The Very Stable Genius continues to ruin US foreign policy

At some point last week, I saw a question posed somewhere - it might have been Twitter, or in some short opinion-site piece - that began with the observation that we'd been seeing "good Trump" for a little while. The question was whether that could be maintained during the NATO 70th anniversary gathering in London.

It's clear that we now have our answer. After indulging himself in lengthy pressers (52 minutes, 39 and 30) after meeting with some of the leaders present, at least one (the one with French president Emmanuel Macron) of which was acrimonious, he abruptly cancelled what was to be the official end-of-summit press conference and flew home.

About that Macron one-on-one, here's a taste of the vibe:

Macron tried to parry the flow of words, making clear that he disagreed with Trump on Turkey's intervention in Syria.

When Trump tried to joke about France taking back its citizens captured in the region — “Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I can give them to you” — Macron responded.

“Let’s be serious,” he snapped back. “The very large number of fighters you have on the ground are ISIS fighters coming from Syria, from Iraq, and the region.”

“This is why he’s a great politician, because that was one of the greatest nonanswers I’ve ever heard,” Trump said, to Macron’s clear irritation.

There were several other blurting of note at that get-together, responses to media questions rather than barbs directed at Macron.

He would not commit to coming to any NATO member's defense if the nation was attacked, saying that in the case of countries paying less than the agreed-upon 2 percent of their defense budgets, saying, in his signature word-salad style, "Why is it they owe us for this year, but every time a new year comes along, they don't have to pay?" Um, they don't pay "us," they pay NATO, an organization that all the nations in question belong to.

The Very Stable Genius said of Chinese president Xi, "I don't think he likes me so much anymore, but that's okay." Probably the best face to put on the relationship given that the big trade deal the VSG has been saying was right around the corner is in fact still mired in sticking points, a development that cause the stock market to slide 250 points in real time.

About the Kurds in Northern Syria, he said, "We have taken the oil. I have taken the oil. We should have done it in other locations, frankly, where we were. I can name four of them right now, but we've taken the oil."

What caused his take-his-toys-and-go-home pout was an informal cocktail-party gathering of heads of state at which there was a chuckle had over the VSG's disregard for niceties like promptness:

The video, which quickly went viral online, showed Trudeau, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and others speaking at a Buckingham Palace reception. The video begins with Johnson looking toward Macron and asking, "Is that why you were late?"

Trudeau jumped in, "He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top."

After a cut in the footage, Trudeau adds, "I watched his team's jaws drop on the floor."

In addition to this NATO fiasco, the VSG is applying his customary hot-headedness to Brazil's and Argentina's currency devaluations:

President Donald Trump announced Monday that the US will "restore" steel and aluminum tariffs on Brazil and Argentina, citing a "massive devaluation of their currencies." 

"Brazil and Argentina have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers. Therefore, effective immediately, I will restore the Tariffs on all Steel & Aluminum that is shipped into the U.S. from those countries," Trump tweeted early Monday morning from Washington. He also called on the Federal Reserve to "act so that countries, of which there are many, no longer take advantage of our strong dollar by further devaluing their currencies." 

Formal notices of the tariffs were not immediately announced by the Treasury or Commerce Departments or the Office of the US Trade Representative. Both Brazil and Argentina were exempted from 25% steel and 10% aluminum tariffs last year when Trump was attempting to avoid a trade war with those countries. 

Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro, said Monday that he has an "open channel" of communication with Trump, according to state news agency Agencia Brasil.

Bolsonaro said he would meet with Brazilian Finance Minister Paulo Guedes Monday to discuss the issue and make a call to Trump if needed. 

Argentina's Production and Labor Minister called Trump's decision to impose the tariffs "unexpected."

"There was no sign given to our government, to the Brazilian government or to the public sector that there would be a change in the deal with the United States," Dante Sica told state-run news agency Telam on Monday.

Sica said he met with Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie after seeing the tweet in order to "analyze the course of action" and told Telam that he had contacted the US Embassy in Argentina, as well "all contacts in Washington DC" to get more clarity on the situation.

The President's decision amounts to retaliation against two countries that have served as alternative suppliers of soybeans and other farm products to China, grabbing market share away from American farmers, a key constituency the President will need to win reelection in 2020.

Just great.

Two points among those that comprise a generally agreed-upon understanding of basic conservatism are an understanding of the supreme importance of US leadership for maintaining the world-order framework established at the end of World War II, and a fealty to free-market economics. This guy is obliterating both.

Creepy goings-on in Argentina

The recent death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman may be mysterious principally because President Kirchner wants it that way.

It seems her inner circle is rather keen to focus suspicion on an aide to Nisman:

“This kid’s situation is starting to look worrisome,” Aníbal Fernández, the president’s chief of staff, told reporters here Wednesday morning, referring to the aide, Diego Lagomarsino, 35.
Mr. Lagomarsino worked in the prosecutor’s investigative unit as an information technology consultant and lent Mr. Nisman the .22-caliber Bersa pistol used in his death, investigators say.

It's pretty well known that Nisman was working on tying Kirchner associates to a deal with Iran that would exonerate Iran from implications in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center.

And it helps to know that around 8o percent of Argentine media is controlled by Kirchner's administration.  The main player that is not in its clutches is the Clarin group.

And it's being implicated in this mess:

In a speech on Monday night, Mrs. Kirchner accused Mr. Lagomarsino of being an opponent of her government, based on an analysis of his Twitter account. She connected him to Clarín, a powerful media group with which the president has long sparred. She based her argument on an assertion that Mr. Lagomarsino’s brother works at a law firm with ties to Clarín.
A spokesman for Clarín said that Mr. Lagomarsino never had any ties to the media group, including one of Argentina’s influential daily newspapers.

Kirchner seems to have a Nixonian kind of disdain for any forces that don't play ball with her:

Mr. Berensztein argued that Mrs. Kirchner’s approach fit a common strategy of tackling scandals here. “She applies the same model to every problem,” he said, referring to issues like Argentina’s debt battle with foreign creditors. “Reduce it to a simple conflict: her, the good person, against all the bad ones.”

Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies says that we need to understand the backstory to make sense of the recent twists and turns:

Mr. Nisman, 51, was an Argentine federal prosecutor, chief investigator of the 1994 bombing of AMIA, a Jewish cultural center, in Buenos Aires. Eighty-five people were killed in that terrorist attack.

In 2006, Mr. Nisman formally accused the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran of directing the bombing, and of deploying Hezbollah, Tehran’s terrorist foreign legion, to carry it out.

Argentine courts demanded the extradition of seven Iranians, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former defense minister Ahmad Vahidi and Iran's former cultural attaché in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Rabbani. Iranian authorities ignored the demand. One year later, Interpol entered the names of five Iranians on its Red Notice list – the closest thing to an international arrest warrant. For the Iranians, it was an irritation and an inconvenience.

Over the years that followed, Mr. Nisman doggedly continued his investigation. Then, in January of 2013, Argentine President Christina Fernández de Kirchnersigned an agreement with Tehran setting up a “truth commission” to investigate who was “really” responsible for the bombing. To call that Orwellian would be another gross understatement.

In July, the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security invited Mr. Nisman to come to the U.S to present testimony. Mrs. Kirchner’s government denied him permission to travel. The hearing took place anyway. An empty chair was reserved for the South American prosecutor.

Finally, this month, Mr. Nisman filed a 300-page criminal complaint with the Argentine Supreme Court accusing Mrs. Kirchner and her foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, of conspiring to cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 terrorist bombing, of agreeing to negotiate immunity for Iranian suspects and help get their names removed from the Interpol list. Iranian oil was to flow to Argentina in exchange, and Iran was to purchase large quantities of Argentine grain. 

So the creepiness extends to the level of playing footsie with a very evil nuclear aspirant:

According to the Argentine newspaper, La Nacion, opposition lawmaker Patricia Bullrich said Mr. Nisman told her he also had wire taps of phone calls in which an Argentine intelligence agent revealed details about his family to one of the Iranians charged in connection with the AMIA bombing. “He told me that it was an arrow to his heart,” Ms. Bullrich recalled.

Seems credible when you consider that we're talking about a regime that does this sort of thing:

Iran is encouraging its terror allies to pursue the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s children by publishing personal information about them, including photographs of the kids lined up in crosshairs, and declaring, “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”

The publication of the personal information and biographies of Netanyahu’s children follows an Israeli airstrike last week that killed several key Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian commander affiliated with the country’s hardline Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iranian military leaders affiliated with the IRGC threatened in recent days harsh retaliation for the strike and promised to amp up support for Hezbollah as well as Palestinian terrorist organizations.

The information was originally published in Farsi by an Iranian website affiliated with the IRGC and quickly republished by Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

In addition to biographical details and pictures of Netanyahu’s children, the Iranians provided details about the families of former prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon.

Regional experts with knowledge of the IRGC said this type of public threat is meant to intimidate the Israelis and act as a deterrent against possible military action.

“Here, we have organized a list of prominent Israeli Aghazadehs,” or children, according to the original post by the hardline Iranian website Mashregh, which has since removed the article. The Fars reproduction is still available online in Farsi.

Netanyahu’s children are acceptable targets for assassination due to their affiliation with top Israeli leaders, according to the article, which is titled, “The file of the Zionist Children.”

And then consider that the Most Equal Comrade and Secretary Global-Test want to keep playing nuclear patty-cake with a regime up to its eyeballs in worldwide evil.  Couldn't someone from the post-American regime at least ask some hard questions about why President Kirchner doesn't try a bit harder to pass the smell test?