Posted on 08/05/2025 6:13:23 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Good. Implement the tariff.
While you’re at it, President Trump, permanently stop all H-1b job-stealing visas.
Hopefully Apple will fall in line. No China, no India. US and less expensive friendlies to make the iPhones.
India is a BRICS nation and not so neutral.
If US can work something out with Mexico maybe some manufacturing can be done there in addition to domestic production.
Canada is stupid and they’re missing out on the realignment.
Hopefully, Russian oil prices will go up with the sanctions, increasing insurance costs, Russian port and shipping problems.
Something needs to be done about India’s scammer farms!
Congress is supposed to be in control of tariffs too.
So now the idea of offending India does not seem like a good idea to me, at all.
“we should be sitting down and asking Putin what he needs”
You don’t think Trump has asked him that? What if Putin wants all of Ukraine is that ok? What if Ukraine doesn’t want that and the war goes on as a prolonged guerrilla action?
I really don’t know at this point if a continually unstable Ukraine is a better solution than the current stalemate? A stable peace is of course the best outcome but it doesn’t appear Putin wants that if it means Ukrainian independence.
As a general rule however, Russian aggression shouldn’t be rewarded in any way and the efforts to cripple Russian military offensive operations need to continue along with the isolation of Russia from the world economy.
The main issue I have with all of this is the hypocrisy. In Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, and the US started a war with him. In Syria, Assad supposedly used chemical weapons on his citizens, and the US made it a world emergency, and again, started a war with him.
However, in Ukraine, when the Donbass wanted to be independent after the Maidan Coup, and Ukraine started shelling their own citizens, Putin was somehow not justified in intervening to defend those innocent people? If the US had done similar, we would have been defending the right of people to self-determination.
When I say Ukraine started this war, this is what I mean. It all started from Ukraine's belligerent refusal to stop trying to punish/murder their own citizens. Russia had and still has the moral high ground here. Ukraine is being run by Nazis. Nazi-ism wasn't ok in 1941, and it still isn't ok now.
The USA is amongst them.
The statement of the Indian Foreign ministry lists out a few. avoids mentioning China and Japan.
India has been targeted by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict. In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The United States at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability.
(former US ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti is on video saying this)
2. India’s imports are meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer. They are a necessity compelled by global market situation. However, it is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion.
3. The European Union in 2024 had a bilateral trade of Euro 67.5 billion in goods with Russia. In addition, it had trade in services estimated at Euro 17.2 billion in 2023. This is significantly more than India’s total trade with Russia that year or subsequently. European imports of LNG in 2024, in fact, reached a record 16.5mn tonnes, surpassing the last record of 15.21mn tonnes in 2022.
4. Europe-Russia trade includes not just energy, but also fertilizers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel and machinery and transport equipment.
5. Where the United States is concerned, it continues to import from Russia uranium hexafluoride for its nuclear industry, palladium for its EV industry, fertilizers as well as chemicals.
6. In this background, the targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable. Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.
New Delhi August 04, 2025
We should always look at these things from what is in the US best interest.
Ukraine is a buffer state and acts as a check against Russian military aggression.
The question is whether we should be concerned with Russian aggression? It’s evident that Putin is not a reasonable leader.Trump has given him plenty of chances to make a good deal . If Putin wants to own Ukraine and all its ports and infrastructure is that a threat to the US and the US economic block?
What are the consequences of acceding and accepting a takeover of Ukraine through an act of Russian aggression?
How much blood and treasure US should allocate is the real question. No US blood, not much in terms of treasure, but enough with the Euros to keep a check on Russian offensive capabilities. Continuing the war of attrition and bleeding Russian manpower and resources should be the primary goal if peace is not possible.
Russia should continue to be a pariah state locked out of the world economy (at least the West) as much as possible.
Just what I was thinking.
Of course it does. So we have no right to set our foreign and trade policies?
Agreed. And it is our right to set our foreign and trade policies as we see fit.
Regardless, the US approach toward Russia is clearly wrong, and extremely hypocritical.
Agree. We would never tolerate another country building up the Mexican military and dangling a military alliance with Mexico aimed squarely against us.
I don’t see Russia as an inherent threat to America at all. They are only our adversary right now because we have chosen that path. I would like to see the US immediately recognize the annexed Ukrainian territory as part of Russia (wherever that line ends up) and remove all sanctions and restrictions against Russia, effective immediately.
Putin has not demonstrated that he will stop the war. A unilateral recognition of Russian territorial gains accomplishes nothing.
Removing sanctions simply gives Putin a free hand to continue and accelerate offensive operations.
The Russian conquest of Ukraine is highly destabilizing for Europe which is a major US trading partner.
It’s likely that Russia would be emboldened to attack other former USSR states. China would be emboldened in Taiwan.
It doesn’t appear that you think that US should support buffer states that are a check on aggression by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China.
Or, many you don’t think that Russia and China are aggressive authoritarian states. IMO that is naive.
Taiwan, South Korea, Poland, Baltic states would be more likely to resort to appeasement and accommodation in dealing with Russia and China if it sees the US lacks the resolve to resist Putin’s aggression.
I instead of unilateral capitulation by the Western powers, hopefully Trump can get a peace deal. It would also be good for Russia.
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