The visit of Xi to Mar-a-lago was for the US to drop the demand for them to persuade Kim to abandon nukes and allow Western investment.
Xi communicates the demands to Kim who initially agrees. Kim reneges (much of the narrative is skipped here). US raises spectre of China tariffs if Kim fails to follow through. China balks and/or feels it would “lose face” by continued compliance. Trade war ensues. Pompeo travels to North Korea, issues further demands.
Is Trump in Europe breaking the news that NATO is no longer needed and our focus will shift to the Far East?
The trade war will benefit the US in the long run, China will be hurt by it. Trump realizes that NATO doesn’t need so much American involvement (or money) and I hope will decrease our presence. It’s time for Europe to start taking care of itself and be more self reliant. Europe also needs to get more involved with the ME/Syrian war and deal with the migration problem.
Some good analysis there. I hadn’t thought of that, but it looks like Trump is viewing Russia as less of a threat than China (which it is). The whole NATO controversy does two things: it motivates the Europeans to pony up if they want to keep enjoying the Pax Americana, and it sends China the subtle message that we can always move forces to the Pacific if NATO is no longer our pet project.
I can’t link to any specific articles because the discussion is ongoing and I’d have to dig them up again. Suffice it to say some analysts believe we are already at war with China and the tariffs are just the gentlemen’s declaration of hostilities before the real shooting war begins. Also, if we are to have a shooting war with China, it’d be real sweet if we could stop them from stealing our high technology: hence the Economic Cold War.
I hate to say it but Western Europe has already committed suicide with their migrants. We probably aren’t far behind having some 40 million illegals living inside our borders. Ironically if Western Civilization, i.e. Christian European centrist society- is to survive, it will be in Eastern Europe.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the countries of origin for the largest numbers of illegal immigrants are as follows (figures from 2014):
The Urban Institute also estimates that between 65,000 and 75,000 Canadians currently live illegally in the United States (2008). He's an... Illegal Eh-lien
Western Civilization, i.e. Christian European centrist society- is to survive, it will be in Eastern Europe.
Unless you are not counting Catholics as Christians all is not lost. What is probably even more illuminating is this:
Hispanic Identity Fades Across Generations as Immigrant Connections Fall Away
[i]More than 18% of Americans identify as Hispanic or Latino, the nation’s second largest racial or ethnic group. But two trends – a long-standing high intermarriage rate and a decade of declining Latin American immigration – are distancing some Americans with Hispanic ancestry from the life experiences of earlier generations, reducing the likelihood they call themselves Hispanic or Latino.
Among the estimated 42.7 million U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestry in 2015, nine-in-ten (89%), or about 37.8 million, self-identify as Hispanic or Latino. But another 5 million (11%) do not consider themselves Hispanic or Latino, according to Pew Research Center estimates. The closer they are to their immigrant roots, the more likely Americans with Hispanic ancestry are to identify as Hispanic.
The closer they are to their immigrant roots, the more likely Americans with Hispanic ancestry are to identify as Hispanic. Nearly all immigrant adults from Latin America or Spain (97%) say they are Hispanic. Similarly, second-generation adults with Hispanic ancestry (the U.S.-born children of at least one immigrant parent) have nearly as high a Hispanic self-identification rate (92%), according to Pew Research Center estimates.
By the third generation – a group made up of the U.S.-born children of U.S.-born parents and immigrant grandparents – the share that self-identifies as Hispanic falls to 77%. And by the fourth or higher generation (U.S.-born children of U.S.-born parents and U.S.-born grandparents, or even more distant relatives), just half of U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestry say they are Hispanic.
Declining immigration, high intermarriage rates
Immigration from Latin America played a central role in the U.S. Hispanic population’s growth and its identity during the 1980s and 1990s. But by the 2000s, U.S. births overtook the arrival of new immigrants as the main driver of Hispanic population dynamics. And the Great Recession, coupled with many other factors, significantly slowed the flow of new immigrants into the country, especially from Mexico.
As a result, the U.S. Hispanic population is still growing, but at a rate nearly half of what it was over a decade ago as fewer immigrants arrive in the U.S. and the fertility rate among Hispanic women has declined.
In 2015, 25.1% of Latino newlyweds married a non-Latino spouse and 18.3% of all married Latinos were intermarried; in 1980, 26.4% of Latino newlyweds intermarried and 18.1% of all married Latinos had a non-Latino spouse, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.
In both 1980 and 2015, Latino intermarried rates were higher than those for blacks or whites.
As a result of high intermarriage rates, some of today’s Latinos have parents or grandparents of mixed heritage, with that share higher among later generations. According to the surveys, 18% of immigrants say that they have a non-Latino parent or grandparent in their family, a share that rises to 29% among the second generation and 65% among the third or higher generation, according to the Pew Research Center survey of self-identified Latino adults.
These trends also have implications for the future of Hispanic identity in the U.S. Lower immigration levels than in the past and continued high intermarriage rates may combine to produce a growing number of U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestors who may not identify as Hispanic or Latino.
AND HERE, MY FRIENDS, IS THE BOMBSHELL:
And even among those who do self-identify as Hispanic or Latino, those in the second and third or higher generations may see their identity as more tied to the U.S. than to the origins of their parents, a pattern observed in many previous5 Pew Research Center Latino surveys. [/i]
My take: We are going to end up as a light tannish, largely Christian population, versus the pasty white, largely Christian population of a a century or so ago.
Analysis of North Korea’s destruction of its nuclear testing site reveal that explosions were superficial and insufficient to destroy the facility. Some experts are expressing the belief that some tunnels are still usable. Technical equipment was also removed prior to detonation, allowing North Korea to restart or continue its nuclear programme. This goes in line with recent statements that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that North Korea is attempting to secretly make more nuclear fuel suitable for weapons despite the Singapore Summit. Additionally, commercial satellite imagery from June 21 indicates that improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center are continuing at a rapid pace.
Continuing in Korean, North Korea has signed a document restating its position to denuclearize Korean theater. Analyists note the wording of the statement, which implies that there are to be no nuclear weapons in South Korea as well.
Not that I’m fretting over the racial identity of this country, but why isn’t it a problem now but it’s racial genocide when “pasty white” folks have done the same in other countries in the past?
Hell even if “pasty white” folks change the economic identity of a neighborhood by legitimate investment and improvement it’s called gentrification and it’s explained as a type of “land theft.” I don’t buy into the racial argument, but I also don’t accept the double standard. If we have to protect minority races and interests then we have to do it for everyone if we are going to honestly discuss equality in any way that is remotely meaningful.
You know, I didn’t mean this to morph into city planning, but…most of the complaints regarding gentrification are because the improvements to the area are generally not affordable to the current residents of the area. As a result over time, sometimes quickly, the original classes of the area are pushed out and the character of the area changes, often losing the allure that begot the initial investment.
Kind of like Floridians talking about us ‘Fvcking Northerners.’
What is more alarming is the tendency of everyone, regardless of affiliation, to go ‘oh yeah, what about…’ recording a wrong to their ‘side’ in regards to even the most benign statements.
For instance, to you post I COULD reply that maybe it is because for most of the first 3/4 of the 20th Century, minorities were unable to buy homes or rent apartments in white neighborhoods. As St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton noted in their book Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City this was in essence ‘the invisible barbed-wire fence of restrictive covenants.’
All that would accomplish, is to motivate you to come up with another example. Let’s not do that. I was merely refuting 7n6’s 40,000,000 illegals most sane folks agree it is around 12,000,000 illegals.
Just so we are on the same page, nothing gets done about anything because race is an arbitrary visual qualifier that is almost meaningless at the genetic level and the only real difference is level of melanin and the level of efficiency in absorbing Vitamin D. And even that critical difference is nothing but a genetic hand me down based upon how close to the equator ones ancestors lived for the last 10,000 years or so.
Everything else is cultural and culture is a choice, which is why different cultures with different values exist. So the only thing I was really saying is, your reply about how our country will be a little more tan and that’s nothing to worry about is no more or less offensive than other people worrying that our country isn’t as “pasty white” as it used to be.
That’s sort of how equality works, if it’s ok for X then it has to be okay for Y otherwise X and Y are not equal. And if you take a statement about X and Y and reverse the variables and it suddenly sounds racists, then the original statement was equally racist.
As for economics and housing, gentrification is almost exclusively a bad word about how “pasty white” people fix a neighborhood to the point the “non pasty white” people can’t afford to live there anymore. But a couple thousand years ago tanned Romans fed “pasty white” christians to the lions and that’s lots worse than fair housing issues. So I figure I’m due pizza reparations and should be able to walk into any Italian pizzeria and get a free slice and a coke because my people were persecuted.
Otherwise we have to start with “everyone gets the same fair shot and no special exceptions” because that’s equality. But I don’t see that happening any time soon. There will always be people who identify with their melanin equivalents despite the fact that genetic exceptions destroy any attempt at a visual classification of homo sapiens.
We are all the same imperfect species, with varying degrees of imperfections and what we perceive as differences that almost borderline on distinction of species are little more than who left Africa when and everything else is just cultural.
ETA: You probably shouldn’t worry about the opinions of Floridians regarding northerners, many Floridans are illegals anyway so they don’t get a vote.
You’ve just described why the much of the underdeveloped world is in the shape it is in - ‘tribes’ remembering affronts to their tribe which occurred generations ago.
Hey, I understand, we all have some degree of ethnocentricity, some more than others. Sad when it gets in the way.
In my experience, having spent more time with people who are “more tan/less pasty” than myself, whenever the issue is brought up it is usually presented in racial terms and often equated with the “white man stealing Indian land” and then when the speech is over, a lot of people turned around and looked at me.
I got profiled before it was even a word. As for tribalism, sadly that’s probably the nature of our species since we define the world visually more than anything else. Not everyone understands genetic exceptions (that when you classify humans according to visual traits members of each group will frequently have more genetic commonality with other groups that they don’t look like) and the enlightened aren’t always completely enlightened.
But every time I hear somebody talk about “the white race” and how we need to band together, I always think about if I’d rather hang out with Charles Manson or Neil Tyson. Or if it’s a tribal thing would I rather spend the day with the Clinton or Carl Sagan (assuming for a moment he was still alive). And growing up I was more about Bruce Lee than John Wayne so the whole tribalism / race thing was virtually meaningless to me.
And he warned her any attempts to maintain close ties with the EU would make a lucrative US trade deal very unlikely.
Mr Trump said: “If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.”
