trump boasts about his long-standing relationships with members of the Saudi government. He says openly “I love the Saudi’s.” While running for president he bragged about the Trump Tower being largely occupied by “friends” from the Saudi government.
The 9/11 terrorist were mostly Saudis. Is that what he loves about the Saudis? Does he know that they are Muslims? Does he know that other than buying arms from the United States to be used against their enemies, some of them allies of the United States, they have no love for him. They use him for their own purposes often and effectively. So, how did the Saudis stay off the Muslim ban list? Under scrutiny for his questionable ties to Saudi Arabia, the answer to this question and many others about this irresponsible continuous pandering to the Saudis is that he does what’s in his interest, particularly his business interests, not what’s good for the country. The ban on Muslims is not total as promised and leans heavily in favor of his personal interests.
Bring manufacturing jobs back (make America Wealthy Again) and, the people that rigged the system are supporting Hillary Clinton
- He promised to get rid of NAFTA. He did not. In fact, a new deal has been signed which is essentially the same as the last, all chaff, no wheat. There are very few significant differences between NAFTA and the USMCA. Trump bragging that the new deal would be “the best and most important trade deals ever made by the USA is laughable. The two deals are far more alike than different.
- While the deal may adversely affect Mexico to some extent because of that country’s low wages, it has virtually no impact favorable or unfavorable on Canada. It requires that autoworkers making parts or using parts must earn at least $16 an hour. In Canada they do earn that or more. So, the United States loses the advantages it held by the use of cheap labour in Mexico. We say that’s a loss financially to the United States, not a benefit. With Canada the agreement changes nothing.
Trump’s Dealing with China
- Trump promised to stop China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. China is a member of the World Trade Organization. China has been a member of the World Trade Organization since December 2001. They are in and all signs point to China remaining in despite Trump’s blustery promises or threats to the contrary.
- The United States Congress granted China “Most Favored Nation” status in 1980 that remains to the present day.
- In recent trade negotiations it appears that the United States has not bettered its position vis-à-vis China in any significant way. If anything, trade is worse between the two countries because Trump erroneously believes that the tariffs that he has imposed on imported Chinese goods are paid by the Chinese government, when in fact, those tariffs are paid by American consumers. American consumers have been significantly hurt financially by the tariffs. China is only hurt by the fact that American companies and individual consumers buy fewer Chinese goods because the tariffs imposed upon those goods make them more expensive.
- The trade talks are apparently at a standstill. Trump brags about his “great” relationship with President Xi. The stall in the trade talks suggests otherwise. Just as Trump bragged about China’s transparency in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, that too has apparently changed. Now he alleges that China was secretive, irresponsible and may have intentionally caused the spread of Covid-19 for its own personal gains.
- Trump doesn’t speak about China much anymore. Does this surprise anyone? In Trump’s world China’s leader is great one day, a despot the next day. It’s difficult to follow the bouncing ball.
- Presumably the relationship between the United States and China is a day-to-day thing. Mostly dependent upon the whimsical, unstable and inept meandering mind of the President.
- When the coronavirus debacle began Trump praised President Xi for his transparency. Now that the United States has the highest number of cases and the most deaths of any country in the world, Trump blames China for the outbreak of the virus even suggesting that China acted with malevolence (although he would not actually know the meaning of that word).
- We now know thousands of people from China entered the US carrying with them the Covid- 19 virus. The president claims that if he had not imposed an immediate ban ‘things would’ve been much worse.’ That claim is, of course, false. It is generally recognized that it was too little and too late.
- The President has defunded the World Health Organization. His timing couldn’t be worse. He has defunded the most important organization for the health of the world In the middle of a health pandemic. Why? Because that organization represents to him a foil to the President’s misinformation campaign .
- From January 2020 until mid-May 2020 100,000 Americans have lost their lives. The President early in the death toll said the first 15 cases will soon be down to zero. He also said the virus will just go away on its own, and, by Easter the virus will be gone and it will be great to see people gathered in churches all over the country. He foolishly said , “It’s just going to disappear on its own. This sad erroneous narrative was as fanciful as it was wrong. The United States has the largest number of cases of infection and deaths in the world. Trump’s helter-skelter, uninformed and chaotic approach is mostly responsible for the United States leading the world in something that it does not want to acknowledge.
- There are many other catastrophes created by the misfeasance of the US government at the behest of its President. Currently approximately 20% of the jobs in America have been lost. The country’s economy is worse now than at any time in the past. But the President carries on blissfully supported by his base. His base apparently is a large segment of the US population that appears to be impervious to his wanton incompetence.
- The President recommends taking a drug for malaria, hydroxychloroquine. All knowledgeable medical experts disagree, and most suggest it could be dangerous particularly with people having pre-existing heart conditions. He, of course, has a pre-existing heart condition. If he is actually taking that drug this could get interesting. If he is not taking that drug, just throw that lie on top of the other 18,000 of them.