The country must look to its own defenses
“Our government recognizes that while Canada must be strong in our partnerships, particularly NORAD, we cannot and should not look first to others to defend our nation,” Carney said. The sentiment will likely play well both at home and abroad.
Pressure to up Canadian defense spending
Canada’s NATO allies, especially the United States, have been pressuring Ottawa to hit the alliance’s 2% GDP defense spending target in the wake of recent geopolitical events but the former government of Justin Trudeau had not been moving fast enough.
The ‘Our North, Strong and Free’ defense policy
Ottawa released a new national defense policy in April 2024 that outlined Canada would only reach a projected 1.76% of GDP spent on defense by 2029-2030 despite projected plans to invest $73 billion dollars in the country’s defense over the next 20 years.
Welcomed news at home and abroad
At home, Carney’s message will almost certainly be welcomed news to those concerned about US President Donald Trump’s sovereignty threats and continual comments regarding his desire to make Canada the 51st US state.
The Defense Department and the Army removed references to the Navajo Code Talkers, citing President Donald Trump's new policies on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The daughter of one Code Talker called the military's decision "unbelievable" and a frustrating attempt to erase history.
The Navajo Code Talkers were an elite group of Marines who helped devise a code, using the Navajo language, that proved to be unbreakable by U.S. enemies during World War II.
The Defense Department and the Army removed references to the Navajo Code Talkers, citing President Donald Trump's new policies on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The daughter of one Code Talker called the military's decision "unbelievable" and a frustrating attempt to erase history.
The Navajo Code Talkers were an elite group of Marines who helped devise a code, using the Navajo language, that proved to be unbreakable by U.S. enemies during World War II.
The Defense Department and the Army removed references to the Navajo Code Talkers, citing President Donald Trump's new policies on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The daughter of one Code Talker called the military's decision "unbelievable" and a frustrating attempt to erase history.
The Navajo Code Talkers were an elite group of Marines who helped devise a code, using the Navajo language, that proved to be unbreakable by U.S. enemies during World War II.
They also deleted many black war heroes, anyone who was gay, etc.
The Enola Gay, the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan during World War II was deleted.
Which is pretty funny.
One of the most famous war hero's Jackie Robinson was deleted for being black was deleted but he gets to return.
They have realised they were overzealous and said they are going to reverse most of it.
From NCPR (the public broadcaster who are also going to be closed down).
“I think Europe has already made up its mind to become strategically autonomous. This used to be a French slogan. But this time it’s really serious. I think in ten years time, we will see a Europe that is totally different in terms of its rearmament,” he says.
China, which has long championed a multipolar order, sees a huge opportunity. Asks Mr Zhou: “At this time, who looks more like a strategic competitor or systemic rival for Europe: the United States or China?”
It was during Donald Trump’s first term as America’s President that Xi Jinping started speaking of “great changes unseen in a century”.
Two months after Mr Trump returned to the White House, Mr Xi and his leadership group have updated their assessment: they believe those historic changes are speeding up.
“Changes unseen in a century are unfolding across the world at a faster pace,” Mr Xi’s top adviser, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, declared this month in his “work report”, a guiding document for China’s policymakers.
The chaos in Mr Trump’s Washington has transfixed China. Some Chinese political commentators argue America has descended into its version of Mao’s nightmarish Cultural Revolution, the most traumatic episode in the history of the People’s Republic and usually a taboo topic.
A charismatic strongman leader aided by fanatical lieutenants are up-ending the country, argue essays circulating on the Chinese internet. They depict Elon Musk playing something like the role of Mao’s fourth wife Jiang Qing. His young software engineers, who to these commentators recall the baby faced ideologues who once tormented China’s elite, add to the conceit as they purge an America’s bureaucracy they don’t understand.
“They are clearly the American version of the Red Guards,” one popular Chinese commentator observed.
Donald and Melania Trump with China's President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan during a tour of the Forbidden City in Beijing in 2017. Picture; AFP/
Many in China have long supported Mr Trump ironically, dubbing him “Comrade Jianguo” – Comrade Build-Country. They say “Comrade Trump”’s first four years helped to “Make China great again”, arguing his erratic leadership hastened America’s decline and brought closer the day their country is once again the most powerful in the world.
Mr Trump’s first two months back in office have gone beyond their wildest dreams. Ukraine’s war time leader humiliated in the White House in front of the world’s media. The greatest rupture in the NATO alliance since it was founded after WWII. Threats to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, Gaza.
The decision to shut the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, an intelligence agency focused on preparing for the future of war (including a potential conflict with China), apparently because of its association with what Mr Trump calls the “Russia hoax”.
But Chinese strategists see bigger structural shifts taking place. The world, in their assessment, is being recast increasingly in their favour.
“The right way to think about this is not what Mr Trump’s going to do next, which we can never know,” says Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy.
Amid the chaos, enduring changes are already becoming clear. “I am sure by the end of his second term, America’s global image will just go down further,” Mr Zhou tells The Australian.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping during dinner at the Mar-a-Lago estate in 2017. Picture: AFP.
Chinese propagandists rejoice!
Mr Trump’s win in November was celebrated by many of China’s pro-democracy crowd, a group often called Chinese “liberals”.
Those Chinese Trump fans spoke of the Republican in sweeping historical terms — a president whose legacy could rival that of Lincoln or Reagan.
Their voices have been notably muted these last eight weeks. Most were silent as the Chinese internet erupted with stories, opinion pieces, comments and memes after Volodymyr Zelensky’s public humiliation by Mr Trump and his 40-year-old Vice President JD Vance.
A few exceptions declared themselves supporters of Mr Trump’s domestic policies, but said his treatment of Ukraine had crossed a line. “This is no longer betrayal. It is simply being an accomplice,” one posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
More common were long-time Putin admirers coming to Zelenskyy’s defence, as Manya Koetse, the Dutch Sinologist and editor-in-chief of What’s on Weibo, has documented.
“When Zelensky is firm towards the US, of course I’ll support him. His performance was so perfect that I’d like to call him Saint Zelensky!” said one nationalist blogger, with more than 300,000 followers.
“Of course, I’m keeping it balanced here. I support Russia too,” he added.
Donald Trump attacked Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the White House. Picture: Getty Images.
China’s propagandists, who since the founding of the PRC in 1949 have depicted America as a hegemonic, bullying power, have never had it so good.
The gifts keep coming. Beijing was delighted when Mr Trump and Mr Musk last week gutted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which presides over Voice of America and other internationally-focused American broadcasters. That decision came weeks after Mr Trump and Mr Musk butchered America’s aid budget.
“We have apparently decided to perform a frontal lobotomy on many of the tools of U.S. global influence,” observed Evan Feigenbaum, who served as an Asian-focused Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bush administration. “Anyone see China gutting its project finance and foreign assistance instruments? Anyone see Russia gutting RT and Sputnik?”
As former American officials lamented, China’s state-controlled mastheads gloated at the demise of Chinese language outlets they have long fumed about.
Mr Trump, describing himself a “student of history”, explained his geopolitical approach this week in an interview with Fox News. “The first thing you learn is you don’t want Russia and China to get together,” he said.
China’s leaders, who are also students of history, think Mr Trump’s attempt to pull off a “reverse Nixon” completely overlooks the drivers of the normalisation of Beijing and Washington’s relationship in the 1970s, which took place after an epic breakdown in Chinese-Russia relations.
Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping attend at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in 2017. Picture: Getty Images.
Mr Xi’s top foreign affairs adviser Wang Yi made the point at this month’s tone-setting “Two Sessions” political meeting in Beijing. “I want to emphasise that no matter how the international landscape evolves, the historical logic of China-Russia friendship will not change and its internal driving force will not diminish,” he said.
Mr Zhou, who was part of the Chinese delegation at last month’s Munich Security Conference, puts it more bluntly. “This is a pipedream,” he tells The Australian.
He was in the room as Europe’s political elite was scolded by Mr Vance. In his view, the geopolitical realignment being overseen by the Trump administration is not the formation of a new Russia-US relationship that will wedge China, but a historic rupture in trans-Atlantic relations.
“I think Europe has already made up its mind to become strategically autonomous. This used to be a French slogan. But this time it’s really serious. I think in ten years time, we will see a Europe that is totally different in terms of its rearmament,” he says.
China, which has long championed a multipolar order, sees a huge opportunity. Asks Mr Zhou: “At this time, who looks more like a strategic competitor or systemic rival for Europe: the United States or China?”
Donald Trump gestures toward China's President Xi Jinping, as Melania Trump and Xi's wife Peng Liyuan look on, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Picture: AFP.
The looming showdown
When Mr Trump was sworn in on January 20, the American economy was the envy of the world.
Eight weeks later, America’s main share indexes have tumbled. Over the same period, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, the main way international investors get exposure to China, is up almost 25 per cent as Chinese tech stocks. They surged after the breakthrough by China’s AI champion Deepseek, whose market shaking model was released — pointedly — on the day Mr Trump was inaugurated.
This week, China’s electric vehicle champion BYD announced a breakthrough that allows its cars to recharge in 5 mins. Tens of billions of dollars were wiped off the market capitalisation of Mr Musk’s EV rival Tesla.
Days earlier, the OECD downgraded its 2025 economic growth forecast for America, citing Mr Trump’s tariffs. The OECD’s project for China’s growth was revised upwards from its December estimate, as Chinese government incentives have helped to increase private consumption and export growth has been stronger than expected.
It has been a further boon to China’s propagandists. “This year will be another ‘year of confidence’ in being bullish on China,” the Global Times editorialised this week.
The coming weeks will test that. Mr Trump has said he will announce his worldwide reciprocal tariff regime on April 2, less than a fortnight’s time. He has ordered a report on the US-China trade relationship to be delivered to him the day before. It is expected to give him plenty of justification to launch more economic restrictions on China.
Since coming to office, Mr Trump’s administration has already raised tariffs on all Chinese imports by a further 20 per cent. On the campaign trail, he spoke of these rising to 60 per cent or even higher.
Chinese suppliers are complaining about American multinationals, including Walmart and Costco, pressuring them to cut their prices in response to the current tariffs.
Mr Trump’s return has seen still more Chinese exporters setting up operations outside of China in an effort to get around American tariffs.
“U.S. tariffs have severely impacted our business, making operations increasingly difficult,” a Ningbo-based kitchenware exporter, now planning to set up an assembly workshop in Southeast Asia, told Chinese business publication Caixin.
It is a trend that has been underway since the first Trump administration. However, many businesses simply finish goods that were mostly made in China to get around American tariffs.
While bilateral trade with America has fallen, China’s trade to the world has ballooned to historic levels. China last year had a trade surplus with the rest of the world of more than $1.5 trillion, “dominating global manufacturing on a scale not experienced by any country since the United States after World War II,” as the New York Times observed.
Much is of almost finished goods going to third countries before being sent to America, still the world’s biggest economy. While it gives the Trump administration a huge target to go after, China’s manufacturing dominance also gives it myriad ways to retaliate.
Mr Xi is trying to project confidence ahead of Mr Trump’s next move. He is scheduled to meet visiting international CEOs in Beijing next week at which he is expected to continue to pitch China as a source of “certainty [in] this uncertain world” and try to turn around a historic decline in foreign investment flows into the country.
Strategists in Beijing do not pretend China’s economy is without its difficulties. But they argue that the American president’s favourite weapon, unpredictability, or at least an attempt at it, does not daunt China after its experience with his first administration.
“To play with unpredictability with a peer competitor, it will work less well than with a medium or small power,” says Zhou, a retired senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. “China has dealt with him before. So China knows, more or less, what he’s going to do.”
That’s a double nope the judge in question has been attacked from both sides of politics the Trumps Cult who have long used the courts to obstruct process don’t have a leg to stand on straight up dictators play
Travel warning now for Canadians and EU, Venezuelan deported for Man U tattoos to El Salvador clueless idiots remember the due process argue clearly there wasn't.
Trump indicates willingness to have America become 57th Commonwealth member
www.yahoo.com
Nearly 250 years after America declared independence from Great Britain, President Donald Trump suggested he was open to taking a small step back towards the warm embrace of the British monarchy after a media outlet reported that King Charles III intends to extend an offer for the United States to join the Commonwealth of Nations.
The King is reportedly preparing to extend the offer of “associate membership” in the voluntary association of 56 nations, most of which have history as former British colonies. Trump, it seems, is open to the idea
Travel warning now for Canadians and EU, Venezuelan deported for Man U tattoos to El Salvador clueless idiots remember the due process argue clearly there wasn't.
The Cult cheers on, "The Cult" isn't a bad name to call it, if the outcome helps the EU regain its credibility and dignity, plus gets them off their lazy ar$es.
The lunacy of making the Western Countries lazy, entitled, welfare dependant societies had to end.
Thankfully it may have happened, before change was forced on them, by China and the Tiger economies.
Trump/Musk were just the only ones with enough money, to not be able to bought off, the $hit had to hit the fan for the West. At least this way it has been caught early enough, for the West to make choices, while they have the ability and financial credibility to do so.
One just has to look at the manic response from the left leaning media, they don't have any space left over for news, after they have filled it with any and every piece of anti Trump news they can conjure up.
The problem is, that is actually just reinforcing the belief that Trump is obviously correct, because despite the media not being able to find anything positive to write, his popularity seems to be increasing.
Germany's fiscal shift will drive billions into infrastructure, energy, and housing, boosting eurozone growth. Goldman Sachs highlights 12 Buy-rated European stocks set to benefit from this economic transformation.
The European Union has announced a new drive to break its security dependency on the United States. The 27-nation bloc is urged to buy defense equipment in Europe.
US President Donald Trump achieves a 47% approval rating, the highest in his presidency, according to a new NBC News survey. The poll reveals an increasing number of Americans, 44%, believe the country is on the right track, and 47% approve of Trump's overall performance. The survey highlights...
economictimes.indiatimes.com
Majority Believe US is on the Right Track
The poll found that Trump's approval stands at 47% and NBC's survey also discovered that a majority of Americans, 44% , are now optimistic and believe the country is on the right track, the most since 2004, reported New York Post.
According to New York Post, this is the most positive outlook on the United States' direction the poll has found since former US president George W. Bush was in office 20 years ago.
President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, has a message for people who are excusing President Trump's racism:
"I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.
But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was 'stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.'
God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.
When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.
Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.
What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.
Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us."
— Michael Gerson
President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, has a message for people who are excusing President Trump's racism:
"I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.
But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was 'stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.'
God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.
When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.
Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.
What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.
Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us."
— Michael Gerson
Interesting, weren't you most vocal against the Middle East War that Bush and John Howard were heavily involved in, now you quote his chief speechwriter for your moral guidance, how times, loyalties and moral compass changes with the narrative.
Interesting, weren't you most vocal against the Middle East War that Bush and John Howard were heavily involved in, now you quote his chief speechwriter for your moral guidance, how times, loyalties and moral compass changes with the narrative.
Never a fan of either Bushes TBH cannot think of one US president in the modern era that wasn’t terribly flawed.
You likely missed the point that a Republican is attacking Trump for his racism as have others for his behaviour citing actual instances and the historical relevance.
Is that beyond you?
The horrific murder of a man his wife plus the unborn child I wouldn’t have thought was jovial
Never a fan of either Bushes TBH cannot think of one US president in the modern era that wasn’t terribly flawed.
You likely missed the point that a Republican is attacking Trump for his racism as have others for his behaviour citing actual instances and the historical relevance.
Is that beyond you?
The horrific murder of a man his wife plus the unborn child I wouldn’t have thought was jovial
Absolutely, that's why I try and just use a cross section of sources generally from offshore U.S, when trying to make a point.
Rather than just looking for a random sound grab, that fits with my opinion, or the narrative.
Especially from a source I have discredited several times previously and it wasn't me that discredited him.
Trump indicates willingness to have America become 57th Commonwealth member
www.yahoo.com
Nearly 250 years after America declared independence from Great Britain, President Donald Trump suggested he was open to taking a small step back towards the warm embrace of the British monarchy after a media outlet reported that King Charles III intends to extend an offer for the United States to join the Commonwealth of Nations.
The King is reportedly preparing to extend the offer of “associate membership” in the voluntary association of 56 nations, most of which have history as former British colonies. Trump, it seems, is open to the idea
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