As stated above the scenario doesn't seem to be narrowly confined to trade. If the President's strategy is to make Germany an opponent in more than trade, he is very ignorant, AND Bannon is advising him in a very sad direction.
Germany versus Russia is an easy choice for Americans. We choose GERMANY, sir! Americans LOVE Germany sir!
We really, really need to see Tweety Twump's tax returns to see why he likes Russia. It cannot be to govern as Putin govern because America will not allow a police state. It might be Tweety owes Russia for their help getting him elected. Finally, Tweety might owe Russia for past dealings or Russia might have something otherwise nefarious on Tweety and can blackmail him.
"The 3 Trump-Russia scandals, explained"
Updated by Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchamp zack@vox.com Feb 23, 2017, 10:43am EST
http://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/15/14620560/trump-flynn-russia-campaign
"Scandal 1: Did the Trump campaign collude with Russia against Hillary Clinton?"
"Scandal 2: Flynn lied about his overtures to Russia. Did Trump?"
"Scandal 3: Does Russia have dirt on Trump?"
"3 reasons Russia’s Vladimir Putin might want to interfere in the US presidential elections"
Updated by Fiona Hill Jul 27, 2016, 7:00pm EDT
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12304448/putin-elections-dnc-hack
"Putin thinks the US already did it to him first"
"In 2011-’12, Russian demonstrators took to the streets to protest electoral violations in the parliamentary elections and the lack of alternative candidates to Putin in the presidential election. Putin and his inner circle believed the US was to blame. Putin even asserted that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had either incited or directly financed the demonstrations."
"Putin thinks and acts like a KGB operative "
"Putin has two features that distinguish him from other world leaders. As he puts it, he knows how to “work with people” and “work with information.” In the KGB, Putin learned how to probe people’s vulnerabilities, uncover their secrets, and use compromising information against them. In other words, blackmail and intimidation are part of his stock in trade."
"Putin wants a weakened US presidency"
"Irrespective of whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is elected, from Moscow’s perspective, at the end of this ruinous political campaign, the new US president will look as wounded as Putin did when he took office again in 2012. A US president who is elected amid controversy and recrimination, reviled by a large segment of the electorate, and mired in domestic crises will be hard-pressed to forge a coherent foreign policy and challenge Russia."
"Want to understand what Trump and Bannon are up to? Look to the Russian Revolution of 1917"
"The disturbing parallels between Lenin and Trump include the role that foreign interference appears to have played in their rise to power. Although never definitively proven, Lenin’s rapid assent to power has long been credited to the complicity of Germany, which had a vital interest in destabilizing Russia, their key adversary in World War I. An exile in Switzerland up until April 1917, Lenin and his comrades had been allowed to pass through German lands in a special “sealed train” and eventually reach Petrograd. There, he joined other Bolsheviks to plot the second—proletarian—revolution. According to many prominent historians, Germans also provided significant funding for Pravda, the newspaper that spread the Bolsheviks’ propaganda."
"He called Trump ‘a threat.’ Now, Germany’s foreign minister is headed to D.C."
By Rick Noack World Views Analysis is interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events
February 2, 2017
