President Trump bungled the fight against Covid-19 and cowered in the face of the George Floyd anti-racism protests. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that polls show former Vice President Joe Biden defeating Trump handily in November.
A new CNN/SSRS poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden opening up his biggest lead yet, 14 points over his political rival among registered voters, as well as a huge drop in approval ratings for President Donald Trump.
(Mediaite, June 8, 2020)
Nor is it surprising that this is causing Trump to become more unhinged than usual. Only that explains the absurdity inherent in him mocking Biden (as weak and ugly) for wearing a mask. This, even though Biden is merely following the guidelines Trump’s own coronavirus White House task force issued for public safety.
When a reporter asked Biden what he thought of Trump mocking him, Biden dismissed this president of the United States as a blustering, chest-thumping fool. Which brings me to the rest of the story.
Because while he was mocking Biden, Trump was blithely ignoring the Ayatollah of Iran – who was defying Trump’s open and notorious threats against shipping oil to Venezuela.
Shipments of Iranian petrochemical products have arrived in Venezuela despite American harrumphing against a deal that is part of a broader blossoming of relations between the Middle Eastern and Latin American countries. …
Campaigns of ‘maximum pressure’ directed against Tehran and Caracas were meant to curtail the influence of the regimes and potentially bring about their downfall. Instead the two countries are openly collaborating with each other and publicly celebrating their defiance of US aims and manoeuvres.
(The Independent, March 25, 2020)
In fact, the United States has been reduced to strong-arming weak countries like Liberia, where big oil tankers are registered for commercial reasons (i.e., lax admiralty, wage, and safety laws).
Two Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned ships that ‘were en route to Venezuela carrying Iranian fuel, scrapped their deliveries after the U.S. threatened sanctions,’ a senior U.S. official told Fox News. …
The Greek-owned ships would have been unable to access international banking and maritime insurance had they carried out the shipment.
(Fox News, May 29, 2020)
But, despite his threats and military deployments, Trump has dared not cross the Ayatollah’s red line:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Saturday that the United States should not to interfere with the shipment of oil bound for Venezuela. ‘If our tankers in the Caribbean or anywhere in the world face any problems caused by the Americans, they will face problems as well, he added.
(ABC News, May 23, 2020)
So, yeah, Mr. Trump can thump his chest all he wants after bullying Liberia. But Biden is clearly not the only political leader who dismisses him as little more than a blustering fool.
Apropos of which, only a fool would pull a WHO stunt like this just to cover his bungling, cowering ass:
President Trump has announced that he is immediately halting the decades-long U.S. membership in the World Health Organization over its response to China’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic. … Global health experts said the president’s choice to leave the global health governing body during a pandemic is a dangerous call.
‘This decision is really so short-sighted and ill-advised, and all it does is put American lives at risk,’ said Dr. Howard Koh, former assistant secretary for health in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
(NPR, May 29, 2020)
In other words, this is just the latest example of a Trump foreign policy that routinely cuts nose to spite face. Recall that he has already pulled (or has threatened to pull) the United States from the
- Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
- Paris Agreement on Climate Change
- Trans-Pacific Partnership
- NAFTA (“renegotiated” but now in ratification limbo)
- UN Human Rights Council
- UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
- Iran Nuclear Deal
- World Trade Organization
Now this. Thanks to Trump, the United States is ending up standing not only more alone but more at risk on the world stage.
The re-election of Trump would be tantamount to national suicide in this respect. The election of Biden would be tantamount to a restoration of national sanity.
Related commentaries:
Covid-19 thead… Floyd protests thread…
Venezuela… Iran…