In other news, Best Buy has joined Walmart and Macy's in warning that Trump's trade war with China will soon lead to higher prices on a broad range of items.
Meanwhile, Trump has ordered at least 1,500 additional troops to deploy to unspecific locations in the Middle East to deter imaginary threats from Iran.
Finally, the world's largest shipping company, Maersk, says Trump's trade war has reduced global shipments and it's unlikely that signing a deal with China would ease tensions because Trump will just pick a fight with someone else.
[CEO Soren Skou] says that even if Trump reaches a deal with China, there’s no reason to believe that the global economy will be free of serious trade tensions.
“It won’t be the end of the trade war,” Skou said. “Then we’ll just see the U.S. turning its attention toward Europe, where there is an unresolved issue with German automakers and other things.”
That means that 2019 “will be the year of the trade war, no matter what happens between the U.S. and China,” he said.
I guess it's good to know the rest of the world is clear-eyed about Trump.
Here are some other stories I didn't get to this week:
Officials say Trump's trade war is raising the price of building the new stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders football team.
American and Japanese officials are downplaying the idea of having any kind of meaningful trade dialogue during Trump's upcoming state visit.
The House of Representatives failed to pass a delayed disaster relief bill today because of one GOP shithead from Texas.
Representative Chip Roy, a first-term Republican, objected to holding the vote, citing concerns that the legislation did not include $4.5 billion Trump had requested to deal with a surge of Central American immigrants on the southwestern border.
Roy also complained that the cost of the bill was not offset by savings to other government programs.
“This is a $19-billion bill that is not paid for when we are racking up $100 million of debt per hour,” Roy complained.
The American Chamber of Commerce of China says American businesses operating in China are facing direct retaliation because of Trump's trade war and at least a third of them are reconfiguring their business to primarily serve the Chinese economy rather than export to America.
The marketing firm behind NRATV is now counter-suing the NRA and claiming they smeared Oliver North.
Ackerman McQueen’s counterclaim blames the NRA for a coup against Oliver North.
It says the NRA’s outside counsel, Bill Brewer, “provided misleading information to the New York Times” about North’s work for the firm. “The article misrepresented the facts and disparaged AMc, reads the lawsuit, noting that the story quoted Brewer and alleging that he misled the paper to hurt the firm’s relationship with the NRA.
The firm also alleges that the NRA’s legal actions against it are just an excuse to terminate their contract for cause—and get out of paying “a very substantial amount of money in the form of severance and cancellation fees....”
Have a good weekend. We'll be back in action here on Tuesday.