Ukraine, If You Are Listening....

It’s Not Just Tariffs:  Things are cooking around the world and not in a good way.  Trump ramped up the trade war with China on Friday, increasing tariffs from 10%  to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods after trade talks failed to yield the deal that he keeps on insisting is imminent, the one he promised that he would deliver because he’s the best deal maker ever and besides President Xi really likes him.  Trump justified the tariff increases insisting by saying that he had to punish the Chinese because they reneged on items that they had previously agreed upon, a negotiating tactic that should be familiar to him since he makes and breaks promises all the time.   Trump continues to say that the Chinese will bear the brunt of the tariffs, an assertion that is false.  Either he doesn’t understand how tariffs work or, more likely, he’s trying to convince consumers that the tariffs will be paid for by the Chinese and won’t impact their pocketbooks.  Despite Trump’s assurances, on Sunday, when pushed by Fox TV’s Chris Wallace, Larry Kudlow, Trump’s economic advisor grudgingly admitted that consumers will pay the price for the escalating trade war.  As to that price, the Trade Partnership consultancy found that consumers be forced to spend up to $800 more a year for essential items as a result of the escalating trade war;  23% of goods from dishwashers to toys will be impacted.  To be fair, negotiating with the Chinese isn’t easy and getting concessions from them isn’t a slam dunk, it’s just that Trump promised it would be.  In any case, he is back to blaming the Democrats, asserting that it’s their fault that things are where they are with the Chinese adding that the Chinese are now holding out for a Democratic victory in 2020, someone like that sleepy Joe Biden, who’ll  give them everything they want.  China isn’t the only problem.  Things aren’t going as planned in Venezuela, where that hoped for military rebellion against President Maduro hasn’t happened and despite Trump’s great new friendship with Kim Jong un, the North Koreans are still shooting off intercontinental missiles and holding on to their nuclear aspirations.  And then there is the that frequent tinder box, the  Middle East. On Thursday, the US Maritime Administration issued an advisory warning that Iran or its proxies could be targeting commercial vessels and oil production infrastructure in the region.  Over the weekend that threat proved itself real, or at least appeared to prove itself real, when Saudi Arabia reported that two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.  Somewhat ominously Secretary of State Pompeo “adjusted” his schedule again, cancelling a planned trip to Moscow where he was supposed to meet with Russian Minister Lavrov to instead travel to Brussels to meet with UK, French and German counterparts to discuss the Iran threat.  Something is most definitely happening, again not in a good way.

Domestic Front: Over the weekend the Washington Post published a guide of the twenty ongoing investigations into things Trump.  That list includes:  attempts to get Trump’s tax returns, efforts to get the unredacted Mueller Report, former White House lawyer Don McGahn’s testimony and notes, efforts to get Trump financial information from his accounting firm Mazars, Capital One and Deutsche Bank, violations of the emoluments clause and the contract related to Trump International Hotel in DC, Trump’s efforts to put the kibosh on an FBI move to a new building in order to  reduce the likelihood that anything that could compete with his hotel gets built on their current location, transcripts from the “secret” Trump-Putin conversations, the hush money payments, the security clearance process or lack thereof, the separation of kids at the border, lying about the insertion of a citizen question into the 2020 census, the Puerto Rico disaster response,  use of private email servers by certain White House staff members (Ivanka and Jared),  the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and finally, a February trip by Jared Kushner to Saudi Arabia, one that US diplomats weren’t allowed to attend.  Weather being what it was, Trump tweeted incessantly about some of this over the weekend.  He has completely turned on former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who he once described as being the cat’s meow, ramping up his attacks after Friday night reports from both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times that following the release of the redacted Mueller report, the White House asked McGahn to publicly say that Trump never obstructed the investigation by trying to fire Mueller,  McGahn refused to comply with those requests.  Trump’s tweeted  “I was NOT going to fire Bob Mueller, and did not fire Bob Mueller. In fact, he was allowed to finish his Report with unprecedented help from the Trump Administration,” adding “lawyer Don McGahn had a much better chance of being fired than Mueller. Never a big fan!”  That McGahn, who Trump now says he never liked, was with Trump through the campaign and was responsible for orchestrating the appointment of all those really conservative federal judges and those two right wing Supreme Court Justices, but never mind about all that.  As to all those things that the Democrats are trying to investigate, expect more fireworks this week in the form of more testimony demands and subpoenas.  The Democrats are methodically trying to establish that they are following all the required procedures so that when they end up in court, and much if not all of this will end up in court they will be able to argue that they followed the rules, the ones that Trump is doing his best to ignore.  On that legal front, at least one judge, Amit Mehta, is fast tracking the case related to the request for the information from accounting firm Mazars/           

2020:  Joe Biden is getting all of the attention these days.  Whether it’s the comfort of a familiar face or the view that he’s got a good, if not the best chance of beating Trump in the general election, the polls indicate that he is the current man to beat in the Democratic race.  It’s early so it’s not clear that he really has that commanding lead but Trump is taking no chances.  He wants Attorney General Barr to open an investigation into an old conspiracy theory that had previously been debunked about the timing of Biden’s involvement in a Ukraine decision to push aside a local prosecutor looking into a deal that his son was involved in.  For his part Rudy Giuliani cancelled his announced trip to Ukraine, the one where he was planning to meet with the country’s new leader to ask for help finding Biden dirt.  Giuliani attributes his change of plans pushback he got in the press and from Democrats about seeking foreign help in an upcoming election, but the damage has already been done, effectively Giuliani has already delivered this election cycle’s “Russia if your listening message” to Ukraine.   Like it or not, Ukraine’s new leaders now know that Trump wants their help and might feel the pressure to cooperate because they need the US to help defend against Putin’s aggressive regional intentions.

Other News: It’s looking more and more like ousted NRA president Oliver North was right to question the financial shenanigans taking place at the NRA.  Leaked information indicates that the NRA’s outside legal bills during the past year were around $24 million and that Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre treated the organization as his own personal piggy bank.   He did that by funneling charges for things like Zegna suits, first class travel to exotic locations and the cost of an apartment for an “intern” through the NRA’s longtime advertising agency Ackerman McQueen.  The Ackerman payments got caught when Ackerman told auditors that they needed more back up information from LaPierre to document some of those payments, information that LaPierre wouldn’t or couldn’t provide.   Last week Trump announced plans to nominate acting Defense Secretary Shanahan to serve in a permanent role.  Apparently, Shanahan proved what a good team player he could be by announcing the diversion of $1.5 billion of funds that were supposed to be spent in Afghanistan to where else, the Mexico border WALL.   He assures us all that we shouldn’t worry about the shift of funds, the money wasn’t really needed in Afghanistan anyway.