In other news, BMW says it's moving future production to China (instead of South Carolina) and raising prices in response to Trump's trade war.
Are we great yet?
Meanwhile, a Chinese factory has been hired to crank out flags for Trump's 2020 campaign.
We're definitely great.
Finally, the New Yorker has an inside look at what's going on behind the scenes ahead of Trump's upcoming meeting with Putin and you may or may not be surprised to learn that, once again, it's all about Saudi Arabia and Israel's crusade against Iran. Even Crimea is about Iran.
During a private meeting shortly before the November, 2016, election, Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, floated to a longtime American interlocutor what sounded, at the time, like an unlikely grand bargain. The Emirati leader told the American that Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, might be interested in resolving the conflict in Syria in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Current and former U.S. officials said that bin Zayed, known as M.B.Z., was not the only leader in the region who favored rapprochement between the former Cold War adversaries. While America’s closest allies in Europe viewed with a sense of dread Trump’s interest in partnering with Putin, three countries that enjoyed unparallelled influence with the incoming Administration—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.—privately embraced the goal. Officials from the three countries have repeatedly encouraged their American counterparts to consider ending the Ukraine-related sanctions in return for Putin’s help in removing Iranian forces from Syria.
Experts say that such a deal would be unworkable, even if Trump were interested. They say Putin has neither the interest nor the ability to pressure Iranian forces to leave Syria. Administration officials have said that Syria and Ukraine will be among the topics that Trump and Putin will discuss at their summit in Helsinki on July 16th. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.
I assume Trump will give Putin whatever he wants even if the Saudis didn't tell him to.