The Trump presidency

Goodness only knows. It's a worrying time.

Its an odd thing but I woke up this morning all worried about Theresa May. I hoped she'd had a good sleep and a decent breakfast. I feel so sorry for her having to try to work with that man. Her diplomatic skills will have to be at the max.
This concern isn't really political, more woman to woman. Good luck to her today.

I don't envy her I have this nasty image of him trying to give her her a (((hug))) YUK!! She is made of stern stuff much as I dislike her politics, I wish her good luck dealing with the 'Donald' today.

She has to work something out for economic reasons. The US is one of the few countries, with which the UK has a trading surplus. We export more the US than any other single country. Trump has stated that he doesn't want trading deficits (from the US standpoint), so he will be keen to strike some kind of deal which forces the UK to buy more from the US - probably very expensive pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs or healthcare services.

He is very sensitive , we must hope she will be gentle with him. Well sensitive to criticism so she needs to admire his wig, his manliness, his twitting , or what the correct word is

*Anniebach*!

If anyone can do it, T May can....go girlpower! Her speech was very well received, and you needn't worry about her Jane ( although it shows kindness on your part!)

I very much fear that her biggest carrot for tempting a good trade deal from the US is the NHS...

That's my fear, too, Maizie, in addition to having to accept food, which has been processed and grown using American methods. May is caught between a rock and a hard place. If the UK doesn't accept some kind of deal, Trump will probably slap punitive tariffs on British goods, which would be devastating to UK balance of payments.

I hope she tells him our views on torture.

This is interesting. Tim Carney (a different guy from the head of the Bank of England) talking about this stuff:

On this episode of the Federalist Radio Hour, Tim Carney, commentary editor at the Washington Examiner and visiting fellow at AEI, discussed the Inauguration crowd, what Trump will do with Obamacare, and reactions from the Washington establishment.

Carney said Trump doesn’t have a reason to worry about the lack of people who made it to DC for the Inauguration. “Trump, unlike most Republicans, drew from further down the income ladder. People who were less likely to get up and travel to DC,” he said. “People who weren’t surrounded by strong institutions of civil society… people who didn’t have a church group that could organize a bus.”

As usual I'm recommending it for people who are brave enough to listen to points of view that we're not hearing from most of the media, recommending it as a mind-opening, understanding-increasing and, of course, interesting exercise even if it makes no difference to one's own point of view.

PS, ab, Carney (see above) is explaining why Trump doesn't need to be sensitive, e.g. about the relatively small crowd size at his inauguration, or reactions to his speech (fairly good according to one poll taken in Washington DC, which is not his usual hunting ground).

Teresa May was well received yesterday and served as an antidote in style, speech, credibility and diplomacy to POTUS.

I hope that she is able to hold her own with DT and underline areas where she will not compromise for the sake of trade.

Would not like to be in her kitten heels today!

Thanks, thatbags, will listen later. Always keen to understand further.....

Cheers, rinouchka. I'm listening now and just heard exactly what I'm getting at in previous posts both on this thread and other political ones: "Let's stand back and look at the whole picture". Exactly! This is what most of the media is not doing and they should be.

At about 20 mins in, it gets really interesting about the difficulties of overturning/repealing stuff Obama's administration has done if they are already backed by new laws (sorry if I haven't got the jargon right). Just listening to that has reduced my level of fear about the possible overturning of good laws: "it's not that easy; this is real heavy lifting" (paraphrased).

I think there's another issue to consider with this avalanche of executive orders. They set a tone, send a message to his supporters and those the orders are aimed against even if translating them into actual legislation may never happen or take a long time. One of the orders sends a message about the legitimacy of providing abortion services - whilst that order would affect women abroad, it does help to create a climate at home that facilitates questioning the provision of abortion and would embolden those 'pro-lifers' who already make the lives of women seeking abortion difficult enough already in the states. I would guess that some of his supporters think that signing an executive order means it happens at once

Re DT worrying about the numbers - of course he doesn't need to worry but it's scary as hell that he does worry and shows how thin skinned he is and how poor his judgement is

Well, that was an interesting listen B (got it on sound cloud). I found (about 45 mins in) that the chat about Trump being used as a rubber stamper by the GOP, in effect enabling them to tweak the presidential directives to suit both the business end of politics and the cultural one, once the heavy lifting was done, gave food for thought. Particularly around Obamacare.

You mean...Trump is just a puppet?

Just one of lots of ideas being discussed about this whole thing.

I haven’t listened to the second half yet, ffinn. I'm glad you could get to it on SoundCloud.

The Mexican president has announced that Mexico is planning to build a tunnel between Mexico and the USA which will cost $324bn. He says the USA will pay for it.

I do think poor Theresa may is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she tells him we don't accept torture our trade agreement will be out but, if she gets a trade agreement and doesn't mention torture people will hit her with the proverbial stick