7 Likes
This will not end well for the US. They can bully individual nations but eventually when the whole world inevitably gangs up on them they’ll learn that they’ve massively overplayed their hand.
4 Likes
Thus seems apt
5 Likes
Sort of, but not really. They just responded to Trump in kind. They had already been taking these flights before this incident. The issue here is the theatre of it. It suits Trump to do this in a big showy display of strength and severity - military planes, not caring about the conditions of the people being repatriated. But the flip side is that makes accepting the flights that much more problematic for the Colombian government domestically. This standoff was about the nature of the flights not whether they would accept them. Now Trump has had his theatre he will likely just go back to doing the flights on regular charters
Related to the general discussion, this associated piece by CNN is a great illustration of how badly the immigration issue is covered
Headline - border security
Story - nothing to do with border security
The border is just a small part in the overall immigration issue and securing it against illegal crossings has long since stopped being the aspect of this that causing the system problems. What Trump has done is made it nigh on impossible for large chunks of the prospective immigrants to go through the legal immigration process.
3 Likes
I understand. But the point of this was never to not accept the flights.
1 Like
Then what was the point? Because it doesn’t seem like he’s secured any concession from the US government.
Just complete capitulation.
The Colombia dispute underscores the importance to most of the world of moving control of the financial transaction system out of the United States. Right now, that is really just a matter of dominant market share, because the alternative systems are simply not much used in most of the West. Cutting off access would have been crippling. I expect most of the world’s banks will receive instruction to prepare alternative pathways. The perverse side effect is that the capacity of the US to use that for sanctions on countries like Russia will be permanently eroded.
2 Likes
You say perverse side-effect, I say deliberate intention from the Russian government to get this toady elected.
5 Likes
Being seen to stand up to injustice rather than quietly accepting it is worth something for Pedro. Everyone understands he could not win, but he called attention to it. Unfortunately, red meat for Trump’s base, they are crowing about a greater triumph, but in Latin America Colombia is receiving praise - and Brazil didn’t start calling attention to the abusive nature of the flights until he did.
6 Likes
The Russians do love chess, maybe they are thinking that many moves ahead.
2 Likes
I don’t think it needs to be that many steps ahead considering they already have seen the effects of the first term. Undermined confidence in the USA, an increase in their relative power. I wonder if the Ukraine invasion would have taken place if Clinton had won in 2016.
Unfortunately a nuance missed by any coverage of the issue I’ve seen thus far.
Again, the rejection was based on the treatment of the people, not the flights themselves. They accepted 120 of these flights last year alone. The difference now is Trump is making a big show of being a tough guy in his implementation that demeans the people subjected to it in a way that puts the countries having to repatriate these people in a difficult situation. To that point, part of the Colombian president’s public announcement said “The United States must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.” They have now reached an agreement to resume the flights, flights he had already been accepting. We dont know the details of the agreement - statements from the Trump team should be summarily ignored regarding the details - and it’s possible they resume exactly as they were, but thought his actions he has now been shown to be an advocate for his people and not a collaborator in the purposeful cruelty of the way a necessary process was being implemented.
3 Likes
He was upset about them being marched onto the plane in handcuffs, chains and ankle bracelets… Will have been done as we know, to show Trump is true to his word was all, and pitching them all as criminals being deported…
It might seem unrelated, but the news of Deepseek this week, the new Chinese GenAI model dramatically out-performing any of the US public models, seems related.
There has been lots of talk around Trump’s willingness to shit on allies for perceived short term gain pushing countries closer into China’s sphere. The conventional wisdom I have seen among the Geopolitics experts, the Ian Brenner types, is the importance of China’s next gen energy tech is nicely balanced against the US’ dominance in AI meaning that countries are going to have to straddle the fence regardless of the provocation. Then the exact week Brenner is doing the rounds discussing the Eurasia Group’s newest global forecast of the enduring reality of a bipolar world order, China comes out with their new AI model that blows out of the water anything the US models can do sending NVIDA’s stock plummeting
3 Likes
Noem confirmed too, in one of the positions where security classifications are critical. She lied about meeting Kim Jong Un, in print. Who the hell knows what other skeletons she has in the closet?
4 Likes
Although to be fair, lying about taking a meeting with a despot you didnt actually meet is generally less of a security risk than the Tulsi style lying about the spontaniety of just happening to meet Assad while in Syria 
I am also still convinced she only got the nomination because Trump doesnt know what DHS does and thinks that being the plains country is “homelandy” enough for her to know the details.
2 Likes
1 Like