Category: International

U.S. resumes military aid as Ukraine backs plan for 30-day ceasefire

Ukraine “expressed readiness to accept” a U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire with Russia, the two countries said in a joint statement after a key meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.

Why it matters: A ceasefire, if implemented, would be a major diplomatic breakthrough in the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine. But the Kremlin has yet to weigh in on the U.S. proposal.

  • “The ball is now in their court. We hope the Russians will reciprocate,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a press conference after the meeting.

The latest: A source close to the Ukrainian government told Axios U.S. military assistance resumed on Tuesday. Intelligence sharing with the U.S. was fully restored.

Driving the news: During the meeting — which lasted more than five hours — the U.S. agreed to lift its suspension on intelligence sharing with Ukraine and resume weapons shipments to the country, which were paused eight days ago.

  • After weeks of pressuring the Ukrainians, the U.S. side signaled the pressure is now on Russia. “If the Russians say no, we will know what the impediment is here,” Rubio said.
  • President Trump told reporters at the White House that he hopes Russia will agree to the ceasefire, and said he would invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky back to the White House.
  • National security adviser Mike Waltz said Ukraine not only accepted the U.S. proposal but also presented its principles for a comprehensive peace deal including the security guarantees that it requires.

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Mollie Hemingway

 

Yesterday, [February 28]Susan Rice said of the Trump-Zelensky meeting, “There is no question this was a set up.” She revealed full knowledge of the mineral agreement, complained that it didn’t include “concrete” security agrees (meaning, apparently, commitment of US troops on the ground if conditions merit), and then mischaracterized Trump’s behavior, counting on most Americans to not have watched what transpired over the entire hour in the Oval Office.

You can look at this and dismiss it as typical Democrat talking points, but you could also view it as almost a confession, one that includes details about the current “Get Trump” effort. Yes, Trump won the popular vote against unbelievable odds, but if you think Team Obama is being any less involved in quiet insurrections than they were during the first Trump administration (Russia collusion, Ukraine impeachment, etc.), you’re clueless.

I’ll remind you that Susan Rice was in the small Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the WH with other key Russia collusion hoax perpetrators. Zelensky repeatedly declined opportunities to sign the deal in Kyiv and Munich, and requested the meeting at the White House. It later came out that Rice and Tony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, and Alexander Vindman may have been personally advising Zelensky to do this meeting in the way he did — that they recommended him to be hostile and to try to goad Trump into blowing up. Even though he didn’t, and even though Zelensky’s actions horrified many normal Americans, the Obama team went on the airwaves to falsely characterize what happened.

I think their goal was to have a wonderful performance by Zelensky, an angry Trump appearing to scuttle the deal, and the support of the neocon portion of the GOP to start applying pressure on Trump to have US Troop commitments as part of the “security guarantee.” It was a set-up, in Susan Rice’s interesting choice of words. Instead, Zelensky had one of the worst stage performances of his acting career, and Trump was statesmanlike (against all odds) throughout.

Zelensky followed Team Obama’s advice to be hostile to a tee, but it didn’t land how they thought it would. Surprisingly, one of the most important aspects of it not working out might have been Lindsay Graham’s reaction. Had he and other neocons thought Zelensky was being reasonable, Trump would be having to fight (even moreso) the neocon portion of the GOP in addition to Team Obama’s dirty tricks.

Even the “conservative” neocon pundits on TV last night were admitting Zelensky had royally messed up. As you can see from the hostility of the bureaucracy to any Republican oversight, no matter how reasonable or minor it may be, the entrenched bureaucracy and permanent DC apparatus is quite active. That goes quadruple for the deep state in the Intelligence Community. I’d expect more and more shenanigans and to be prepared so that you don’t fall for the next information operation.

The post-WWII architecture in Europe and the US needs this war to continue or be settled on “US troops on the ground” type guarantees, even though that’s not what Americans want. Things will heat up here, and it’s a very dangerous time.

Also, the immediate and near-identical reaction of leaders of various European countries in support of Zelensky’s temper tantrum yesterday also suggests a high-level of coordination and indicates a set-up. All very interesting.

Victor Davis Hanson

Ten bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up

1. Zelenskyy does not grasp—or deliberately ignores—the bitter truth: those with whom he feels most affinity (Western globalists, the American Left, the Europeans) have little power in 2025 to help him. And those with whom he obviously does not like or seeks to embarrass (cf. his Scranton, Penn. campaign-like visit in September 2024) alone have the power to save him. For his own sake, I hope he is not being “briefed” by the Obama-Clinton-Biden gang to confront Trump, given their interests are not really Ukraine’s as they feign.

2. Zelenskyy acts as if his agendas and ours are identical. So, he keeps insisting that he is fighting for us despite our two-ocean-distance that he mocks. We do have many shared interests with Ukraine, but not all by any means: Trump wants to “reset” with Russia and triangulate it against China. He seeks to avoid a 1962 DEFCON 2-like crisis over a proxy showdown in proximity to a nuclear rival. And he sincerely wants to end the deadlocked Stalingrad slaughterhouse for everyone’s sake.

3. The Europeans (and Canada) are now talking loudly of a new muscular antithesis, independent of the U.S. Promises, promises—given that would require Europeans to prune back their social welfare state, frack, use nuclear, stop the green obsessions, and spend 3-5 percent of their GDP on defense. The U.S. does not just pay 16 percent of NATO’s budget but also puts up with asymmetrical tariffs that result in a European Union trade surplus of $160 billion, plays the world cop patrolling sea-lanes and deterring terrorists and rogues states that otherwise might interrupt Europe’s commercial networks abroad, as well as de facto including Europe under a nuclear umbrella of 6,500 nukes.

4. Zelenskyy must know that all of the once deal-stopping issues to peace have been de facto settled: Ukraine is now better armed than most NATO nations, but will not be in NATO; and no president has or will ever supply Ukraine with the armed wherewithal to take back the Donbass and Crimea. So, the only two issues are a) how far will Putin be willing to withdraw to his 2022 borders and b) how will he be deterred?

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Zelensky goes to town
He behaved like a spoiled child, talking over Trump and Vance

If the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, were on my Christmas list, I think I might give him a copy of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War. I’d mark that bit in book five we call “The Melian Dialogue.”  It tells the story of how Athens confronts the tiny island of Melos, a neutral ally of Sparta. Athens demands that the island surrender its neutrality. The leaders of Melos resist. Athens delivers an ultimatum: surrender or be destroyed.

The Melians offer a number of arguments about why they should not be forced to capitulate. Athens is not being fair, the Melians have right on their side, et cetera. In perhaps the most famous bit of the episode, the Athenians explain that “the right, as the world goes, is only in question between equal power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

This was not, perhaps, a shining moment for the Athenians. But it does have the virtue of being a true description of the way the world actually works. Machiavelli, who knew a thing or two about that subject, would have understood. I am not sure that Volodymyr Zelensky does.

In his extraordinary performance with Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and others in front of the press in the Oval Office today, he behaved like a spoiled child, talking over Trump and Vance, shouting and essentially telling them that Ukraine was the aggrieved party in the war with Russia and that he was not interested in a ceasefire.

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The Approach Trump Had in the Zelensky Meeting Is One Democrats Can’t Wrap Their Head Around.

The meeting between President Donald Trump, VP J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was nothing short of explosive, fantastic, and satisfying. So much so that America collectively need a smoke afterward.

The Democrats, however, seem to think Trump just beheaded a statue of Apollo and now the gods will be wrathful.

But besides watching an entitled brat of a world leader get raked over the coals by the guy from The Apprentice and a hillbilly millennial, Zelensky’s strategy was a head scratcher. Perhaps he was so used to American politicians who were willing to lay themselves down into puddles, so Zelensky wasn’t ready to talk to two dudes who don’t feel the need to perform for the media, which Vance seemed hyper-aware of, and pointed that out to Zelensky.

Perhaps he thought America owed him one, and thus his smug attitude, but as Bonchie noted in his article, this wasn’t wise: 

Trump has never accepted the idea that Ukraine is doing the United States a favor by fighting Russia as a way of justifying unlimited aid. Perhaps Joe Biden found that argument persuasive, but Joe Biden is not in office anymore. Russia is not going to invade the United States or any NATO country (if for no other reason than a lack of capability), and using that as a type of blackmail for support was never going to play. 

And herein we find the trump card that Trump had on Zelensky… you know, besides the money the world’s most successful beggar came to get.

Trump’s negotiation strategy vastly differs from many other American leaders, especially those on the Democrat side of the aisle. Despite Trump’s reputation as a rough-around-the-edges man whose political charm is far divorced from what people expect after watching The West Wing too much, he is a master negotiator.

Even when it comes to our enemies, Trump is not going to negotiate from a position of bad faith. He sees everything as a businessman would. There are no friends or foes while at the table, just good deals and bad deals.

I thought The Federalist CEO Sean Davis put this very well in a post he made on X:

Trump doesn’t bad mouth anyone who comes to the negotiating table in good faith. Ever. It’s a near-cardinal rule of negotiations for him, and a major reason he’s been such a successful dealmaker. 

If you refuse to negotiate, he will trash you. If you lie or negotiate in bad faith, he will trash you. He has zero interest in allowing empty moralizing to get in the way of a deal that he wants.  

He has done this his entire career, in business and in politics, and it’s fascinating to me how many people who think of themselves as smart and savvy are incapable of seeing or understanding this dynamic.

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For the moment, Bibi backs off

The genocidal mania of Hamas and its supporters revels in murder and humiliation of the enemy. The ecstatic bloodlust is palpable. The impetus of degradation is manifest. Thus Hamas has staged the release of hostages under the current ceasefire with Israel in a manner that comports with the mania. They have turned each release into a celebratory production that degrades and humiliates hostages captives who have been starved and tortured in captivity. Hamas lets them go, but Hamas gets the last laugh. The silence of “the world” is remarkable.

Last week’s events brought us Hamas’s staging of the production of four corpses. CNN characterized it as a “macabre handover ceremony.” That doesn’t capture the quality of the event, but it’s hard to capture. We need a psychiatric successor to Freud who can give us The Psychopathology of Everyday Islamism.

Following the “ceremony” and the delivery of the corpses, the Israelis discovered Hamas’s alleged mixed-up confusion about the corpse of Shiri Bibas. Hamas had turned over a random Gazan in place of the corpse of Mrs. Bibas. The creative juices of the genocidal psychopathology are flowing.

The corpse production was followed on Saturday by the staging of this week’s release of living hostages. The hostages appeared onstage attired in fake army uniforms, though they were not soldiers when kidnapped. One of the hostages was ordered to kiss two of his masked captors on the head while holding his official Hamas release certificate. Only the Israeli Arab hostage was excused from the onstage production.

And that’s not all. Eve Barlow comments: “In one of the most barbaric acts since October 7, Hamas today brought two hostages, Eviatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal[,] to witness the release of the six other hostages onstage and filmed them adjacent in a van pleading to camera for their release before they were returned to the dungeons of Gaza…” She adds: “The people of Gaza are the most depraved people on the planet and the people of the West have allowed them to sink to lower levels of depravity by choice and by complicity.” And this: “We will never forgive you or take your ‘humanitarian’ work seriously ever again.”

 

Ms. Barlow reflects the intensified anger that this week’s humiliations have aroused in Israel. Early this morning Prime Minister Netanyahu halted the scheduled release of this week’s tranche of 602 convicted terrorists from prison in exchange for the six living hostages.

The Prime Minister’s Office has posted on X: “In light of Hamas’s repeated violations, including the ceremonies that humiliate our hostages and the cynical exploitation of our hostages for propaganda purposes it has been decided to delay the release of terrorists that was planned for yesterday until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies.”

The use of the passive voice is unfortunate. One infers that this is Netanyahu’s decision for the moment. The Times of Israel has much more here. If they are not mutually irreconcilable, Israel’s goals of recovering hostages and eradicating Hamas remain difficult to reconcile.

Let’s Go Privateering! An old idea gets new enthusiasm.

Time to go a’privateering?

We’ve heard a bit about letters of marque and reprisal recently. Sen. Mike Lee has proposed bringing back letters of marque in a thread on X, suggesting them as a tool for going after Mexican drug cartels. Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, the private security company (it’s rude to call them “mercenaries”) has also weighed in in favor of this approach. My own Congressman, Tim Burchett (R-TN) has introduced legislation allowing the President to issue letters of marque and reprisal against cartels, the Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization Act of 2025, co-sponsored with Rep. Mark Messmer, (R-IN). (The full text of the bill is here.)

This isn’t a new idea, really. Letters of marque and reprisal date back centuries; and even in this century there have been proposals to use them again, particularly after 9/11 when they were proposed, particularly by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) as a way of going after terrorists. More recently, people have proposed “Cyber Letters of Marque and Reprisal” to go after hackers.

Is there anything to these ideas, or do they just appeal to our swashbuckling side? Let’s talk.

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Reason for Mexico Terror Threat Against U.S. Gunmakers Suggests Government in Pocket of Cartels

“Mexico threatens to escalate US gunmakers lawsuit with terror charges,” The Guardian reported Friday. “Claudia Scheinbaum warns of reciprocal action if Washington designates country’s cartels as terrorist groups.”

“If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our US lawsuit… The lawyers are looking at it, but they could be accomplices,” Mexico’s president told the press, adding a time-worn disinformation go-to:

“She said the US justice department itself has recognized that ‘74% of the weapons’ used by criminal groups in Mexico come from north of the border.”

That’s the bit of calculated propaganda that primed ATF to implement Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking,” creating calls for a renewed “assault weapon” ban (Note: Some of the links that follow go to the Internet Archive and may load slowly). The numbers may vary, but the lie remains constant.

It started out with voices like Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and then-Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke, claiming “American gun sellers supply the cartels with 95 to 100 percent of their guns.” The BBC put it at “90%.” Then it was 80%.

Here’s what they were all intentionally misstating:

“According to ATF’s Tracing Center, 90 percent of the firearms about which ATF receives information are traceable to the United States.”

“About which ATF receives information…” That’s not “all,” that’s what’s been selectively submitted for tracing. A Fox News analysis at the time concluded

“There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one: It’s just not true. In fact, it’s not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.”

Here we are in 2025 and those lies are still being thrown out and “reported” unchallenged by media hacks who either don’t know, which makes them incompetent and unqualified informants, or do know, which makes them complicit in the deliberate deception and manipulation of their readers and viewers.

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What Did Trump Promise Mexico’s President on Guns?

President Trump has hit the pause button on his tariff threat to Mexico after discussions with his counterpart south of the border, but President Claudia Sheinbaum says that while her country will increase the number of military troops at the border to counter the drug cartels’ trafficking of fentanyl, Trump has agreed to “work jointly to avoid the entry of guns to Mexico.”

Sheinbaum’s comments came during her press conference on Monday. The Wall St. Journal covered Sheinbaum’s remarks, but she apparently didn’t announce any details of the supposed agreement between Trump and herself. 

“There are rocket launchers that come from the U.S. illegally,” Sheinbaum said she told Trump. “How is that possible?”

Mexico says that upwards of 70% of the weapons used by the country’s organized crime groups are smuggled from the U.S. “For the first time, the U.S. government will work jointly to avoid the entry of guns to Mexico,” she said at her daily news conference on Monday. 

Mexico is suing U.S. gun manufacturers and arms dealers in federal courts to try to end the illegal trafficking of weapons to the country.

If Sheinbaum’s end of the deal involves sending 10,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to combat fentanyl trafficking, what is Trump supposed to do in return? Increasing border patrols is one thing, but Sheinbaum’s interest in targeting gun dealers and manufacturers suggests she might have something else in mind

Sheinbaum also hit back after Washington accused her government of having an “intolerable alliance” with drug trafficking groups.

“We categorically reject the slander made by the White House against the Mexican government about alliances with criminal organizations,” Sheinbaum wrote earlier on social media.

“If there is such an alliance anywhere, it is in the U.S. gun shops that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups,” she added.

U.S. gun stores aren’t selling rocket launchers to cartel members, despite Sheinbaum’s claims. In fact, one of the major sources of U.S.-manufactured arms that end up in the hands of the cartels were diverted there by Mexican law enforcement and the military. As CBS News reported more than a decade ago:

The State Department audits only a tiny sample – less than 1 percent of sales – but the results are disturbing: In 2009, more than a quarter (26 percent) of the guns sold to the region that includes Mexico were “diverted” into the wrong hands, or had other “unfavorable” results.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation‘s Larry Keane, who speaks for gun manufacturers, said he understands the potential for abuse.

“There have been 150,000 or more Mexican soldiers defect to go work for the cartels, and I think it’s safe to assume that when they defect they take their firearms with them,” Keane told CBS News.

If Sheinbaum really wanted to curtail cartel access to U.S. firearms she could order a halt to the direct sales to Mexican law enforcement and the military, but that would mean pointing the finger at the corruption within her own government instead of scapegoating the U.S. firearms industry.

I don’t think Trump is interested in stopping those sales either, to be honest, but the question still remains: what “help” did Trump offer, exactly? 

Gun control groups like Brady are calling on Trump to “craft a plan to ensure that gun manufacturers do not do business with those who break the law, fund the ATF, and instead of diverting agents to focus on immigration enforcement, allow them to focus on holding rogue gun dealers accountable.” 

Trump has yet to do undo the ATF rules enacted under the Biden administration, which has already exasperated many Second Amendment advocates. Now he also needs to offer up specifics about his agreement with Sheinbaum to put gun owners at ease.

Combatting the cartels shouldn’t result in an emboldened ATF or actions against the firearms industry, but that’s exactly what Sheinbaum and her allies in the American gun control movement are demanding.

Argentinian TCOB

A 78-year-old retiree shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who tried to rob him outside of his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The teenager quickly leaps out of the car before it can even come to a full stop next to the white car, with the boy seen aiming what appeared to be a handgun at the Toyota driver. As the teen goes to open the driver’s seat door, the 78-year-old man pulls out a .357 Magnum pistol and fires at the boy, killing him, police said.

The teenager, who was described by a friend online as a “great person,” was holding a fake gun meant to resemble a grey 22-caliber mini Bersa Thunder, Page 12 reported.

Investigators said they are still on the hunt for the two people who were in the van at the time of the attempted robbery. The Departmental Investigations Directorate is treating the case as an aggravated robbery conducted by suspected gang members, officials added.

Local Prosecutor Diego Rulli, who is in charge of the case, will not seek charges against the 78-year-old man, who he said acted in clear self-defense with a weapon that he has a license to carry and use.

What did I say?

Comment O’ The Day
Beege Welborn
BWAHAhahahaha!
I will lay a big, fat donut on the bet that Trump just threw that out there to prove the point that there ain’t NOBODY wantin’ these homicidal psychopaths anywhere near them.
And now that we’ve established they’re absolutely incorrigible, untrustworthy savages, plans can move forward from here how to deal with them.

Arab nations reject Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan

CAIRO (AP) — Powerful Arab nations on Saturday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan.

Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League released a joint statement rejecting any plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Trump floated the idea last month, saying he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to take in Gaza’s now largely homeless population, so that “we just clean out that whole thing.” He added that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term. Some Israel officials had raised the transfer idea early in the war.

“It’s literally a demolition site right now,” Trump said, referring to the vast destruction caused by Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas, now paused by a fragile ceasefire.

The Arab statement warned that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples.”

The statement followed a meeting in Cairo of top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official who serves as the main liaison with Israel, and Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

They said they were looking forward to working with the Trump administration to “achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution,” according to the statement.

They called for the international community to help “plan and implement” a comprehensive reconstruction plan for Gaza to ensure that Palestinians stay on their land.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi rejected Trump’s suggestion in a news conference last week, saying that he transfer of Palestinians “can’t ever be tolerated or allowed.”
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Mexico — Friend, Enemy, Neutral, or Something Else?

Mexican nationals, likely cartel members, recently crossed the border and shot and wounded an American hiker. Did they assume that Joe Biden was still president, and so it was still a veritable open season on Americans without consequences?

Mexico also recently balked at allowing a U.S. transport plane to land, returning its own nationals apprehended as illegal aliens.

Was its attitude that Alejandro Mayorkas was still Homeland Security Secretary and thus working with Mexico to ensure that millions of illegal aliens could stay in the U.S. indefinitely?

After four years of Biden’s appeasement, Mexico seems to assume that it has a sovereign right to encourage the flight of millions of its own impoverished citizens illegally into the U.S. and further assumes that it can fast-track millions of Latin Americans through its territory and across our border.

Mexico either cannot or will not address the billions of dollars of raw fentanyl products shipped in—mostly from China—and then processed for export to the U.S. by its cartels across a nonexistent border.

Mexico seems to have little concern that some 75,000 Americans on average die from mostly Mexican-imported fentanyl each year—more deaths in just the last decade than all the Americans killed in action during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. Who then is our friend, and who is our enemy?

This appalling death toll is in part due to the deliberate efforts of the cartels to mask fentanyl as less deadly narcotics or camouflage the poison by lacing it into counterfeit prescription drugs.

Mexico encourages its expatriate illegal aliens to send back some $63 billion per year in remittances. That huge sum constitutes one of Mexico’s largest sources of foreign exchange, surpassing even its tourist and oil revenues.

These billions are often subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. America’s local, state, and federal governments provide billions of dollars in food, housing, and health care entitlements that allow Mexico’s citizens, illegally residing inside the U.S., to free up the cash to be sent home.

According to U.S. census data, almost every year, the trade deficit with Mexico has increased from about $50 billion twenty years ago to $160 billion today.

That astronomical figure neither includes the $63 billion American outflow in remittances nor the multi-billion income from the cartels’ illicit drug sales in the U.S.

Although one would never know it from the rhetoric of Mexican politicians, the entire Mexican economy, both legal and illicit, hinges on America accepting a worsening asymmetrical relationship.

Yet the U.S. has a lot of leverage with Mexico to ensure that it no longer assumes a permanent huge trade surplus with the U.S., turns a blind eye to massive fentanyl shipments that kill thousands of Americans, encourages its own citizens to enter their neighbor’s country illegally, and counts on massive cash remittances from the U.S.

Loud rhetoric, threats, and ultimatums do not work.

Usually, they earn Mexico’s furious retorts about Yanqui imperialism and ancient bitterness about a lost Aztlán.

Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador used to brag about the millions of illegal aliens that were residing in the U.S. He further advised expatriate Mexican-Americans not to vote for Republicans, whom he felt one day might close the border.

Obrador rarely reflected on why millions of his own citizens were fleeing his own country—only that it was a “beautiful” thing that they did.

Did Obrador hate Trump more for challenging him by trying to stop the illegal influx or Biden for embarrassing him by welcoming millions of them into the U.S.?

So, what should be the U.S. response to Mexico’s passive-aggressive policies?

Smile, praise Mexico as our greatest trading partner, and then quietly inform them that illegal aliens will be bussed to the border.

Once there, they could be given a generous care package, escorted through a border door, and left on the Mexican side from which they entered and thus could then be escorted in caravans home in the same manner that they arrived.

To maintain cordial relations and politely gain Mexico’s attention, we need a radical change in tone and action beyond just ending catch-and-release, finishing the wall, and making refugee status requests possible only in the home country of the applicant.

Rather than worry about who is sending remittances, why not politely place a 20 percent tax (about $12 billion) on all cash sent from the U.S. to Mexico?

We could also hail our mutual friendship and then reluctantly slap tariffs on imported assembled goods until the two-way trade is roughly balanced.

Who knows, once the U.S. is respected again and not considered an easy mark, Mexico could once again become a fine and reciprocal friend to the United States.

Cynical Publius
@CynicalPublius

To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.
3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.
4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.
5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.
6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.
7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.
8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.
9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.
10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.
11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.

Trump Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.
3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.
4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.
5. Winning.

See the difference? It’s called LEADERSHIP.

A Rifle Behind Every Blade Of Grass: Why The Taiwanese People Must Arm Themselves Like Americans

Communism is the most murderous ideology in recent history. Communists around the world killed close to 100 million people; that’s more than 5 times the number killed by the Nazis. Of those 100 million, the Chinese Communist Party is culpable for 65 million dead.

Luckily for the world, communism was dealt a decisive defeat last century. Within a few years of the Berlin Wall coming down, communism imploded across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. There were other unforeseen benefits: with its Soviet benefactor gone (and with other economic triggers), India had to roll back democratic socialism. Billions of people suddenly experienced freedom like never before.

There was hope that the Chinese regime would also suffer the same fate as other communist governments. But they managed to hang on to power, crushing dissent with tyrannical, barbarous force.

Despite the persistence of the Chinese Communist regime, the end of the Cold War marked a victory for liberal democracy. The 1990s were a time of optimism, as the world enjoyed a peace dividend.

All of this resulted in a belief that communist China could be wooed and charmed into what seemed like the future: a peaceful, liberal global order, with free enterprise, free trade, and open engagement among the peoples of the world.

The United States, Europe, and Japan opened up trade and travel with communist China. Entire industries were offshored with the belief that as the Chinese people engaged with liberal democracies, the communist regime would loosen its grip on them, like how Augusto Pinochet eventually ceded power and Chile became a democracy.

Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. The Chinese Communist Party remains entrenched, having transformed China into a surveillance state. The 26-year old Great Firewall of China looks quaint as compared to their modern Black Mirror-like dystopian social credit system. They’ve leveraged technology to create an authoritarian regime unprecedented in history. Rather than adopting liberalism, China is exporting illiberalism. (As an example, see how western governments imitated the harsh Chinese COVID lockdown model, instead of going the way of Sweden.)

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Trump Warns ‘All Hell Will Break Out’ If Gaza Hostages Aren’t Released Before Inauguration

President-elect Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Hamas terrorists in Gaza, vowing that “all hell will break out” if the hostages held by them are not released before his inauguration on January 20. Trump made it clear that his administration would not tolerate the continued suffering of innocent Americans and other hostages, promising swift and decisive action once he is sworn in as the 47th president.

His remarks underscore the situation’s urgency and starkly contrast the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis, as Trump reiterated his commitment to ensuring the safety and security of American citizens abroad.
During an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what exactly he meant when he said “all hell will break out” if Hamas doesn’t follow orders.

“Exactly what it says — if those hostages aren’t released by the time I get office, there will be hell to pay,” Trump reiterated. “I don’t think I have to get into it, but it won’t be the word ‘don’t.’” Trump was referring to the joke of a warning outgoing President Joe Biden made on October 10, 2023, in a speech vowing his support for Israel after Hamas initially attacked the Jewish state.

Trump cautioned that if Hamas terrorists don’t release the remaining hostages before he takes office, “it won’t be good for anyone.” The president-elect’s comments come after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s pick to serve as the special envoy to the Middle East, expressed optimism that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is making “a lot of progress.” He appeared sure that by the time Trump was inaugurated, there would be “good things” to announce on behalf of the new administration.

“It’s the president, his reputation, the things that he has said that are driving this negotiation, and so hopefully, it’ll all work out, and we’ll save some lives,” Witkoff said, echoing the same stern warning to Hamas saying, “This better get done by the inaugural.”