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Nobody is more weak to flattery than Donald Trump. I have argued here before that if Barack Obama called Donald tomorrow and told him he fully agreed with his policies, he was doing what Barry hadn’t been powerful enough to do, and he was undoubtedly one of the best presidents of his lifetime (other than himself), he could parlay that into regular golfing and a weekly phone call to ‘discuss’ the big issues with minimal real effort. People forget that the biggest reason Trump never went after Hillary in office is that he actually kind of likes her, Bill and her always made nice small talk at Manhattan parties after all, and he can only really be tough forever (rather than for brief moments) against people he actually doesn’t like. He certainly doesn’t like Trudeau. But who can forget how his view on Macron went 180 degrees after he got invited as guest of honor to the French Bastille day military parade, had all the soldiers salute him, etc.
Why is Trump not going apeshit on the UK despite the fact that the trade relationship is still a deficit AND Musk’s recent spergout over Rotherham? Because the Labour government smartly decided that they would deploy Prince William to all diplomatic meetings with Trump, and William being a man of very modest intelligence nevertheless trained from birth to always flatter his foreign contemporaries is well liked by The Donald. Nations are people in the Trumpian world view, personal flattery determines everything. He soured on Kim not when it became clear that he wasn’t going to change his nuclear policy, but when it became clear that he didn’t really seem to like Trump very much. His relationship with Putin is similarly ambivalent, I don’t think he likes the guy because on some level he realizes that Putin doesn’t take him seriously.
I also think this is what frustrates Elon about Trump’s embrace of Altman, Bezos and so on. It’s like spending years building up a business relationship only to have your competitor win a deal after a single dinner and some Grade A bullshit game, it’s seethe-worthy. But Trump has few eternal enemies and even fewer eternal friends. His greatest weakness (and, in some ways, a great strength) is that his primary criteria for loyalty are strictly temporal, rather than historic.
Regarding Kim, one of the most fascinating things about Trump is that no matter how much he rants about communists and Marxists on a general level when it comes to his domestic opposition, this doesn't seem to translate at all to foreign policy, which is ruled by non-ideological "you like me, I like you" considerations as his other interpersonal relations, as shown by the recent U-turn on Maduro. (Sure, there are arguments to be made regarding the actual levels of Marxism within both Kim and Maduro administrations, but that's at least how they are generally seen.)
Sounds pretty based to me. I really don't like people who try to spread their worldview globally.
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Strong agree with all of this. Trump is a vibesmaxxer-in-chief, being far more concerned with how he appears on cable news than any objective measurement of the impact of his presidency. There's a very good chance that some symbolic concessions could delay, reduce, or even cancel the tariffs altogether. None of that is guaranteed, but there's a good chance.
Damn, good call: https://x.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1886529228193022429
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Would this be a prediction that the tariffs don't actually happen, then?
Why? Other people have pride, too. As far as the tariffs, Trump likes the market to do well, and that ultimately places an upper bound on tariff policy.
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