Timothy Birdnow

Emmanuel Macron "fact checks" Trump in a tense meeting.

When a reporter asked His Froggy Magesty "Will France support the U.S. being compensated?” he replied:

"I support the idea to have Ukraine first being compensated because they are the one to have lost a lot of their fellow citizens and being destroyed by these attacks.

Second, all those who paid for [the war] to be compensated, but not by Ukraine, by Russia, because they were to ones to aggress,”

fin

This answer presupposes total victory over Russia, not a negotiated peace agreement.

It also is rather like a car seller handing out the keys to the vehicle and not having any sort of agreement in writing to guarantee payment. Worse, it's a "car" that cannot be repoed and towed back to the dealership. All of it is based on the good word of the Ukrainians and Volodomor Zelensky, something dubious at best.

You cannot borrow so much as a hundred dollars without leavings ome collateral. That's the basis of pawn shops.

So Macron shows himself a fool with both statements.

At another point Trump said "Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine...they’re getting their money back” Macron interrupted to say, "No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort.”

But they are STILL gettin 40% back but expect us to get nothing, to underwrite all of it with no compesnation.

Trump repeated "Just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back.”

I'm not privvy to the exact details of the agreement but I have little doubt Trump is right about this (he has been proven right about so many things of which we were assured were not true in times past). I would make a few other observations - for one thing America has zero interest in eastern Europe; it does little to affect our national security. It DOES have a huge impact on European security though; so why should we pay for it but not the Europeans? It is a continental problema - THEIR problem. If they want this they should pay for it. I would also ask how much of the money Europe isn't getting back came from America? USAID? I suspect quite a big if we dig into it.

Trump showed he knows Macron is full of balogna:

"If you believe that, it’s okay with me. They get their money back. We don’t and now we do, and that’s only fair.”

Fair indeed. Ukraine wants our assisstance, and not just with this war but with a long-term security committment. They want us to simply give it, no strings attached. But what do we get out of it?

The U.S., with far fewer people and an only slightly higher GDP than the European Unioin, have given $7 billion more than have the Europeans, and this for a problem in THEIR neighborhood, not ours.

Question; how much has Europe given to fight Fentanyl coming in from Mexico? How much have they contributed to anything in this hemisphere? Why should they? So why should we fund things that impact them only?

Trump is actually offering them a good deal; he wants half of their rare earth elements, but that means the U.S. will be there permanently, developing the mining industry and perhaps may even manufacture things there. He's offering a partnership to the Ukrainians for continued aid. Otherwise they can leave this in the ground, make no money from it, and continue to go hat-in-hand to the U.S. and Europe for continued security assisstance. He's offering them a guarantee.

But they don't want it because they figure they can do better and we'll eventually cave like Joe Biden always did, or like Barack Obama. And they know guys like Macron will be a fellow traveler.

Here's a point to ponder; Ukraine receives more foreign aid than any other country (and this is not just the military aid.) According to USA Facts:

"The top aid recipient in FY 2023 — Ukraine — received more money from the US than the bottom 159 aid-receiving countries combined."

So we have been pouring money out to them. Why are we not getting some of that back? And if Macron doesn't want France to be paid that's his business; our President is the leader of the United States, not of Europe.

If Macron wants to open his mouth he would do better to put some snails in it and not try to lecture our President.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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