Trump the Liberator (of Greenland and Cannuckistan)
Fourth-worst president Carter dead at 100. China should try being smart for a change. Trump may need a better Russia negotiator. Singapore digitally canes liberal Bloomberg.
Some experts chuckle at the idea of adding Greenland to the United States, possibly joined by portions of Canada and the Panama Canal. (Can we add French Polynesia to the list?) But as I discussed on “Fox & Friends,” much of this makes sense to at least run by the people in these places. Consider:
The 57,000 residents of Greenland would be happier, richer, and safer as an American territory or commonwealth than as a colony of Denmark—a vestige of European imperialism.
Natural climate change and an influx of American capital could lead to a massive increase in energy and other resources produced in Greenland. Federal taxes would not apply. If an Alaska-style oil trust fund were implemented, every family in Greenland could rapidly obtain a net worth in excess of $1 million. Furthermore, only the USA can defend Greenland from Russia and China if one or both decide to make a move. Denmark, on the other hand, could be defeated by the Rhode Island State Police.
“WHITON: What If Greenland Wants Trump More Than It Wants Denmark?” - Daily Caller Article from 2019. Link: https://bit.ly/3VVefZK
Regarding Cannuckistan, the USA would be politically unmanageable if combined with all of Canada. Some people there even speak French, that ugliest of languages, which hard wires the brain for socialism.
But more conservative Canadians in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and parts of British Columbia that exclude pinko Vancouver should be given the choice of union with the USA. The same choice should be put to the sparse residents of the vast Arctic and sub-Arctic wasteland, which could be made productive with American capital and can-do.
Video and further talking points follow if you’re interested. In other media, I also discussed Trump’s negotiating plans with Russia and what China could do to be on better terms with Trump.
Talking Points - Greenland, Cannuckistan, and Panama
Canada under left wing, soy boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government have abused the United States. He is likely to be thrown out of office in elections next fall, with Trump-similar Pierre Poilievre (PAW-lee-EV) likely to lead conservatives to victory. It can’t come soon enough.
The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 23,000 illegals trying to enter the USA from Canada in the last year, and that doesn’t count the got-aways. Canada is doing too little to control this problem.
Canada has allowed mass producers of illegal fentanyl to operate, and it is now a major exporter of illegal fentanyl to the USA. Canadian officials are more focused on DEI than real policing.
Canada unfairly subsidizes its lumber industry, a typical non-tariff barrier to trade that harms the USA. It uses tariffs and a cumbersome licensing scheme along with de facto price controls to harm American dairy exports.
The U.S. goods deficit with Canada is over $80 billion a year. While that is not as bad as larger deficits with China (about $400 billion a year) and Mexico ($130 billion annually), it still represents an unsustainable and unfair situation in which the USA has lost manufacturing capabilities and jobs due to unfair trade. The deficit has continued to rise since NAFTA was replaced by the USMCA trade agreement in Trump’s first term. It was a nice try, but U.S. tariffs should increase.
Canada free rides off of America on the military, of which is has nearly none, and healthcare where it fixes prices on pharmaceuticals so Americans end up paying more. We invent the miracle drugs and Cannuck officials set a price far below the cost of development. It should be illegal for U.S. pharmaceutical companies to charge Americans more than foreigners for the same drugs. Foreign governments and consumers from wealthy nations should pay the American price or invent their own miracle drugs.
Trump is right to not make a division between diplomacy and military and economic power. Canada and Mexico have chosen economies that are dependent on U.S. demand. They cannot do that while also flooding the USA with fentanyl and illegals and not expect consequences.
Whether costs for Americans will rise with higher U.S. tariffs depends on elasticity of demand and substitutability of the good in question. A lot of what we import from these countries can be made here or somewhere else. Also, Trump’s first tariffs on China, which went higher on some goods than what he is proposing for Mexico and Canada, didn’t cause inflation. Inflation was negligible during Trump I.
Some of America’s greatest prosperity occurred during times of high tariffs (the first law President George Washington signed enacted tariffs) and controlled immigration (e.g., the National Origins Act of 1924). The Great Depression was incorrectly blamed in part on Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Milton Friedman proved instead that the Depression was caused by a series of monetary contractions. Tariffs and insularity have marked periods of high prosperity.
Causing an expansion of the supply side of the economy (i.e., the productive private sector) as Trump did in Trump I with tax cuts and deregulation, would negate any inflationary pressure from tariffs.
Panama is using the canal that we built and deceased Jimmy Carter and a Democrat-run Senate stupidly gave away under duress (it was U.S. territory) to charge exorbitant rates on U.S. commercial shipping and military transit. Ships might pay $300-400K, although in some instances in the past it has escalated into the millions. The canal is poorly managed.
These fees are just another non-tariff barrier to trade. We should subject Panama to adverse economic measures until it lowers rates substantially. Or the canal should be restored to U.S. control. Trump can recognize the Carter-Torrijos Treaties as void, especially since Panama has traded promised neutrality for a romance with China.
Trump is right to want to stop letting banana republics push the USA around.
Jimmy Carter Dead
President Trump issued a surprisingly kind social media posting upon news that Jimmy Carter, one of America’s worst presidents, died on Sunday. He noted disagreements with Carter politically but observed his improved reputation after voters stripped him of office in 1980.
The old rule in Washington was that if you didn’t have something nice to say about a recently deceased pooh-bah, then you keep your mouth shut. But the Left threw that rule out, especially when former Senator Jesse Helms and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died. Criticizing a deceased Ted Kennedy was off limits but going after conservatives was just fine.
In the spirit of reciprocity, we think it is important to point out some facts and feelings about the late Jimmy, and rank him among the worst U.S. presidents:
Carter was churlish, mean-spirited, and insufferable. He pioneered the modern Democrat habit of accusing Republicans, who have been devoted to racial equality since the party ran its first presidential candidate in 1856, of being racist.
Carter diminished the presidency and diminished American power. The Islamists who took power in Tehran in 1979 and took American diplomats hostage knew the measure of the man in the White House. So did the Soviets, who invaded Afghanistan during his presidency and increased communist subversion in the Americas.
Carter was morally retarded in the White House and in his subsequent public conduct, completely devoid of any humility, irony, or self-deprecation that should have come from his 10-point loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980. His consistent siding with Palestinian terrorists and tyrants against Israel was a good example of this degradation.
Some say that Carter was the worst president in American history. He actually comes in fourth place in our ranking at Capitalist Notes, following:
Barack Obama. The first black president who could have put to bed racial acrimony in America and instead brought it back with aplomb. His mismanagement of the economy—a lost decade of stagnation—and blame of his own country for the world’s ills were so radical they paved the way for Donald Trump’s first victory. (While Obama is the third-worst president, his repugnant wife easily has the title of worst first lady.)
Lyndon Johnson. The first U.S. president to lose a war. He set in motion events that would result in the fall of Saigon six years after he quit office facing certain loss. Losing a war is the worst thing any leader can do, bar nothing, especially when he was the one who basically escalated the conflict into a full-born war with no plan for victory.
James Buchanan. Lincoln’s Democrat predecessor who sat around twiddling his thumbs as the Union disintegrated and the nation lurched toward the Civil War. It would be 24 years after Buchanan until another Democrat was elected president. Even then, the Republican Party largely dominated U.S. politics from his departure in 1861 until 1933.
China
Is Xi Jinping smart? We’re not 100% sure. During his tenure, China’s economy has stagnated, he rolled back some of the few liberties Chinese were permitted, and unmasked his own government for the aggressive economic and military threat that it is—the only government on Earth likely to start the first general war since 1945. While Xi seems incapable of shrewd action, Christian argued on Fox Business that he could start on a conciliatory note with Trump if he let innocent people like Jimmy Lai out of prison and put illegal fentanyl producers into jail.
Speaking of Jimmy Lai, check out Stephen Mosher’s article in the New York Post: “How Jimmy Lai, a young entrepreneur-turned-billionaire, became China’s most dangerous man.”
Russia Russia Russia
As I have written before, negotiating an end to the Ukraine War will be more difficult than many expect. This is a European problem and while Trump should try to help as he has promised, he should avoid linking the success of Trump II to this difficult task.
Trump’s formal negotiator with Russia, Keith Kellogg, is already making amateur mistakes and should probably be supplanted by a more experienced negotiator like Ric Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and acting intelligence boss. Grenell also has significant experience with dealing with the Russians from eight years at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and negotiations as a Trump envoy in Southeastern Europe.
Kellogg has already offered public commentary on actions by Ukraine and Russia in the daily news cycle (Ukraine’s assassinations in Moscow, Russia’s targeting of energy infrastructure). Negotiations will be more likely to succeed if he moves away from the news cycle and keeps the content of talks secret. (This problem existed with Kurt Volker, who was the U.S. Ukraine negotiator during Trump I. He told me he wanted to do press and I told him that would make his job harder. He failed.)
Kellogg is a combat veteran and military analyst who is clearly trusted by Trump and opposes DEI degradation of the military, but who doesn’t have experience with negotiating, especially with the Russians, who can be exasperating. Kellogg is also part of the large chorus of hawkish analysts who have been wrong about every facet of the Ukraine War since it began. Like members of the DC blob, he urged massive U.S. participation in Ukraine despite the lack of any clearly defined vital U.S. interest there. (Abstractions about democracy and a make-believe “rules-based order” don’t count.) He was wrong about the prospects of Ukraine’s vaunted counterattack, which failed. At age 80, he may lack the stamina for shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Moscow, Kiev, and European capitals necessary to cut a deal.
Kellogg would be better as a counselor to Trump in the White House, where he can help an incoming national security team that is promising, but which has no executive branch experience.
The reality is that Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield and has survived all of the economic actions that Washington and London have thrown at it, which have elevated the cost of energy for Americans and put the status of the U.S. dollar at risk.
Our best hope is ending the war where the battle lines currently exist. Then the debate will be over who arms the Ukrainians. I vote for the Europeans themselves, not NATO. It is their time to step up after decades of free-riding and preening about a foreign policy and defense capability that isn’t dependent on the USA.
U.S. interests would be best served by cutting a deal and dropping all sanctions on Russia—let’s not try to get half pregnant.
Both countries dropping all sanctions will cut the price of energy until Trump and incoming Treasury Secretary Bessent can bring on 3 million more barrels per day of production in the USA as promised, and derail efforts to undermine the U.S. dollar. It will also decrease the impetus for Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to collaborate more. It will create room to take Iranian and Venezuelan oil off the world market.
However, we should be realistic about how long negotiations could take. Russia is willing to negotiate and the U.S. can force Ukraine to do so, but Russia may not be as eager to cut a deal as almost all American analysts presume. These are the same analysts who have been wrong about nearly every element of the Ukraine War since it began.
The End of NED?
James Pierson writes in the New Criterion a compelling argument for zeroing out the National Endowment for Democracy. Created as a government funded but sort-of-non-governmental tool to empower dissidents against the Soviet Bloc, the NED has gone the way of other globalists and is now more concerned with Trump’s healthy nationalism than supporting real dissidents and uses taxpayer dollars to advocate censorship of conservative media. Pierson writes:
…the NED has evolved into a den of never-Trumpers, progressives, and Democrats who have said that President-elect Trump is an “authoritarian” or a “fascist” who will end America’s constitutional order. This is in keeping with the NED’s vision of democracy, which rules out popular movements led by the likes of Donald Trump.
Parting Shot
With the caveat that we at Capitalist Notes unequivocally support free speech and freedom of the press here in America, we nonetheless get a kick out of the fact that Singapore made liberal Bloomberg eat shit publicly for running an article the government deemed inaccurate.
As last check, this correction was still running prominently at the top of Bloomberg’s Asia edition. At issue was a dubious story claiming purchases of the largest mansions in Singapore were becoming opaque to public disclosure—a sensitive issue for the financial hub that prides itself on being clean and moving aggressively against money laundering.
One wonders if the U.S. corporations and media outlets that supported the Russia hoax, lies about Joe Biden’s health, or which colluded with the U.S. government to censor free expression wouldn’t also benefit from an enforced period of public penance for their misdeeds.
I take issue with the worst Presidents ranking. I would put the Biden staff in at #2 ahead of Johnson. I say the Biden staff, because that is who has purportedly run this administration, rather than Biden himself. The list of accomplishments of these reprobates is long, self-evident and has been well documented by others.
Wasnt BIDEN supposed to be at the TOP of the WORST list....or is this just for past presidents?