USA

Obama’s NATO Ambassador: Europe Capable of Running NATO Without US

As CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to NATO in the Obama administration, Ivo Daalder is a member in good standing of the foreign policy establishment. In a recent piece on the Foreign Affairs website, Daalder, after the obligatory criticism of Donald Trump’s alleged undermining of NATO, concludes that Trump has been right all along: Europe is “fully capable of ensuring [its] future security [and] [t]he time to start is now.” NATO faces the worst crisis in its 76-year history, Daalder writes, because Trump has “questioned the two core principles” of the alliance: its shared threat perception and its commitment to collective defense.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inNATO, USA

America’s involvement in Ukraine is finally being revealed

The US was as close to being orchestrators of the battles with Russian forces as could be

The US-led coalition to help Ukraine was always more than just a production line of arms deliveries to the Kyiv government.

Much of what has been going on over the past three years has been secret: a covert collaboration between Ukraine and the West involving commanders at the highest level, and special forces out of uniform. Now the full extent of the extraordinary partnership between Ukraine and the West has been revealed after a year-long investigation by Adam Entous, a reporter at the New York Times.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Deep State", "Ukraine - Russia", USA

Trump implements sweeping reciprocal tariffs, PM Carney meeting with cabinet as Canada impact unclear

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to implement reciprocal tariffs on several countries, and confirmed 25 per cent tariffs on all foreign-made automobiles are coming into effect as of midnight.

CTV News is awaiting confirmation about an exemption for Canada, however there are multiple reports that Canada is exempt from the 10 per cent baseline tariff on other countries that Trump also announced Wednesday.

“Reciprocal. That means they do it to us and we do it to them,” Trump said. “Very simple. Can’t get any simpler than that.”

“It’s our declaration of economic independence,” the president also said, before continuing to address the crowd while holding a chart listing the tariffs other countries have in place on American products.

Canada was not listed on the board.

Trump is for his nation and fellow citizens. Carney is a carpetbagging globalist shill.

More Brookfield business entities registered to Bermuda building that houses bike shop

Several entities of global investment giant Brookfield Asset Management’s core business are registered to an address in Bermuda that also houses a local bike shop, CTV News has learned.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney previously served as chair of Brookfield’s board, from August of 2022 until mid-January of this year, when he resigned to run for the party leadership.

Last week, Radio Canada reported that two Brookfield pension funds, worth a combined $25 billion, were registered in Bermuda.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

White House studying cost of Greenland takeover, long in Trump’s sights

It’s the most concrete effort yet to turn President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire the Danish territory into actionable policy, despite widespread international outrage.

The White House is preparing an estimate of what it would cost the federal government to control Greenland as a territory, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, the most concrete effort yet to turn President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire the Danish island into actionable policy.

While Trump’s demands elicited international outrage and a rebuke from Denmark, White House officials have in recent weeks taken steps to determine the financial ramifications of Greenland becoming a U.S. territory, including the cost of providing government services for its 58,000 residents, the people said.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGreenland, USA

McConnell breaks with party to reject Trump’s Canada tariffs

Sen. Mitch McConnell privately indicated to Sen. Tim Kaine he would back the Virginia Democrat’s resolution to undo President Donald Trump’s Canada tariffs.

Kaine told reporters Wednesday that the former GOP leader told him the day before that he would back Kaine’s resolution, which will get a vote on the Senate floor Wednesday evening. A spokesperson confirmed Kaine’s remarks.

h/t DS

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Liberation Day and the End of the World‘s Trade War Against America

President Trump is set to step into the Rose Garden tomorrow for what may be the most consequential economic announcement of his second term. Markets are bracing. Diplomats are dialing. Pundits are speculating wildly. But no one—not Wall Street, not foreign governments, not even some inside the West Wing—seems to know exactly what will be announced.

This, as it turns out, is part of the design.

Trump has dubbed it Liberation Day—a piece of branding with more substance than cynicism. For weeks, he’s signaled that a sweeping new tariff regime is coming. Twenty percent across the board? A reciprocal system that mirrors foreign rates? Something hybrid and more complex? The ambiguity is not a bug. It’s leverage.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Trump poised to reshape global economy and how world does business

Every time Donald Trump has mentioned his plan to levy massive tariffs on imports into the US, there has been a widespread assumption that they will be delayed, watered down or rowed back.

Today, he will reveal in the White House Rose Garden not just how serious he is about “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, but effectively call time on decades of economic globalisation.

And it is still possible that he will do this by launching the equivalent of a salvo of ballistic missiles into the global trading system, with a universal tariff on all imports into the USA.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

The case for Alberta as the 51st US state

Alberta would make a great 51st state.  It has a population of 4.8 million and had a gross domestic product of $244.3 billion in 2024.  (All numbers here are in U.S. dollars.)  This would rank us 27th among the 50 states, just behind South Carolina at $246.3 billion.  Over 90% of our economic output is from oil & gas extraction, refining, distribution, and servicing.  Alberta has over 37 billion tons of mostly readily accessible coal reserves, the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves, and among the world’s top ten largest natural gas reserves.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inAlberta, Canada, USA

China’s Tariff-Dodging Move to Mexico Looks Doomed

Chinese firms invested billions of dollars on Mexican factories to make products for the American market, shipping goods tariff-free under a U.S. trade agreement now in peril

Su Xiuyong moved to Mexico from central China 20 months ago. He doesn’t speak Spanish or English, and finds that he hates the food, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Su’s employer, a Shenzhen-based construction company, helped set up Chinese factories south of the U.S.-Mexico border, part of a business boom triggered in 2018 by President Trump’s first round of tariffs on Chinese imports. Su said his firm, Jilian Engineering, can build a small factory in as little as seven months in Mexico.

Chinese companies have kept many goods flowing to the U.S. by manufacturing in Mexico, where products ship to the U.S. tariff-free under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term. Chinese firms have invested billions of dollars in hundreds of Mexican factories that make auto parts, electronics, home appliances, furniture, medical equipment and other products for the American market.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", Canada, Mexico, USA

Fury at ‘self-segregated’ Islamic ‘mega city’ in tiny Texas town for 1,000 new Muslim homes… as chilling medieval practices emerge

Opponents of a proposed Muslim city in Texas flooded a public meeting Monday in hopes of stopping a controversial Islamic compound from getting necessary permits to begin construction.

For hours, the Collin County Commissioners Court heard dozens of speakers pleading with them to deny the East Plano Islamic Center or EPIC, permits needed to build a city for Muslims that’s meant to be ‘the epicenter of Islam in America’ by organizers.

EPIC, a sprawling house of worship located in Plano, Texas- just north of Dallas- has recently become a target for Gov. Greg Abbott who has accused the mosque of breaking the law, despite no arrests or charges being made public.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West, USA

Lorne Gunter: Alberta Premier Smith’s trip to Florida aligns with Team Canada approach

I realize plenty of Canadian politicians and pundits have been praising Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Ford threatened to cut off Ontario electricity headed to the U.S. upper Midwest and because of that was granted a face-to-face meeting in Washington, D.C., with Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary and tariff guru.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Three Words Explain March’s Illegal Border Crossing Numbers

Border crossing numbers hit a new low in March, with federal agents encountering about 7,000 people entering the U.S. illegally last month, mainly through the San Diego and El Paso sectors.

Compared to March 2024, when 137,000 individuals crossed the southern border illegally, that’s a 94 percent decrease.

Homeland Security officials told the New York Post it’s easy to explain the decline: “the Trump effect.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCamp Of The Saints, USA

Six in 10 Canadians want to scrap contract for U.S. warplanes: Nanos poll

A majority of Canadians support cancelling a $19-billion contract to buy American warplanes and instead opting for European alternatives, according to a new poll, as relations between Canada and the United States continue to sour.

A survey by Nanos Research conducted for The Globe and Mail found 62 per cent of Canadians survey support, or somewhat support, scrapping a federal government deal to buy 88 F-35 Lightning planes from U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin. It also found 18 per cent oppose, and 3 per cent somewhat oppose, such a measure. Another 17 per cent were undecided.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA