Vladimir Putin recently made comments on the seriousness of global conflicts that can lead to nuclear conflict. Patriots worldwide should pay close attention as the globalists build their dangerous nuclear arsenal.
In stark contrast to attempts in numerous western countries to stifle free speech online, Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Internet freedom during a conference...
A prominent Swedish lawmaker asserts that Hungarian billionaire George Soros's influence on European politics and policies make him "one of the most dangerous men,"
Hungary’s National Assembly has passed a law that bans showing children under the age of 18 material related to homosexuality or transgenderism in education, on television, movies or in advertisements.
The vote passed earlier today by a huge margin of 157-1.
“The law was included in a larger bill cracking down on pedophilia by creating a register of child sex offenders, implementing stricter punishments for child pornography, and barring pedophile offenders from jobs where they would encounter children. It also singled out the promotion of LGBT affairs in schools,” reports RT.
According to a statement by ruling party Fidesz, the law ensures that sex education in schools “must not be aimed” at “promoting homosexuality” or “changing gender.”
Television shows, movies and advertisement are all also banned from showing any content deemed to be promoting homosexuality or transgenderism.
After left-wing lobby groups opposed the law, protesters took to the streets of Budapest to demonstrate against the law.
However, their sentiments are not shared by the population, which voted overwhelmingly for right-wing Fidesz when the party was re-elected in 2018.
Hungary is one of few European countries that actively tries to protect its family-oriented and Christian heritage by moving to stop children being exposed to harmful information and lifestyles.
The country’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has cultivated support for his efforts to defend the sanctity of the family in the face of rampant progressivism in other European countries.
Last December, Hungary passed a constitutional amendment affirming the right of children to identify with their birth gender and defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Asserting that Europe’s native population decline represented a “sickness,” Orbán alsooversaw a programto offer significant financial incentives for the country’s own native citizens to have children, handing out €30,600 loans to married couples who have three or more children which are completely forgiven after the birth of the third child.
While major institutions in the United Kingdom and U.S. embassies all over the world now fly the LGBT flag above their buildings, a rainbow-colored statue erected in Budapest by leftist activists in honor of Black Lives Matter was demolished within 24 hours.
Last week, Orbán alsodefendedHungarian football fans who booed Irish players ‘taking a knee’ for BLM, asserting that the gesture was a “provocation” based on white guilt over slavery and that Hungary would not be partaking in the virtue signalling act.
I have my doubts whether the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva will take place later this month, but even if somehow it is pulled off, recent Biden Administration blunders mean the chance anything of substance will be achieved is virtually nil.
The Biden Administration was supposed to signal a return of the “adults” to the room. No more bully Trump telling NATO it’s useless, ripping up international climate treaties, and threatening to remove troops from the Middle East and beyond. US foreign policy would again flourish under the steady, practiced hands of the experts.
Then Biden blurted out in a television interview that President Putin was a killer with no soul. Then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discovered the hard way that his Chinese counterparts were in no mood to be lectured on an “international rules-based order” that is routinely flouted by Washington.
It’s going to be a rough ten days for President Biden. Just as news breaks that under the Obama/Biden Administration the US was routinely and illegally spying on its European allies, he is preparing to meet those same allies, first at the G7 summit in England on June 11-13 and then at the June 14th NATO meeting in Brussels.
Make no mistake, Joe Biden is up to his eyeballs in this scandal. Ed Snowden Tweeted late last month when news broke that the US teamed up with the Danes to spy on the rest of Europe, that “Biden is well-prepared to answer for this when he soon visits Europe since, of course, he was deeply involved in this scandal the first time around.”
Though Germany’s Merkel and France’s Macron have been loyal US lapdogs, the revelation of how Washington treats its allies has put them in the rare position of having to criticize Washington. “Outrageous” and “unacceptable” are how they responded to the news.
Russia has been routinely accused (without evidence) of malign conduct and interference in internal US affairs, but it turns out that the country actually doing the spying and meddling was the US all along – and against its own allies!
Surely this irony is not lost on Putin.
Biden has bragged in the US media that he would be taking Putin to task for Russia’s treatment of political dissidents like Alexei Navalny. Biden wrote recently in the Washington Post, that when he meets Putin, “I will again underscore the commitment of the United States, Europe and like-minded democracies to stand up for human rights and dignity."
Perhaps President Putin will remind him of how the Biden Administration continues the slow-motion murder of Julian Assange for the non-crime of being a journalist exposing government misdeeds.
Perhaps Putin will remind Biden of how US political dissidents are being treated, such as the hundreds arrested for what the Democrats and the mainstream media laughably call the “January 6th Insurrection.” Many of these non-violent and unarmed protesters have been held in solitary confinement with no chance of bail, even though they have no prior arrests or convictions. Most await trial on minor charges that may not even take place until next year.
The Washington foreign policy establishment is hopelessly corrupt. The weaponization of the US dollar to bring the rest of the world to heel is backfiring. Only a serious change in course – toward non-interventionism and non-aggression – can avert a disaster. Time is running out.
The response to No10’s review into racial disparities in the UK has been truly disturbing. Labour, the radical left, the broadsheet press and the BBC — some of whose talking heads have spent the entire day looking and sounding bewildered — have reacted with horror to the suggestion that the UK is not actually a racist country. ‘What do you mean Brits aren’t a disgusting, hateful throng?’, the great and good have essentially cried. This could prove to be one of the most revealing moments in the contemporary culture wars.
The review is a brave one. It doesn’t so much cut against the grain of received wisdom as drive a juggernaut straight through it. It says that of course there is still racism in the UK, especially on social media. But institutional racism? Structural blocks to ethnic-minority engagement in education, work and public life? Nope. That just isn’t there. This shibboleth of chattering-class thought — that Britain is a structurally foul country, holding back its ethnic minorities — has collapsed under scrutiny. The semi-religious conviction that has gripped the elites since at least the 1999 Macpherson report into the police’s handling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence — the idea that Britain, from top to bottom, is stained with the original sin of racism — just isn’t reflected in the facts.
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, headed by Tony Sewell, does something that feels almost revolutionary in the midst of today’s misanthropic conviction that Britain is a racist hellhole. It tells the truth. The truth that children from ethnic-minority backgrounds are doing just as well as, or are outperforming, white kids in compulsory education. Children with Black Carribean heritage are the only ones doing worse than white kids. The success of minority groups in the education system has ‘transformed British society over the last 50 years into one offering far greater opportunities for all’, the review says. It is testament to the extent to which the fact-lite fatalism of depressive identitarians has colonised public life that it feels shocking to read a positive assessment of life for ethnic minorities in the UK.
The review also points out that the pay gap between ethnic-minority workers and white-majority workers has shrunk dramatically, to just 2.3 per cent. For workers under the age of 30 there is barely any racial pay gap at all. Brilliant. That’s great progress. It also points to the explosion in diversity in law, medicine and other professions. It isn’t all a bed of roses, of course. No one benefits from Panglossianism. There is still overt racism, especially in the cesspit areas of the internet, the review says, and some communities still feel the burden of ‘historic racism’, which could potentially hold them back. But we can work on these problems, now that they’ve been properly identified and named.
The review has told, and illustrated with facts, a good story: the leaps forward made by ethnic-minority groups in the UK. People are celebrating these revelations, surely? Not a bit of it. The liberal commentariat, the left and the vast race-relations industry have responded with fury to the review. It’s a ‘let down’, it’s a ‘disgrace’. Tony Sewell, according to writer and activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, is a ‘token black man’. Others have denounced Sewell as a modern-day Uncle Tom. These vile racialised assaults on a black man who simply disagrees with the dominant narrative of ‘institutional racism’ prove the review’s point that racism can still be found on the internet.
Why are the cultural elites so furious with the review? Because they are so heavily invested in the idea that Britain is an institutionally racist country. They need this myth. They benefit from it. It guarantees funding to their organisations, clout for their spokespeople, influence for those who can claim the mantle of racial victimhood. They see the review — rightly — as a direct challenge to the social and political power they have built on the back of the myth of institutional racism. They loathe Sewell because he has pulled the rug out from under the feet of the powerful identitarian lobby. He has pricked their politics of grievance. He threatens to derail the gravy train. Their fury is driven by naked self-interest disguised as concern about racism.
This is why Sewell is being talked about almost as a heretic. His review’s questioning of the idea of institutional racism is being treated as an act of sacrilege, a sinful assault on orthodoxies carefully nurtured and promoted by identitarian sects. In suggesting that social class is more important than race, this Tory government has done something more radical and destabilising than the moronic new left could ever hope to achieve — it has exposed the hollowness, the divisiveness and the pretensions of the identitarian set, and suggested that economic factors such as class deserve more of society’s attention and resources. ‘Class?! How dare you’, the dumb left says.
‘Institutional racism’ is in many ways the founding myth of the new elites. It is the source of their moral authority. In depicting Britain as a racist country, they can position themselves as the wise, enlightened ones who must rescue and re-educate us all. Once, the elites viewed us as an underclass in need of moral correction; now they view us as a racist throng requiring unconscious bias training. No wonder they’re so angry today: this review has weakened the already weak foundations of their elitist claims to moral and social authority over the masses. The Emperor of Identitarianism now stands naked before us. And you know what to do: laugh.
A Senate committee has voted to issue a subpoena as part of its
investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, a move that
met immediate opposition from Democrats who said the panel should be
focused on overseeing the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on
Wednesday voted 8-6 to subpoena Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm
that was a consultant to Burisma, a gas company in Ukraine that paid
Hunter Biden to serve as a board member.
There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens, and Hunter Biden
has denied using his influence with his father to aid Burisma. But
Republicans coming to President Donald Trump’s defense during and after
last year’s impeachment trial have encouraged investigations of Hunter
Biden’s activities, questioning whether his highly paid job created a
conflict of interest for Joe Biden as the former vice president worked
on Ukraine policy in the Obama administration
The chairman of the Republican-led panel, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson,
has repeatedly insisted that the investigation is not designed to hurt
Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee in this year’s presidential
election. Another Republican on the committee, Florida Sen. Rick Scott,
said at the vote that “we need to get to the truth about the Bidens’
relationship with Burisma. These hearings will provide the Senate with
the full picture.”
A Biden campaign spokesman said in a statement that Johnson was “running a political errand” for Trump.
“Senator Johnson should be working overtime to save American lives —
but instead he’s just trying to save the president’s job,” said Andrew
Bates.
Democrats decried the investigations as politically motivated and
said they are a distraction from work the committee could be doing to
try to help mitigate the pandemic.
“At this moment when Americans need us to work together, this
extremely partisan investigation is pulling us apart,” said Michigan
Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee.
Peters noted a letter from Blue Star Strategies to the committee in
which the CEO, Karen Tramontano, said the company has already cooperated
with the probe and is willing to cooperate further. Johnson told Peters
that he would allow the letter to be added to the committee’s official
record, but said he disagreed that the company has been cooperating.
“It appears the subpoena is just for show, a way to create the false
impression of wrongdoing,” Schumer said Wednesday from the Senate floor.
“It’s like in a third world dictatorship, a show trial with no basis in
fact, with no due process, with no reality.”
Trump has been clear about his intentions to use Hunter Biden’s work
in his reelection bid, saying in March that it will be a “major issue”
in the campaign. “I will bring that up all the time,” he said then.
The president’s efforts to have Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden’s
role as a board member for Burisma were at the heart of House Democrats’
impeachment probe last year. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens on a July phone call that was later
revealed by a whistleblower’s complaint.
The House impeached Trump in December for pressuring the Ukrainian
government on investigations while withholding military aid to the
country. The Senate acquitted him in February.
Did Democrats bother to look into why 'zero experience Hunter' Biden was
getting rich compliments of a shady Ukrainian company while his father
oversaw Ukraine policy for the Obama administration?
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo holds a joint press conference with
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Later today, President Trump
will meet with Lavrov at the White House.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch admitted Friday
under questioning from Republican counsel that she had been briefed
about the fact that Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board, but did nothing
about it.
“You know, I’m just at a loss, it’s very hard to explain it all”.
An exchange between two speakers on one of Russia’s largest
television shows illustrates how people in eastern Europe are completely
bewildered by the west’s obsession with identity politics.
The dialogue took place during a discussion on Russia-1, a state
owned channel with the second largest viewership in the country.
The host and his guest were talking about Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s meeting with outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May at the
G20 when the conversation suddenly veered into the bizarre.
“These days in Scotland, a 17-year-old schoolboy was suspended from
school for 3 weeks….for saying that there are only two sexes, male and
female, there is no in-between,” said the guest, referring to a real story that happened.
“I expected it to provoke a backlash in society, at least somewhere,” he added.
The host then said that he only knew of male and female and asked his
guest to provide a description of a third, fourth and fifth sex.
“I just tried to make you feel what’s going on here,” responded the guest.
He then went on to describe a recent story about how staff at London
zoo had placed a banner in the penguin enclosure that reads, “some
penguins are gay, get over it” (this also actually happened).
“You know, I’m just at a loss, it’s very hard to explain it all,” said the guest as the host looked on bewildered.
“Do gay penguins take offense if somebody mistakes them for straight penguins?” quipped the host.
“Of course, it’s absurd, but it perfectly reflects the insanity in politics,” concluded the guest.
The clip was posted to YouTube by Vesti News under the title ‘Does
Theresa May Dislike Putin Because She Believes in 64 Genders and He
Doesn’t?’
It’s interesting to note that the discussion almost seemed like it
was about the behavior of an alien species on a different planet, not
another country on the same continent.
Last month, Vladimir Putin remarked on a similar topic, asserting that liberalism was in its death throws thanks to forced multiculturalism.
“The ruling elites have broken away from the people,” Putin told the
Financial Times, adding that the “so-called liberal idea has outlived
its purpose” and some western leaders had acknowledged that
“multiculturalism” is “no longer tenable”.
The Real Clear Politics report claims Mueller's team relied on a 'private contractor for the Democratic National Committee'; reaction from Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, and former Watergate prosecutor Jon Sale.
So I am still thinking about this Chernobyl special, which somehow
managed to touch a nerve. A lot of people, far from politics, were very
moved by the way it was shot, with coloring reminiscent of Tarkovsky's
Stalker. Grim Soviet reality that somehow looks cool and artsy when shot
through specially tinted lenses. Tarkovsky, apparently, wanted this
look, and had to ostracize a lot of people when he decided to re-shoot
Stalker, because the original tape was defected by his standards.
In any case, the director, Craig Mazin, must be a talented dude. Yet,
the film was obviously more that an artistic project. There must be some
CIA/MI5 money involved. Like they do in all other stupid projects of
theirs, especially when they feel that it is time to counterbalance
Russians. So let's pour money into White Helmets, and all sorts of
propaganda films. But why stop there. If the plight of the free world is
at stake, let's give money to Armstrong, and Pollack, and Faulkner, and
Elton John, and all other important western artists who should promote
western values.
And the artists do take money and keep on doing
their art! Should we condemn them? All these modernists who were on the
CIA take? But if we don't condemn them --these greats of the XX
century --why do we condemn the Soviet artists, who took money from
their government: Shostakovich, and Eisenstein, and Sholokhov and so on?
"Brave" Solzhenitsyn had a nerve to condemn Eisenstein in his
"One day," decrying the "pseudo" genius, who condones violence on the
cue from the tyrant. Implying -- following Pushkin - that a genius --
can't serve evil. But didn't he see the irony? Didn't he imagine
himself a genius, while being on the take from the west, serving the
American imperialism and getting western money in the forms of prizes,
and contracts and all other accouterments? So if you take western
money, you are OK, if you take Soviet money, you are a sell-out? A new
doctrine and strange!
How are we to judge? Should we use this
criteria (where the money are coming from) or should we just convince
out selves, that we are following art?
I think the source of
money is important, yet, it does not really matter to me, where they are
coming from: east or west, communists or capitalists, Arabs or
Zionsists, and so on. What should matter is who is an underdog!
If Craig Mazin, or White Helmets take money from the bullying and
controlling regime, which is ready to kill for the sake of its hegemony,
they are serving the devil. If the money are coming from an underdog,
fighting for its independence or existence, that's a different story.
There is a moral responsibility, but it is unrelated to a story, while
directly related to who is using the story. If the Jews in Polish Ghetto
hired me to tell their story and paid me with gold that they've
collected, it is one thing. If the Nazis hellbent on destroying them,
are paying me with the gold, this gold sucks. And so is the story!
The Russian president claims his country's attitude "to the LGBT community is absolutely calm and unbiased".
Vladimir Putin has responded to criticism from Sir Elton John on the
Russian leader's attitude to LGBT rights by saying the singer is
mistaken.
Sir Elton accused Mr Putin of duplicity after the
president criticised the West for emphasising lesbian, gay, bi-sexual
and trans culture over "traditional family values".
Mr Putin told a news conference: "I deeply respect him, he is a
musical genius and we all love his performance, but I believe he's
mistaken."
Sir Elton and the filmmakers of his biopic Rocketman
have hit out at a Russian distributor's decision to censor scenes from
the new movie featuring gay sex and drug use.
The Russian
president said his country's ban on what he called LGBT "propaganda" was
aimed at protecting children from aggressive proselytising by the LGBT
community.
"Let a person grow up first before making a choice," Mr Putin said. "Let the children in peace."
Dear President Putin,
I was deeply upset when I read your recent interview in the Financial Times.
I
strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace
multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies. pic.twitter.com/wNG3imaR2r
He claimed: "Our attitude to the LGBT community is absolutely calm and unbiased.
"This part of the community aggressively enforces its point of view on others," he added.
The
music legend said he was "deeply upset" by Mr Putin's interview with
the Financial Times in which the Russian president said liberalism "must
not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional
family values of millions of people".
Addressing Mr Putin directly, Sir Elton wrote on Twitter: "I strongly
disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace
multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies.
"I find duplicity in your comment that you want LGBT people to 'be happy' and that 'we have no problem in that'.
"Yet
Russian distributors chose to heavily censor my film Rocketman by
removing all references to my finding true happiness through my 25 year
relationship with David and the raising of my two beautiful sons.
"This feels like hypocrisy to me."
Human
rights groups have said Russia's laws targeting the LGBT community have
increased the hostility members face and made it more difficult for
them to seek support.
One part of Russia, the mostly Muslim
republic of Chechnya, saw a crackdown in 2017 during which more than 100
gay men were arrested and subjected to torture, with some of them
killed, according to activists.
Earlier this year, human rights
activists said Chechnya was carrying out a new crackdown in which at
least two people died and about 40 people were detained. Authorities in
Chechnya denied the claims.
The "worst case" trade war scenario was avoided in Osaka on Saturday when Trump agreed to restart trade talks with Xi, holding off new tariffs on Chinese exports, and signaling a pause in the trade hostilities between the world’s two largest economies; Trump added that while existing tariffs would remain in place the
US president eased restrictions on Huawei as part of what is now the
second ceasefire between the two superpowers in two months, removing an
immediate threat looming over the global economy even as a lasting peace
remains elusive.
"We had a very good meeting with President Xi of China, excellent, I
would say excellent, as good as it was going to be," he said. "We
discussed a lot of things and we're right back on track and we'll see
what happens", Trump told reporters after an 80-minute meeting with
Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit of leaders of
the G-20 major economies in Osaka, western Japan.
“We’re holding back on tariffs and they’re going to buy farm products,” he said vaguely at a news conference, without giving any details of China’s future agricultural product purchases. “If
we make a deal, it will be a very historic event.” He gave no timeline
for what he called a complex deal but said he was not in a rush. “I want
to get it right.”
Whereas Trump and top admin officials alleged that Beijing had
reneged on provisions of a tentative trade deal, it was not immediately
clear if Xi agreed to return to previous agreements as part of the new
truce.
Trump, however, did relent on one of the major sticking points, saying U.S. firms would be allowed to sell components to Huawei, the
world’s biggest telecom network gear maker, where there was no national
security problem. The president said the U.S. commerce department would
meet in the next few days on whether to take it off a list of firms
banned from buying components and technology from U.S. companies without
government approval.
"I like our companies selling things to other people, so I allowed
that to happen," Trump said. “We’re talking about equipment where
there’s no great national security problem with it.” In recent months,
the Trump administration has been lobbying allies around the world not
to buy Huawei equipment, which the U.S. says could be used for Chinese
espionage.
Huawei was delighted by the news on its verified Twitter account:
“U-turn? Donald Trump suggests he would allow #Huawei to once again
purchase U.S. technology!”
Predictably, China also welcomed the step. “If the U.S. does what it
says, then of course, we welcome it,” said Wang Xiaolong, the Chinese
foreign ministry’s envoy for G20 affairs.
Trump said he had not yet decided how to allow U.S. companies to
continue selling to Huawei or whether to remove the tech giant from the
Commerce Department’s entity list. He said he would meet with advisors
next week to determine how to proceed.
U.S. microchip makers also applauded the move. “We are encouraged the
talks are restarting and additional tariffs are on hold and we look
forward to getting more detail on the president’s remarks on Huawei,”
John Neuffer, president of the U.S. Semiconductor Association, said in a
statement. Recently, Broadcom warned of a broad slowdown in demand as a
result of Huawei sanctions and slashed its revenue forecast.
And yet, it was not clear how long the exemption would last. Trump
said he had agreed with Xi to wait until the very end of trade talks to
resolve broader issues around Huawei, including Washington’s lobbying
campaign against allies buying its 5G equipment.
“Huawei is a complicated situation,” Trump said. “We’re leaving Huawei toward the end. We’ll see where we go with a trade agreement.”
The concession will likely draw criticism in Washington where
national security hawks have urged Trump not to ease any pressure
against Huawei. The company has long been the target of concern at the
Pentagon and intelligence agencies in part over what the U.S. claims are
its close ties to the Chinese military.
Huawei is one of few potent levers we have to make China play fair on trade.
If President @realDonaldTrump backs off, as it appears he is doing, it will dramatically undercut our ability to change China’s unfair trades practices.https://t.co/rja8CDs2T4
By agreeing to weaken restrictions on #Huawei, Trump not only undermined his own government, he undermined the entire argument #Huawei is a real national security threat. #facepalmhttps://t.co/BzuM8QA0Na
In exchange for his Huawei concession, Trump said Xi Jinping had promised to buy “tremendous” amounts of U.S. agricultural products. “We’re
going to give them a list of things we’d like them to buy,” Trump said
at a news conference following the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
However, as Bloomberg notes, the first indications the second fragile
truce will collapse soon is that the Chinese official media reports said
only that the U.S. president hopes China will import more American goods as part of the truce, without an actual confirmation it will do so.
For now, however, the second truce, after a similar ceasefire was
announced on December 1 at the Buenos Aires G-20 summit, has been
achieved, offering relief from a nearly year-long trade standoff in
which the countries have slapped tariffs on billions of dollars of each
other’s imports, disrupting global supply lines, roiling markets and
dragging on global economic growth.
In a lengthy statement on the two-way talks, China’s foreign ministry
quoted Xi as telling Trump he hoped the United States could treat
Chinese companies fairly. On the issues of sovereignty and respect, Xi
said that "China must safeguard its core interests."
“China is sincere about continuing negotiations with the
United States ... but negotiations should be equal and show mutual
respect,” the foreign ministry quoted Xi as saying.
Trump had threatened to extend existing tariffs to almost all Chinese
imports into the United States if the meeting brought no progress on
wide-ranging U.S. demands for reforms.
The return to the negotiating table ends a six-week stalemate that has unnerved companies and investors, and
at least temporarily reduces fears that the world’s two largest
economies are headed into a new cold war, which they still are but only
after the current stalemate ends allowing the S&P to rise above
3,000 in the the meantime. Because, as Bloomberg notes, it’s
unclear how they can overcome differences that led to the collapse of a
previous truce reached at the G-20 in November.
* * *
While Trump and Xi were all smiles at their press briefing, the bad
blood between the two leaders behind the scenes is clearly still there.
Xi spent much of the summit’s first day Friday promising to open up the
Chinese economy, and attacking the U.S. (without naming it) for its
attack on the global trading system. As Bloomberg reported, Xi took a
"not-so-subtle swipe" at Trump’s “America first” trade policy in remarks
to African leaders on Friday, warning against “bullying practices” and
adding that “any attempt to put one’s own interests first and undermine
others’ will not win any popularity.” Xi also called out the U.S. over
Huawei and said the G-20 should uphold the “completeness and vitality of
global supply chains.”
For now, however, there is optimism.
“Returning to negotiations is good news for the business community
and breathes some much needed certainty into a slowly deteriorating
relationship,” said Jacob Parker, a vice-president of China operations
at the U.S.-China Business Council. But "now comes the hard work
of finding consensus on the most difficult issues in the relationship,
but with a commitment from the top we’re hopeful this will put the two
sides on a sustained path to resolution,” he said.
Others were more skeptical, and warned the pause - just like the first ceasefire - will not last.
“Even if a truce happens this weekend, a subsequent breakdown of
talks followed by further escalation still seems likely,” Capital
Economics said in a commentary on Friday, quoted by Reuters.
The United States says China has been stealing American intellectual
property for years, forces U.S. firms to share trade secrets as a
condition for doing business in China, and subsidizes state-owned firms
to dominate industries. Meanwhile, China has said the United States is
making unreasonable demands and must also make concessions.
The talks collapsed in May after Washington accused Beijing of
reneging on reform pledges. Trump raised tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200
billion of Chinese goods, and China retaliated with levies on U.S.
imports.
The U.S.-China feud had cast a pall over the two-day G20 gathering,
with leaders pointing to the threat to global growth. In their
communique, the leaders warned of growing risks to the world economy but
stopped short of denouncing protectionism, calling instead for a free,
fair trade environment after talks some members described as difficult.
* * *
Finally, global markets will breathe a sigh of relief on news of the
resumption in U.S.-China trade talks, even as an official deal remains
elusive, and there is no indication of how the two countries will bridge
the most difficult aspect of a feud that has emerged beyond simple
trade and now affects most aspects of US and Chinese life.
The flip-side is that with trade talks back on, the Fed will feel far
less pressure to ease in July, and since in June stocks exploded higher
on hopes that the Fed will cut rates as much as 50bps next month, such a
reversal in US-China relations could potentially prevent Powell from
capitulating, and leave the Fed on hold, an outcome which would lead to a
sharp drop in US capital markets. Indeed, in recent weeks, the S&P
has returned to record highs, treasury yields have tumbled to their
lowest level in years. The Japanese yen, a traditional beneficiary of
flight to quality, has gained, while the U.S. dollar has slipped across
the board, including against China’s yuan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says that liberalism has “outlived its
purpose” and that multiculturalism is “no longer tenable”. In an
interview with the Financial Times, Putin explained what had caused the
rise of the “Trump phenomenon” in the United States as well as the
success of right-wing populist parties throughout Europe.
The Trump-Putin meeting in Japan is crucial for both leaders—and for the world.
Despite determined attempts in Washington to sabotage such a “summit,” as I reported previously,
President Trump and Russian President Putin are still scheduled to meet
at the G-20 gathering in Japan this week. Iran will be at the top of
their agenda. The Trump administration seems determined to wage cold,
possibly even hot, war against the Islamic Republic, while for Moscow,
as emphasized by the Kremlin’s national security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on June 25, “Iran has been and will be an ally and partner of ours.”
Indeed, the importance of Iran (along with China) to Russia can
hardly be overstated. Among other reasons, as the West’s military
alliance encroaches ever more along Russia’s western borders, Iran is a
large, vital non-NATO neighbor. Still more, Teheran has done nothing to
incite Russia’s own millions of Muslim citizens against Moscow. Well
before Trump, powerful forces in Washington have long sought to project
Iran as America’s primary enemy in the Middle East, but for Moscow it is
a necessary “ally and partner.”
In normal political circumstances, Trump and Putin could
probably diminish any potential US-Russian conflict over Iran—and the
one still brewing in Syria as well. But both leaders come to the summit
with related political problems at home. For Trump, they are the
unproven but persistent allegations of “Russiagate.” For Putin, they are
economic.
As I have also previously explained,
while there was fairly traditional “meddling,” there was no “Russian
attack” on the 2016 American presidential election. But for many
mainstream American commentators, including the editorial page editor of The Washington Post,
it is an “obvious truth” and likely to happen again in 2020, adding
ominously that Trump is still “cozying up to the chief perpetrator,
Russian President Vladimir Putin.” A New York Times columnist goes further,
insisting that Russia “helped to throw the election” to Trump. Again,
there is no evidence whatsoever for these allegations. Also consider the
ongoing assault on Attorney General William Barr,
whose current investigation into the origins of “Russiagate” threatens
to conclude that the scandal originated not with Russia but with US
intelligence agencies under President Obama, in particular with the CIA
under John Brennan.
We should therefore not be surprised, despite possible
positive national security results of the Trump-Putin summit in Japan,
if the US president is again widely accused of “treason,” as he so
shamefully was following his meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July
2018, and as I protested at that time. Even the Times’
once-dignified columnist pages thundered, “Trump, Treasonous Traitor”
and “Putin’s Lackey,” while senior US senators, Democrat and Republican
alike, did much the same.
Putin’s domestic problem, on the other hand, is economic and
social. Russia’s annual growth rate is barely 2 percent, real wages are
declining, popular protests against officialdom’s historically endemic
corruption are on the rise, and Putin’s approval rating, while still
high, is declining. A public dispute between two of Putin’s advisers has
broken out over what to do. On the one side is Alexei Kudrin, the
leading monetarist who has long warned against using billions of dollars
in Russia’s “rainy day” funds to spur investment and economic growth.
On the other is Sergei Glaziev, a kind of Keynesian, FDR New Dealer who
has no less persistently urged investing these funds in new domestic
infrastructure that would, he argues, result in rapid economic growth.
During his nearly 20 years as Kremlin leader, Putin has generally sided with the “rainy day” monetarists. But on June 20, during his annual television call-in event,
he suddenly, and elliptically, remarked that even Kudrin “has been
drifting towards” Glaziev. Not surprisingly, many Russian commentators
think this means that Putin himself is now “leaning toward Glaziev.” If
so, it is another reason why Putin has no interest in waging cold war
with the United States—why he wants instead, indeed even needs, a
historic, long-term détente.
It seems unlikely that President Trump or any of the
advisers currently around him understand this important struggle—and it
is a struggle—unfolding in the Russian policy elite. But if Trump wants a
major détente (or “cooperation,” as he has termed it) with Russia,
anyone who cares about international security and about the well-being
of the Russian people should support him in this pursuit. Especially at
this moment, when we are told by the director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research that “the risks of the use of nuclear weapons…are higher now than at any time since World War Two.”
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen’s most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.
Call me a cynic, but here is my cynical thought of a day.
So
about forty years ago, the Democrats and their intellectual leader,
Brzezinski, wanted to get rid of the hated regime. What do they do? They
are utilizing the maniacs from Saudi Arabia, like Bin Laden, and their
CIA enablers, to suck Brezhnev into the war in Afghanistan.
When
Russians crossed the border, triumphant Brzezinski informed Carter that
he'd created a perfect trap: Russian Vietnam, that would put an end to the Soviet Empire.
Who hates Trump with the passion that equals Brzezinski's hatred of Russia? Democrats.
So they are egging or silently condoning the maniacs abroad (Saudis,
Israelis) and the maniacs at home (Bolton, Pompeo) -- to suck Trump into
his Vietnam: Iranian war. That would surely be the end of his
presidency.
It appears that Trump --probably encouraged by
Tucker Carlson (too bad Brezhnev and his regime never had such smart
conservatives on their side) has avoided this trap.
But the
bottom line, the cynical and intelligent Democrats, would go to bed with
a devil, just to get into WH. And damn the consequences.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing new
"strong sanctions" against Iran in response to Tehran's downing of an
American drone last week.
Trump said the latest sanctions would target Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump told reporters at the White House on
Monday that Khamenei and his associates would be denied access to
financial resources by the new sanctions.
Liberteon