by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
According to the official White House schedule, President Donald Trump doesn’t start his day until lunchtime when he sits down with his political heir, Vice President J.D. Vance, at 12:30. He has more lunches with Vance than he receives briefings from his secret services on the threats of his enemies.
Trump knows to keep his friends close, his enemies closer. But the President rarely meets in public with his closest protégés, the Cabinet Secretaries; even more rarely with his political allies, the Republican Party leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives; almost never with his wife, the First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS).
He doesn’t meet with the leaders of foreign states unless Vance is present.
He doesn’t like extended press conferences with these foreigners, preferring instead what the White House calls “press gaggles”. These staged impromptus range from four to twenty minutes in duration in the Oval Office, in the back of Air Force One, or on the run from his Florida mansion to his golf course. In the official record since his inauguration on January 20, the most frequent physical event on Trump’s daily agenda is golf.
The most frequent documentary event is a Trump tweet; these are issued at a rate of one per hour through the 24 hours of each day.
At 1:18 pm on Wednesday, April 9, Trump tweeted his declaration of war against China. “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets,” Trump declared, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”
At the same time Trump retreated from his tariff strikes against those countries which have signalled they are ready to kow-tow and pay more in tribute. “Based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR [United States Trade Representative], to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately.”
This was the most significant retreat by Trump in his term so far. It follows the collapse of stock prices on the US and international exchanges, and the sharp rise in yields (borrowing costs) for the US Treasury’s 10-year and 30-year bonds. “This is Trump’s capitulation to markets,” editorialized the Financial Times. “He has saved face by keeping tariffs on China…The stunning climb down from the US leader came after a week of turmoil in global markets, with trillions of dollars shed in equity prices around the world, a sharp sell-off in US bonds, and a plunge in oil prices to levels last seen during the coronavirus pandemic.”
What has happened, according to the Japanese-owned financial paper in London, is a “regime shift whereby US Treasuries are no longer the global fixed-income safe haven.”
Trump filled the rest of his afternoon, first with a photograph session with several motor-racing champions and speedway promoters, and then with signing a fresh set of presidential edicts (aka executive orders).
To reassure himself on who rules, Trump has installed two baroque, gilt-framed mirrors on the Oval Office wall, mounted at head level so that when Trump enters or leaves the office he can see himself alongside the portraits of George Washington (conqueror of the United Kingdom) and James Polk (conqueror of Mexico), and above the bust of Winston Churchill (conqueror of the Germans).
Trump is also backing down on his threat to attack Iran and destroy its air defences, missile batteries, and nuclear enrichment sites. Listen to the podcast discussion of Trump’s vulnerabilities as viewed from Moscow and Teheran, analysed with the method of the historians of the last emperors of Rome when their empire was collapsing, and their military leaders plotted putsches.
For the analysis mentioned in the podcast of the failing Roman empire and the short-lived Emperor Heliogabalus (lead image, left), applying the method of prosopography (networks of patronage) and epigraphy (tweets), read Harry Sidebottom’s The Mad Emperor, Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome (2022-2023).
In the short history of the Trump presidency, voter disapproval of the president’s performance has never risen above approval so swiftly – on March 11, after just fifty days.
These polls signal that Trump’s tweets are failing to convince his constituencies that he and the Republican Party will keep their power and their majorities in the Congress after the mid-term elections in November 2026. When it looms, this threat of loss of power to rule always triggers loyalty purges, succession plots, desperate propaganda.
Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
In Moscow too, as the podcast discusses, the political succession to President Vladimir Putin is under way. It is in this context that Russians who count interpret Kirill Dmitriev’s (lead image, right) promotion of himself as the negotiator of new peace terms with the United States. For more on Dmitriev and the clash of his ambition with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – first discussed two months ago — read this.
The salutary lessons which the presidential succession ambition of Alexei Kudrin, in combination with his US Government supporters, should be teaching Dmitriev at the moment can be followed here.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/alexei-kudrin-plays-american-ball-strikes-out-again/
For the terms of the Russian alternative to the US-Israeli plan of attack on Iran, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow released its “Collective Security Concept for the Persian Gulf” on August 2021. Three excerpts were cited in the podcast. Read the full text in official translation here.
Source: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_safety/1466420/
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