That’s not Trump being right, that’s Trump hanging all of America’s allies out to dry. A more serious effort to support Ukraine would make it functionally impossible for Russia to threaten Europe. More staunch support for NATO from the US would forestall any attempt at Russian aggression. The EU are setting military funding targets far beyond what Trump demanded, because this has nothing to do with Trump’s demands and everything to do with his litany of failures.

I’m genuinely struggling to believe that you’re being anything other than intentionally disingenuous here, because it’s hard to imagine how anyone operating in good faith could manage to miss a point so completely and utterly.

But on the off chance that you’re serious; the logic is that purpose has far more moral weight to it than means. Punching out a Nazi to save the black man he was trying to beat to death in the gutter is a morally good thing to do. Punching out a trans person because you’re a hateful bigot is a morally bad thing to do. Do I need to elaborate on that? I feel like I shouldn’t have to, but then it feels like I shouldn’t have to be explaining any of this.

If you were in a sealed room with a thousand starving children, a padlocked shipping container full of food labelled “Property of Jeff Bezos”, and a set of bolt-cutters, what would you do? Because if the answer is anything other than “Break the lock open”, your entire moral system is completely and utterly fucked, and I do not know how to explain it to you any more plainly than that. If you actually believe that property rights are more important than human lives, then I honestly think you might need serious and extensive therapy to undo whatever damage has been done to you.

Yeah, I’m all for pro-Palestine activism; fully support this cause, and I have no moral objections to destroying some property to do it. Human lives are more important than inanimate objects. But I really wish they could have come up with a version of this plan that didn’t involve fucking over Ukraine.

Unfortunately I suspect a lot of these people may be of the stripe of Leftist that treats anything relating to war - including arming the victims of unprovoked territorial aggression - as morally wrong, meaning they likely saw this as killing two birds with one stone.

Yes. People are more important than property. If your reaction to vandalism in service of protesting a genocide is to be upset about the vandalism, you need to sit back and really think about whether your moral compass needs some recalibration.

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What I find darkly fascinating about this “eat the cost” strategy is that if you were to dare suggest taxing Walmart more, Trump’s fans would call you a commie librul socialist who just wants handouts. But when Trump demands that they subsidize his agenda suddenly they’re all for it.

Actually, it’s fairly likely that the UK is getting the better end of this deal.

First off, the UK is a net importer from the US already. So there’s no reason for Trump to even be chasing after them for a deal in the first place. This whole thing is supposed to be about wiping out the US’ trade deficits, but the US already runs a surplus with the UK. So why is this their first big “success”?

Second, the UK have been desparately trying to write new free trade agreements since 2016 and Brexit. They’ve been trying to hammer something out with the US for years, but neither side could agree on terms.

It’s very likely that what happened here is Trump needed a win, heard that the UK were eager to make a deal, and just told his underlings to get it done (this idiot can’t make it through a security briefing unless they break out the crayons, there’s no way he actually reads these deals), and with the sudden urgency from the White House the UK were able to get through some terms the US had previously resisted.

Of course, it’s possible the UK got ripped here as well. Like I said, they’re badly in need of new trade partners after they fucked their sweet deal with the EU. But the fact that they haven’t signed anything with the US previously, despite the urgency, strongly suggests that what they were being offered before wasn’t good enough.

It’s weird, I could have sworn we negotiated a trade deal with the US back in the nineties, and then renegotiated that same deal about eight years back. Who was the president back then? Oh, right…

Current polling still shows that only 25% of Albertans would vote to separate.

Smith, I think, knows this, and I don’t believe she actually wants a referendum to happen. I certainly don’t think she wants one to pass.

Much like Boris Johnson attaching himself to Brexit, Smith likes the way that supporting “Albertan Sovereignty” gives her an enemy to constantly rail against and blame every problem on. If Alberta seccedes, suddenly all those problems become her problems.

Transforming a province into an independent nation would be an absolutely nightmarish task, and every new problem, every compromise would be hung around your neck forever as a result. Again, look at Brexit, only a thousand times worse.

Smith, I suspect, wants the appearance of fighting for Albertan Sovereignty, but not the reality.

No. I have zero interest in your apologies. Not you, not any American whose first instinct is to tell us how sorry they are. I’m sure you’re all wonderful people, but we’re well past the point where that matters.

I never, ever, want to hear the word “Sorry” from any of your lips while I’m living with the reality that people I love might die to American bombs and bullets. I am not obligated to assuage your fucking conscience by dignifying your apologies while you all sit around hanging your heads in worthless shame.

We do not want or need your apologies. We want your rage. Get angry. Get out in the streets. Fucking do something.

And when Trump is gone and every last fascist has been hunted down and your government is run like an actual democracy, and your voters have learned how to value and respect friendships with countries outside of your own… Then you can come to us and say sorry.

Speaking as a Canadian… Yes, we know.

You guys had the most trustworthy, most reliable ally ever. The faith and trust between Canada and the US was legendary.

That’s gone now. It’ll be a century or more before you can ever rebuild that trust.

And you threw it away for this drooling moron to play tinpot dictator.

Was it worth it?

Oh, for sure, it’s absolutely possible that Trump does not understand the need for refinement infrastructure, or simply believes that its a simple problem that will solve itself. Given his approach to trying to rehome US manufacturing its clear that he has basically no understanding of industry realities.

I want to note on the “mineral deal” thing that access to rare earth minerals has nothing to do with China’s ability to constrain their supply to the US, because getting rare earth minerals is actually relatively easy. They’re found all over the Earth, although some areas do have better naturally occurring concentrations than others. Mostly, though, it’s just a matter of finding a nice large swathe of land that you can easily strip-mine.

The problem is refining them. Digging up a bunch of soil and rock is easy, getting the trace amounts of rare (hence why they’re called that) earth minerals out of the soil and rock is really hard. While it’s true that China does dominate in rare earth extraction, it really wouldn’t be all that hard for other countries to catch up to them on that score if they wanted to. But the reason China controls the worlds rare earth supply is because they also dominate in refining, which is extremely difficult, technically complex, and not easy to replicate due to the highly specialised nature of rare earth refineries.

Trump can get access to all the unprocessed rare earth minerals he likes, but it won’t solve his current problems. First off, even if Ukraine were at peace tomorrow it would take most of a decade to prospect those mineral deposits and begin extracting them at scale. But even then, it doesn’t solve the refining problem. You’d just be selling the raw deposits to China so that they can refine them and sell the refined product back to you at a huge profit.

“The main thing is that they [the Americans] don’t interfere in our affairs and don’t tell us how to live,” said a senior Russian official familiar with the Kremlin’s negotiating logic. “That they don’t hinder us in doing what we are doing.”

That being invading and subjugating weaker neighbours.

For the Chinese, this is an incredibly sensible way to respond, no question.

As a Canadian, I’m worried. This is only going to strengthen Trump’s case for giving the US direct access rate earth minerals through one sided deals in Ukraine, and by coercing or dominating Canada.

Granted, I assumed yearly, because this is apparently supposed to replace a yearly benefit that Greenland receives from Denmark.

Even if it is only one time, that’s still a lot of money that Trump seems to want to throw at something completely frivolous, rather than making a difference to the lives of Americans. Can’t see how that feels good for anyone who is struggling with the price of eggs.

For anyone who voted for Trump because your cost of living is too high… How y’all feeling about this?

Trump wants to give everyone in Greenland $10k. Where’s your $10k? What the actual fuck has this guy done to help you out so far?

How is it that DOGE has to force your grandma to walk to an office for her social security because a phone line was too expensive, but Trump has money to throw $600m a year at this?

Interesting theory. Total absence of proof.

Does the theory fit the available facts? Yes.

Do the available facts prove the theory? Absolutely not.

I’ve heard a few different theories about big plays that might be the intent here, and they all fall down on that same basic problem; The US, doesn’t have the reliability or the leverage to make it work. That’s not saying that the theories are bad - they’re all plausible enough - just that no matter what the White House thinks their play is here, it won’t work because no one has enough incentive to play nice with them. The US no longer has the economic dominance needed to force these kinds of changes, and they’re too unreliable a partner for anyone to willingly enter a a long term arrangement with them.

But then I suppose none of this is surprising when you look at Trump’s business dealings. He’s never understood any way of operating other than being an unreliable partner and screwing everyone around you, and it’s why his businesses all failed. He’s never understood the value in being a reliable partner.

Ironically, this would largely achieve Trump’s goal of lowering America’s trade deficits. A big reason why America runs such deep deficits is because the strength of the dollar makes it less attractive to buy from the US, but the dollar never weakens because it’s the global reserve.

Of course, when OPEC discussed moving away from the dollar Trump lost his shit, so it’s not like this is his actual plan. There’s no 5D chess here, they’re all idiots. Nor would intentionally devaluing the dollar to increase US exports be a smart idea, but it is something that has been seriously proposed by one of Trump’s economic advisors.