"we want to win"
Or, alternatively
"Some fat personal bribes please"
That's probably the exact reason, they didn't SAY they wanted bribes on the record, but made a gesture of rubbing their fingers and thumb together and the Japanese delegation ignored or misinterpreted it
They most definitely did not misinterpret it.
"We're not allowed to just straight out ask for a bribe, so you have to figure that out on your own and give us the money under the table."
"Did you stay at a Trump branded hotel ofr this trip? That'd be a start."
What's really stopping them from openly asking for bribes?
Nothing, now. Didn't they change the laws to say government employees can receive "tips"?
Snyder v. United States from June 2024. The ruling is that money given before an official act is a "bribe", but money given after an official act is a "gratuity".
Yes, our Supreme Court is batfucked in the head, why do you ask?
What they want is: to reduce the trade deficit. But they don't know how to do that. The most straightforward way is to produce more American products that people in other countries want. But how can Japan do that for them?
Is there really a trade deficit when you factor in services?
That's what Trump conveniently "forgets" when talking about Evil Europe. Once you compare trade and services balance it's quite even
Building a service-based industrial economy would be good for capitalism.
Unfortunately Trump does not serve capitalism. He serves fascism. And fascism requires factories that can be reconverted for a wartime effort once the immigrants and the queer start running out. That's the fundamental lifecycle of fascism.
Americans are sending us all on a path leading straight to WWIII and nuclear Armageddon if they don't fix their shit but everybody's too pussy to spell it out as if this demented ape doesn't have unlimited control of the most powerful army on Earth and enough nukes to end civilization several times over.
The US has a global trade surplus if you account for tech, financial and healthcare services.
There is an argument to be made that being able to produce certain things domestically is important from a national security standpoint (semiconductors for example).
Whether tariffs could actually produce that, no one actually knows.
Literally educate your populace, you dumb fucking sacks of shit.
God. Why are conservatives so insulatedly stubbornly braindead fartingly fucking stupid??
You want to compete on a global scale? Make your population better than the other ones: INVEST IN YOURSELVES.
Republicans are incapable of doing that because they see anything that helps someone as a "Handout"
One of the primary criticisms of Atlas Shrugged is that the villains are so moustache-twistingly farcical in their incompetence and greed that all the workers of the world are morally justified in going on strike, killing most everyone.
The book is full of what I thought were ridiculous strawman stories like what happened to the Japan delegation.
Japan said they might try to import more US rice, but they yen is still really weak right now (even if the dollar is trying to race it by jumping off a cliff). I don't think the Japanese govt quite grasps how fucking stupid the Orange administration is yet.
Maybe they need to start having those political satire shows like the Daily Show, but people mostly don't get involved in politics to the same degree as the US.
https://apnews.com/article/japan-trade-tariffs-trump-d23573689292edd7b3cea7496438a4a0
I'm surprised it didn't go even worse.
DID THEY EVEN SAY THANK YOU?!?!
Additional 100% tariff on everything except anything imported on days starting with "t" except Tuesdays.
All the GOP wants is to feel like they're in charge, they don't have any real vision for America outside of it being less gay.
Conservative America wants to publicly bitch about petty non-existent grievances while demanding that they be taken seriously.
It's worked on their constituents, but they can't seem to understand why it doesn't work on the rest of the world.
🦭💨
Fart of the seal?
That is correct!
Love it! My new favorite.
I can't take credit, I saw it in another thread like a week ago.
Basically this. Looking forward to South Park mocking how fuck stupid this administration is
South Park lost me with their many, many "both sides" over the years. I have yet to see them properly stab MAGA in the face out of more than temporary shame.
"we can make fun of everyone! so we're going to run a years-long transphobic storyline!"
like, no, that's exactly how priests who diddle kids rationalize it - I do good things so I can't do bad.
South park becomes extremely vapid once you're over 28 years old.
You can't just always pick the middle of two sides of an argument and assume you're always right.
South Park has traditionally supported the GOP by either normalizing things or both-sides'ing.
Don't expect them to suddenly stop now.
I wouldn't call that support, just not flat out calling it bad. They just tell you like it is, you gotta make the call of what's right and wrong with what's going on. I'd say they lean more "liberal" personally, but they rich AF so not in the same game we are playing anyways.
They literally had a decades long arc about climate change being as ridiculous an idea as "manbearpig" That's not what I'd call left leaning
I'm pretty sure this administration is using South Park and the Simpsons as a guide.
if the last month has taught us anything, real 4D chess would be "make the Switch 2 here, we'll exempt any tariff that goes to it, and lift the ones on you"
We want nothing and you offer nothing?
Deal!
They want to perpetually be the victim.
It's straight up psychological abuse. They want others to try and read their souls (aka guess) so that they can have the upper hand of being able to say it's not good enough. Or that it has offended them in some way and oh look tariffs just went up again.
Americans: "What do WE want? Oh...you don't understand. What are YOU bringing to us as an offering to the god king so that he may bestow his benevolence upon you."
And I'm not even kidding about about that; that's exactly how the Trump administration thinks international relations should be.
This is one of the best scenes in Bronson actually
Male frontal nudity warning:
Also YouTube warning
On Odysee: https://ody.sh/rOeTUhrYh7
What they want is fealty.
One of the contributing factors to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi), was the economic state of Germany. Establishing an us-vs-them mindset and placing people into poverty might be the point.
The American administration are not serious people, how can so many people not see this? It's like they're obviously not sees.
Team Manchild’s take on “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas”…
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