Donald Trump has proposed a trilateral commitment to cutting military budgets by 50% between the United States, Russia, and China.
I'm curious to see what the response to this will be, because my initial impression is that China and Russia would tell him to piss right off. Here's why:
China's 2024 defense budget: $224.8 billion
Russia's 2024 defense budget: $65.9 billion
US's 2024 defense budget: $820 billion
Aside from the magnitude, there's a very key difference: China and Russia don't have anywhere near the amount of fraud and waste in their budgets. The US can cut $410 billion and touch nothing but fat. The much leaner Russian and Chinese budgets wouldn't save nearly as much money, and would have far more material impacts on their operations.
It's a simply a far better deal for us than it is for them. If Trump offered to up the USA's cuts to 75% and keep Russia and China at 50% it would be much more equitable (and still a very desireable outcome).
Don’t worry!
His “very smart people” are totally right about things this time when it comes to trade.
There is zero - I repeat, zero - moral difference between the people who pushed for "experimenting" with lockdowns because "we have to do something!" and the people who push for "experimenting" with trade wars because "we have to do something!"
Musk is out.
Musk put himself in a corner where he can't rip into Trump and he has to play nice probably at least through the midterms, but just look at the guy's face and watch him refuse to give a straight answer here. He put a lot on the line with endorsing Trump and starting DOGE, and Trump absolutely stabbed him in the back. Trump's supporters will blame congress, but Trump has very openly and loudly endorsed all of the DOGE-defying moves that congress has made, and has viciously attacked the one congressman (Thomas Massie) who has stood against it.
The reason is simple: Trump cares about trophies. Cutting the budget is not a trophy. DOGE trying to take a chainsaw to government was a trophy, but as soon as DOGE became more of Musk's than Trump's trophy, Trump stopped caring about it because congress offered him a Big, Beautiful Bill as a trophy instead. Just like the FBI offered the opportunity to build a Big, Beautiful new headquarters building for them (Trump loves buildings!). ...
As comedy slowly slides into unfunny wokeness hell, the last comedian standing (assuming he doesn't drop dead first, I mean just look at the guy; he's a trainwreck) will be Doug Stanhope. He closed out his recent special "The Dying of the Last Breed" with this bit on how important it is that we be able to make fun of anything. Because making fun.
Language warning, duh.
Preliminary Q2 numbers for Argentina are in. This is still subject to adjustment but so far their preliminaries have been pretty accurate under the Milei administration.
Slashing spending works. Trump and Bessent are very optimistically projecting economic growth of 3% doing the opposite of what Milei is doing to deliver 7.6% - and climbing!
