For all the pontificating, his goals have come to naught. He can boast all he wants, bluster and blather with no results. Everything thus far seems to have failed, including the *Kennedy* Center and his billion-dollar ballroom that will hold 999 people. Why does it need to be that big? Trump’s ego is already bigger. But that damn ballroom is, fortunately, tied up in lawsuits. Long may they last. My regards to Raw Story:
Donald Trump’s return from Beijing without any provable examples of successful negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping was yet another sign that, whatever lofty plans he had in store for the second year of his second term, they are easier to boast about than achieve. [WaPo subscription required.]
According to analysis by the Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum and Isaac Arnsdorf, the China summit didn’t include any measurable wins for a president who has had a rough year so far.
“President Donald Trump was riding the early high of his return to power last year when he took his first major foreign trip and declared that he would make a sharp break from years of U.S. nation-building around the world,” they wrote.
Heh. Yea no. He has more domestic trouble than he can handle that needs to be solved in short order. He needs to get out of Iran and get the Strait open. He needs to suck it up and work on an actual peace treaty. We’re not going to get the uranium except for, *maybe*, boots on the ground and a long, bloody fight. It isn’t worth it. He can’t admit that.
Exactly one year after his first major foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — complete with golden swords and honor guards on Arabian steeds — Trump arrived in China at a vastly different moment, the Post is reporting.
Inflation is spiraling, the Iran conflict has ensnared U.S. military forces, energy prices are soaring, and his approval ratings are cratering.
Trump came to Beijing hoping to secure trade deals. Xi had other priorities, the report noted. The Chinese president made clear that Taiwan’s fate, not investment opportunities, was China’s top concern — yanking the spotlight from Trump’s preferred focus to warn of “clashes and even conflicts” with the United States should disagreements over the disputed island be mismanaged.
The president has since claimed triumph that the trip enabled top U.S. business executives to meet the Chinese leader, but offered little evidence of actual transactions resulting from the meetings.
Of course, he has no evidence. The meeting is not doing business. His people got to meet the Chinese leader. They did not come out with anything except words. And there was the war with Iran in the background. President Jinping did not want to discuss business, except for Taiwan. That detail has been going on for a long time. We need to keep supporting because they are not China. They are their own island nation. At least we still have that, even if we don’t have much else. These days, it’s not what you can get. It’s what you can somehow afford, and which gas station has the lowest-priced gas. Back on topic.
Most of Trump’s signature foreign policy initiatives “have fallen by the wayside,” according to the Post.
The Ukraine war still rages despite his promises to end it swiftly.
Many of his tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court. Iran’s diplomacy has been abandoned entirely in favor of military conflict.
The collapse reflects a far cry from Trump’s more “expansive ambitions” for reshaping U.S.-China relations last year, when the two leaders agreed to meet four times in 2026.
With Iran now preoccupying Trump and weighing down the global economy, there is little room for retrenchment.
With slumping approval ratings and a faltering economy, Trump now travels the world stage “significantly weakened” compared to a year ago, Birnbaum and Arnsdorf predicted.
Apologies in advance, and please forgive me. Gee, ya THINK??!! He has made America a horrible place to live for citizens or immigrants. He’s been heading downward since he signed that damn blanket pardon for the J6 insurrection. He’s let ICE run loose, and they killed two people, with no signs of answers coming. And tariffs are making prices go up, and when he had to stop them, the prices aren’t going to come back down. Not happening. He’s got quite a list of failures. But he thinks everything is fine when he should know better. He thinks he is the best and most powerful man in the world. We are all rolling our eyes and not believing that for one single moment.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that, of all the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
Thud? I’d say the sound is more like a huge, wet sack of shit hitting the pavement from the top of Trump Tower.