Subject: He really doesn't care
Some may remember the words of the "Hokey Pokey" song:

You put your right foot in
You put your right foot out
You put your right foot in
And you shake it all about
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about!

This morning, we saw the positive result of social media posts that the US was engaged with the EU in talks to reduce tarrifs. This was quickly countered by the deflating of the market by a wise crack that another 50% could be levied against China. A cynic would believe that one could make a fortune by having about ten minutes of advanced notice of these posts (not quite the same as insiderr trading, is it?). In the mean time, this nonsense is cost a lot of people real money. Maybee Trump got an A+ on an essay he wrote in high school. Who knows what fixed the simplistic approach to our economy in his mind. The alternative view is that this is all a tactic to get beneficial trade agreements by holding the world heads under water until they agree with his US-serving proposals. While this unbelievably risky approach might work in the short term, his record of breaking deals - even the "wonderful" one he made with Canada (after breaking the original Nafta agreement) means that shaking hands with him means you have to not only count your fingers afterwards, but your relatives as well - and even then, the deal is only in effect until he deecides to change it.

The US, over the past week, has essentially sanctioned every nation on earth (except Russia). While Charles de Gaulle famously stated that "France has no friends, only interests," reflecting a realist approach to international relations where nations prioritize their own self-interest rather than forming strong alliances based on friendship, it is an interesting shift in the US's relationship to the redst of the world to discard the friendships which have served our interest for decades and replace them with a financial blackmail scheme.

Jeff