Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Countries recognizing a Palestinian state while Hamas is in power helps cement their power because Hamas can claim that their strategy worked. Their strategy of terrorist attacks and using their people as human shields worked to get the Palestinian state recognized by more countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYQkD_vkxRE
The Trump administration made a potentially good deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan wants a corridor to its territory that is separated by Armenia. Armenia would consider such a corridor an infringement of its sovereignty. Both sides agreed to let the U.S. and private companies manage the corridor while it remains Armenian territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzA3CFdEiMM
“The Trump administration claims its tariffs are drawing countries to the table for tough negotiations. Yet in 2016, TPP partners were already there, ready to sign an agreement that closely reflected U.S. trade standards and practices, having overcome significant domestic hurdles. The TPP’s multilateral negotiating framework actually provided an efficient mechanism for participating countries to modernize their existing bilateral free trade agreements, and it augmented less comprehensive pacts like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. agreement (KORUS).
The White House claims its new trade deal with Japan pushed “breakthrough openings” in agriculture and food, but the real groundwork was laid a decade earlier, when Shinzo Abe took on Japan’s powerful farm lobby in 2015, clearing the path for the TPP and softening resistance to liberalized agricultural trade. The TPP would have covered virtually all goods, including politically sensitive products like Japanese rice.
The 2025 deal also hardly qualifies as a “free trade deal,” with imports from Japan into the U.S. still subject to a 15 percent reciprocal tariff rate. Those tariffs are a tax on American businesses and consumers.
The TPP, by contrast, was slated to roll back 18,000 individual tariffs, making it “the largest tax cut on American exports in a generation.”
…
Building trade policy on headline‑driven, ad hoc bargains is an unstable strategy—made more precarious when the very tariffs they hinge on rest on contested executive authority. These arrangements may create the illusion of momentum, but without enforceable commitments or structural durability, they offer little of the stability that comprehensive trade agreements provide. The TPP demonstrated how a well‑designed pact could lock in reforms, deepen alliances, and shape the rules of global commerce for decades. Washington’s drift toward improvisation risks ceding that ground to others who are willing to play the long game—and win it.”
https://reason.com/2025/08/07/the-art-of-the-empty-trade-deal/
“Canadian travel to the United States by car has declined for seven consecutive months.
Canadians have said they are boycotting travel to the United States in response to Trump’s policies.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/data-many-canadians-still-avoiding-003056944.html
Trump’s careless policies toward countries in the Indo-Pacific will make it harder for future administrations to cooperate with these countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3rPY695Roc
U.S. tariffing and ending aid to Pacific countries in such a way that makes the U.S. look like an erratic and bad partner, and makes China look relatively better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B77a8o3RSUw
“European leaders knew it would be much easier for Trump — who sees global politics, from trade to NATO, largely as zero-sum financial transactions — to agree to supply arms for Ukraine if the Europeans bought them, allowing the U.S. to swing a profit.
But they were also aware of Trump’s reluctance to abandon the isolationist wing of his MAGA movement by taking a more active role in defending Ukraine and directly confronting Putin. By providing American weapons themselves, the Europeans are providing Trump with cover to act.”
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“France, whose President Emmanuel Macron has long pushed for Europeans to build up their own defense industrial base by buying locally, was a notable omission from the list.
Paris will not join the initiative to buy U.S. weapons for that reason, according to two French officials with knowledge of the issue. The French government is also struggling to boost its own defense spending as it tries to make budget cuts and rein in its staggering deficit.
But given Europe’s limited manufacturing capacity, Merz’s government believes buying American is one of the only ways to swiftly supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-donald-trump-weapons-aid-war-in-ukraine-nato/
Trump getting fed up with good calls with Putin where Putin says he is working toward peace and then turns around and attacks civilians. Trump is selling weapons to NATO who will give them to Ukraine, and says Putin has 50 days to end the war or 100% tariffs will go on countries buying from Russia, like India and China.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR554Exl1eY
Former Iranian diplomat says Iran was not deeply enriching before Trump unilaterally left the Iran nuclear deal. They enriched to 60% recently as a bargaining chip with Trump.
Also says their nuclear program was damaged, but they can rebuild.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkp6j7eeXVI
“Trump’s all-sticks-and-no-carrot approach to trade talks is making it difficult for even friendly foreign governments to reach an agreement they fear could be political suicide back home — no matter how much the White House threatens their economies.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/29/us-india-trade-deal-00430438