Chicago Tribune (April 5)
“Trump is terrible at making deals. His threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border offers the latest example…. Trump tried to get Mexico to pay for his cherished wall and failed. He tried to get Congress to provide $5.7 billion to construct it and failed despite putting the country through a 35-day government shutdown.” The President “is good at making demands and issuing threats, but those are useful only if you know how to bargain and compromise. He fails at making deals because he has never learned that in negotiations, as in war, the other side gets a vote.”
Tags: Border, Compromise, Demands, Failed, Making deals, Mexico, Negotiations, Shutdown, Terrible, Threats, Trump, U.S., Wall
The Economist (February 23)
Plenty of executives and investors say they are worried about climate change. “Yet the reality is that meaningful global environmental regulations are nowhere on the horizon. The risk of severe climate change is thus rising, posing physical threats to many firms. Most remain blind to these, often wilfully so. They should start worrying about them.”
Tags: Climate change, Environmental regulations, Executives, Investors, Meaningful, Reality, Threats
New York Times (January 9)
President Trump “has been painfully out of his element. Two years in, he remains ill suited to the complicated, thankless, often grinding work of leading the nation.” Clearly there is a crisis, but “the crisis is in the Oval Office. The president has exaggerated threats but ignored the hazards his border policies created.”
Tags: Complicated, Crisis, Exaggerated, Grinding, Ill-suited, Oval Office, Threats, Trump
New York Times (April 10)
“Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of…grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks. He cuts corners, he lies, he cheats, he brags about it, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it, protected by threats of litigation, hush money and his own bravado.” Not, apparently, much longer. “Mr. Trump now has real reason to be afraid. A raid on a lawyer’s office doesn’t happen every day.” In fact, it only happens when investigators have real “reason to believe they’d find evidence of a crime there and that they didn’t trust the lawyer not to destroy that evidence.”
Tags: Bravado, Cheats, Cons, Crime, Crooks, Evidence, Goons, Hush money, Lawyer’s office, Lies, Raid, Threats, Trump
Washington Post (April 1)
China “has always been the biggest trade target for Trump. It also appears to be the first country to retaliate to his trade threats, putting pressure on leaders in Washington and Beijing to anticipate each other’s next moves quickly.”
The Economist (March 31)
“Just six words suffice to sum up President Donald Trump’s approach to trade …make threats, strike deals, declare victory.” But this will not create a victory. “Even if conflict is averted and China gives ground… the result will be a bad one for the world, and for America. That is partly because of Mr Trump’s character. If he thinks he has won one fight, he is likelier to start another. It is also because his policy is founded on wretched economics and dangerous politics.”
Tags: China, Conflict, Dangerous, Deals, Economics, Politics, Threats, Trade, Trump, Victory, Wretched
Reuters (March 16)
“Simmering fears of a global trade war. An embarrassing political scandal in Japan. Rapid job-turnover inside the White House and the threat of faster interest rate hikes in the United States….” Yet somehow “markets have brushed aside risks and recurring bad news on geopolitics to stay focused on positive macro-economic cues.”
Tags: Embarrassing, Fears, Geopolitics, Interest rate hikes, Japan, Markets, Scandal, Simmering, Threats, Trade war, U.S., White House
Chicago Tribune (February 7)
A shadow is hanging over the Olympiad, which “is set against the looming menace posed by one of the world’s most dangerous regimes — North Korea. Whether Pyongyang and the U.S. continue to trade threats of nuclear destruction is a challenge for politicians, diplomats and military strategists.”
Tags: Dangerous, Looming, Menace, North Korea, Nuclear destruction, Olympiad, Regime, Shadow, Threats, U.S.
Washington Post (January 3)
“At this moment in time, Kim Jong Un is acting like a more mature person than the president of the United States…. It looks more and more dubious that Trump’s national security advisers know how to persuade him not to stumble his way into a conflict with North Korea. And Trump’s inability to coerce North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons will only cause him to make even more outlandish threats.”
Tags: Advisers, Conflict, Kim, Mature, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Outlandish, Stumble, Threats, U.S.
New York Times (August 10)
“Mr. Trump has again made himself the focus of attention, when it should be Kim Jong-un, the ruthless North Korean leader, and his accelerating nuclear program.” His “threats have also diverted attention from a genuine accomplishment, the new Security Council sanctions.” This is a time for “prudent, disciplined leadership…. Rhetorically stomping his feet, as he did on Tuesday, is not just irresponsible; it is dangerous.”
Tags: Attention, Dangerous, Disciplined, Diverted, Irresponsible, Kim, Leadership, North Korea Nuclear program, Prudent, Ruthless, Sanctions, Security Council, Threats, Trump