Max Edwards

[David Elikwu FRSA ⚔️ @Delikwu]

Don’t make me tap the sign

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I am officially nominating Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) for the Nobel Peace Prize.

No President in History has ended the same war so many times.

Our Dear Leader has ended the war with Iran at least 38 times by CNN’s count.

No President has ever done this before.

And he is nowhere near finished ending it.

It’s a record worthy of the Nobel committee’s recognition. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

[joseph🪩 @oomfitos]

Burnham’s Avanti West Coast train rn:

[Donald Trump Jr. @DonaldJTrumpJr]

Remember when they said Trump would get us into a full-blown war with Iran?

Times like these should make us all realize how lucky we were to have Trump, his strength and his resolve.

[JazzBG 🇧🇬🇪🇺🇺🇦 @JazzBulgaria]

Europeans watching the man who called NATO obsolete, then threatened a member’s territory, now ask for help for the war he already ‘won’

[Kvist @kvistp]

Wow...

[Stephen Miller @StephenM]

If young men don’t want to be drafted to fight in Kamala’s and Cheney’s 3rd World War they better get out and vote for Trump.

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

The UK served on the frontline in Afghanistan and often way beyond it!

[Boring_Business @BoringBiz_]

One of the most significant moments from the Trump Davos speech was when he said the quiet part out loud

You cannot lower housing costs for young people without destroying millions in wealth for boomers

"Every time you make it more affordable for somebody to own a house cheaply, you are actually hurting the value of those houses. I don't want to do anything to hurt the value of their house.

If I wanted to crush the housing market, I could do that so fast that people could buy houses. But you would destroy people who already have houses."

Our politicians are sacrificing people in their 20s and 30s for the prosperity of boomers

Let that sink in

[Mohamed Salah @MoSalah]

Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

To illustrate just how nonsensically these tariffs were calculated, take the example of Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in Africa with just $2.4 billion in annual GDP, which is being struck with a 50% tariff rate under the Trump plan, the highest rate among all countries on the list.

Why? Does Lesotho apply extortionate tariffs on U.S. products and the U.S. is merely being "reciprocal" here? Not at all, despite what Trump is saying, it's NOT the way these tariffs are defined.

As a matter of fact Lesotho, as a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), applies the common external tariff structure established by this regional trade bloc.

Which means it applies the same tariffs on U.S. products as South Africa does, as well as the 3 other members of the bloc: Namibia, Eswatini and Botswana.

So since the tariffs charged by these 5 countries on U.S. products are exactly the same, they must all be struck with a 50% tariff rate by the U.S., right? Not at all: South Africa is getting 30%, Namibia 21%, Botswana 37% and Eswatini just 10%, the lowest rate possible among all countries.

So what gives? Again, the way these tariffs are calculated has absolutely zero relationship with actual tariffs imposed by these countries on U.S. products. Instead, they appear to be simply derived from trade deficit calculations.

Looking at Lesotho specifically, every year the U.S. imports approximately $236 million in goods from Lesotho (primarily diamonds, textiles and apparel) while exporting only about $7 million worth of goods to Lesotho (https://t.co/uHvem6nH2o).

Why do they export so little? Again this is an extremely poor country where 56.2% of the population lives with less than $3.65 a day (https://t.co/GEho8xFjAp), i.e. $1,300 a year. They simply can't afford U.S. products, no-one is going to buy an iPhone or a Tesla on that sort of income...

The way the tariffs are ACTUALLY calculated appears to be based on a simplistic and economically senseless formula: you take the trade deficit the U.S. has with a country, divide it by that country's exports to the U.S and declare this - falsely - "the tariff they charge on the U.S."

And then as Trump did in his speech last night, you magnanimously declare that you'll only "reciprocate" by charging half that "tariff" on them.

As such, for Lesotho, the calculation goes like this: ($236M - $7M)/$235M = 97%. That's the "tariff" Lesotho is deemed to charge this U.S. and half of that, i.e. roughly 50% is what the U.S. "reciprocates" with.

It's extremely easy to see why this makes no sense at all.

First of all, there's nothing Lesotho can do about it: they can't change tariffs they allegedly charge the U.S. to reduce the tariff rate the U.S. "reciprocates" with because, again, it's NOT based on any tariff that they charge.

Similarly they can't do much about reducing the trade deficit they have with the U.S. because, again, they simply don't have enough money to buy U.S. products.

Also the main rational Trump gave for the tariffs is to get production back to the U.S., to "bring manufacturing back". 47.3% of Lesotho's exports are diamonds: how do you bring the "manufacturing" of that "back to the U.S."? Anyone can see it makes just about zero sense.

The Lesotho example exposes the fundamental economic incoherence of these tariffs. Rather than addressing actual trade barriers, they punish countries based on trade deficits that arise from structural economic realities. All the more countries like Lesotho which pose zero competitive threat to American industry.

Worse yet, these tariffs will likely make these structural realities even worse: the U.S. is Lesotho's second most important export destination so it's a fair bet that applying 50% tariffs on their products will make people in Lesotho even poorer, and therefore even LESS able to afford U.S. products.

But perhaps the most unfair and detrimental aspect of all this is that these tariffs represent a complete reversal of longstanding U.S. development policy, and therefore a betrayal of countries - like Lesotho - who chose to follow U.S. advice in the past.

For decades the U.S. has used preferential trade access to encourage economic development in the world's poorest nations, recognizing that trade, not just aid, could get them out of poverty and ultimately put them in a position where they too could afford iPhones or Tesla.

They're now effectively penalizing countries for following previous U.S. policy, a lesson which I bet they won't forget anytime soon.

So all in all the irony is painful: in the name of fighting unfair trade, America has just demonstrated what truly unfair trade looks like.

This isn't something designed to address genuine trade issues, but simply a mechanism based on arbitrary math to punish countries for the affront of selling more to the United States than they buy.

[Vatnik Soup @P_Kallioniemi]

In his earlier years, Joe leaned libertarian and progressive on several issues, advocating for policies like universal healthcare, decriminalization of drugs, and marriage equality. During the 2020 primaries, Joe said he’ll “probably vote for Bernie [Sanders].”

8/22

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

This is Marco Rubio explaining how the USA promised to defend Ukraine forever if they got rid of their nuclear arsenal left after the Soviet Union fell.

This is why lil marco was sinking into the couch. He was hoping we wouldn’t find it…so don’t RT right now this very second.

[Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci]

Here is a recap of the Ukraine situation, for those choosing to reject propaganda and continue seeking truth:

December 1994, Ukraine agrees to give up its nuclear arsenal in return for security guarantees from the US, UK, France, China and Russia.

February 2014, Russia invades and subsequently annexes Crimea, President Obama does next to nothing. War through weakness.

July 2019, Trump admin withholds $250 million in military aid to Ukraine to apply pressure to investigate alleged corruption by Hunter and Joe Biden.

February 2022, Russia invades a weakened Ukraine, world expects Zelenskyy to flee and Kyiv to fall within days. Ukrainians fight bravely for 3+ years, inflict hundreds of thousands of casualties on Russian army, weaken Putin politically.

U.S. has sent ~$70 billion in outdated military equipment to Ukraine since start of war, providing opportunity for U.S. military to modernize its weaponry. We’ve sent an additional $30+ billion in budget support, $75 billion in ancillary appropriations related to war.

~50,000 Ukrainians have died defending their homeland, protecting U.S. and Western interests in the process. Meanwhile, the U.S. President and V.P. are calling democratically-elected Zelenskyy a dictator and berating him in Oval Office in pursuit of a financial payoff.

The U.S. should be thanking Ukrainians, who have fought for our common interests with only modest financial support from a country with a ~$30 trillion GDP.

America can and will reclaim its backbone again soon, with better policy and messaging from common sense moderates.

Slava Ukraina.

[Dom @DomDoodle]

GBNews needs to change its name to RTNews at this point. Tom Tugendhat, ex Security Minister, does well to push back the nonsense from Bev Turner, ex sports presenter..

[Rt. Hon Ben Wallace @BenWallace70]

Here are some genuine fake news that the Whitehouse now spouts: 1. We have given over double what Europe has to Ukraine. ❌ In fact Europe has given more. 1/3

[Paul Mason @paulmasonnews]

Maybe Reform should rename themselves Retreat? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Greggs @GreggsOfficial]

Sausage Roll > Super Bowl