Tag: donald trump

The MoU Is Not the Final ‘Deal’

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on Sunday that the U.S. and Iran had reached a “Peace Deal.” Immediately following Sharif’s post on X, President Donald Trump seconded this news:

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

As the media is reacting to the flurry of updates, there is an air of optimism that I fear is blinding many in the public, and the financial markets, to the truth about this deal. There is a crucial detail that the commentator class seems to be largely missing, outside of a few reliable voices:

This “deal” is a Memorandum of Understanding, not a comprehensive “Iran deal” as Trump keeps claiming.

Based on the details being reported, it essentially saves the most complicated issues for later and would establish a 60-day ceasefire period to discuss these points in greater depth. The main issue, Iran’s nuclear enrichment, has not been discussed in any technical way up to this point.

Despite Trump’s claims that “We will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States,” no such agreement has been reached regarding the details of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Even as this deal was announced, we still have no clarity on the status of the nuclear file in these discussions. Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday:

“‘We’ll get the nuclear dust later on when we’re ready to go in and do it. I’d say over the next month or two, there’s no rush,’ he said. He called it ‘harmless.’”

Besides the fact that this statement contradicts months of propaganda on the “imminent threat” posed by Iran, this signals that details on Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile have not been worked out, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary.

This agreement also doesn’t set terms on Iran’s missile or drone programs, nor does it discuss Iran’s support for their regional proxies. This has led many prominent neoconservative media voices to criticize the deal, saying that it won’t ensure that Iran is sufficiently weakened in the region.

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Trump Will Slap French Wines With 100% Tariff Over France’s Digital Services Tax – Macron Is Defiant, But Wine Producers Are VERY Afraid

Tech versus Wine is the geopolitical arm-wrestle.

US President Donald J. Trump is in France for the G7 Summit and to meet French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, as you can read in 

Among the many issues that will be discussed, there is one economic war that is on the outing: Trump is demanding that France drop its tax on American tech firms or face a 100% tariff on its wine.

FOX Business reported:

“The U.S. will ‘have no choice’ but to apply the tariffs if French President Emmanuel Macron does not end its 3% levy on large digital services companies. ‘I asked him not to charge American companies, and if they do, I have no choice but to charge a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France’, Trump told the New York Post in an interview. ‘All [Macron] has to do is get rid of the sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that kind of pressure’.

[…] ’The president has been unequivocally clear on digital services taxes and other forms of extortion against American tech firms’, a senior White House official told FOX Business on Monday, when reached for comment. ‘The administration is committed to using the many legal authorities at our disposal to defend American workers and businesses’.”

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Trump’s Iran War Slowing Global Economic Growth to Lowest Level Since Pandemic: World Bank

The World Bank on Thursday lowered its global growth forecast for the remainder of 2026 as the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran drives up energy prices, inflation, and the cost of debt.

“The global economy is facing another major shock,” the World Bank’s latest biannual Global Economic Prospects report states. “The conflict in the Middle East has triggered sharp increases in energy prices, renewed inflationary pressures, and fueled expectations of tighter monetary policy.”

“Global growth is projected to slow to 2.5% in 2026, from 2.9% in 2025 – the lowest rate since the Covid-19 pandemic – amid weaker prospects for economies dependent on energy imports and those directly affected by hostilities,” the report continues. “Activity is expected to firm in 2027-28 as energy supplies recover, monetary easing resumes, and trade strengthens.”

The Iran War has resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 30% of the world’s fertilizer and 20% of its oil previously passed. In addition to increasing the risk of a global food crisis, the strait’s closure has sent fuel and fertilizer prices soaring, with US farm diesel costing nearly 50% more than it did on the war’s eve in February and various fertilizer products spiking by between one-quarter and one-half.

The war has affected the economies of countries far removed from Iran, as the World Bank reports forecasts that “growth in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is expected to slow to 3.6% this year.”

“The level of per capita income across EMDEs excluding China and India, relative to advanced economies, is not expected to return to the pre-pandemic level until after 2028, implying nearly a decade of lost income convergence,” the international financial institution predicted.

World Bank Group president Ajay Banga said in a statement Thursday that “developing countries have faced a series of challenges over the last decade.”

“The impact differs by country, but the basic test is the same: Protect people and preserve stability today, without giving up on growth and jobs tomorrow,” Banga added. “In response to the current shock, we are providing liquidity where it is needed now – and we are ready with additional financing, guarantees, and private-sector solutions if pressures deepen. Our job is to help countries steady the ship, keep reforms moving, and emerge stronger on the other side.”

The bank said in April that up to $100 billion would be made available over the next 15 months for nations suffering the most acute economic shocks caused by the war.

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Israel And Her Supporters In US Rage Over Peace Deal, Declare Will Not Abide, Enemies Come After Netanyahu

Israeli officials took to social media today to declare they will not abide by President Trump’s ceasefire agreement when it comes specifically to Lebanon. Pro-Israeli influencers and voices in the United States were also upset with the deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s critics used the deal to attack him politically.

Comments are below.

Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir:

Trump’s agreement does not bind us. Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation!

We emphasize: We love the USA and are grateful to President Trump. And yet, the State of Israel is not a banana republic.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:

The agreement with Iran is bad for Israel and for the entire free world. Period.

The joint campaign had many achievements in weakening Iran, and they will not go to waste. 

We will have to continue the campaign to topple the regime ourselves and in creative ways, and ensure that Iran will never have nuclear weapons.

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A Requiem for Privacy

When President Donald Trump appointed an obviously unqualified friend, a home builder executive, to be acting director of national intelligence, he inadvertently triggered attention to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The director of national intelligence is the head of the umbrella agency that gathers intelligence from the 17 federal spying agencies and from that data prepares and delivers the president’s daily briefing. Sec. 702, which permits warrantless spying, expires this month.

Trump prefers to receive his briefings directly from the CIA and its foreign colleagues, leaving the DNI as an appendage with little to do. Nevertheless, the DNI employs hundreds of spies and analysts, and most of them have national security clearances that permit them to view the nation’s most closely guarded secrets and to invade anyone’s privacy.

Section 702 of FISA theoretically permits federal agents to spy without warrants or suspicion on foreign persons. In reality, it is used as a fig leaf to spy on Americans.

A few years ago, Department of Justice lawyers persuaded the FISA court secretly to permit the National Security Agency — America’s domestic spies — to spy on Americans with whom foreign persons communicate; even suspicionless Americans whose communications with foreigners are benign; even Americans removed by six degrees from conversations with foreigners.

Before 9/11, no one in law enforcement was permitted access to data obtained outside the restraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Those restraints prohibit searches and seizures — in the modern parlance, surveillance and data acquisition — without a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime, sworn to under oath. And the warrant itself must specifically describe the places to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

Since 9/11, the wall between surveillance and law enforcement has collapsed even though the feds still maintain that the Fourth Amendment only regulates law enforcement and not surveillance. This wild proposition is defied by the plain language of the amendment, which protects all persons from all government, and by the history of the colonists dealing with British government agents executing general warrants issued by a secret court in London.

Those warrants permitted the bearers to arrest whomever they wished, to search wherever they chose and to seize whatever they found. Under the pretext of looking for evidence of crimes, like failing to comply with the Stamp Act, these agents were truly looking for what the king considered subversive, like a draft of the Declaration of Independence.

James Madison and his colleagues who drafted the Fourth Amendment surely knew that history and shared the near universal colonial revulsion at general warrants. Hence the requirements in the amendment for probable cause of crime sworn to before the warrant-issuing judge, and specificity in the warrant itself.

All of this was crafted to outlaw general warrants, and protect all persons in America from warrantless government assaults and invasions of their “persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

Now, back to FISA. FISA was crafted in reaction to President Richard Nixon’s use of the CIA and FBI for warrantless domestic surveillance purposes. This was spying on Americans — opponents of the Vietnam War and Nixon’s political opponents — which as we all now know came crashing down on Nixon in the Watergate scandal.

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Trump family promotes coins commemorating White House UFC fight

As President Donald Trump prepares to host a UFC fight at the White House this week, his family is promoting a venture aimed at profiting off the spectacle by selling gold coins priced as high as $12,000.

The “Freedom 250”-themed silver and gold medallions feature Trump’s face and are being marketed as a collaboration between the UFC and the Trump Organization, which is run by the president’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr.

The coins, which are being sold in advance of Sunday’s fight, have been dubbed “Trump Coins” on a website that also boasts they were “designed by President Trump.” There are four coins for sale, ranging from a silver one that costs nearly $250 to a $11,999.99 gold medallion whose holder comes with a portrait of Trump and UFC chief Dana White.

The Trump Organization appears only to be licensing the president’s brand for the coins and is not manufacturing or selling them.

But the collaboration marks the Trump family’s latest involvement in efforts to cash in on his return to the White House — and yet another example of the president’s eagerness to put his name on an array of products, events and initiatives related to his administration.

Trump’s sons have licensed his name to promote phones, fragrances, cryptocurrency, golf courses and a range of other business ventures, drawing scrutiny for the unprecedented profits the Trump family has reaped through their close association with the commander in chief.

In response to questions about Trump’s involvement in the coin’s design and marketing, White House spokesman Davis Ingle rejected any suggestion of a conflict of interest.

“The Fake News’ continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read,” he said, adding that “Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public.”

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has talked up the UFC fight for weeks, while closely overseeing the construction of a giant staging area on the White House South Lawn called “The Claw” that now towers over the executive mansion.

And while the event is billed as part of the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, it is also set to take place on Trump’s 80th birthday.

That has prompted a lawsuit filed by two Virginia residents seeking to stop the fight. They argue it will financially benefit White and Trump, citing a report from the spring that Trump bought $50,000 in stock in UFC’s parent company.

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Inflation Reaches 4.2% as Prices Outpace Paychecks

There is a lot of political discourse about “affordability,” but the meaning of the term can be difficult to pin down.

Is it just a jargony way of talking about high nominal prices? Is it really all about housing? Could it be, as President Donald Trump has suggested, a “con job” invented by Democrats to make his administration look bad? Different people will have different answers, and I suspect we will continue to debate those questions through the midterms and into the 2028 presidential cycle.

But probably the most straightforward way to think about the “affordability” question is the relationship between two figures published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): average hourly earnings and the consumer price index. When the former is rising at a faster rate than the latter, the pay for the average worker is rising faster than prices. For that worker, life is getting more affordable.

When inflation is rising faster than wages, however, the opposite is true. And that’s what is happening now.

Wages grew by 3.4 percent over the past year, the BLS reported last week. On Wednesday morning, the BLS reported that inflation has climbed by 4.2 percent over the past 12 months, thanks in large part to a sharp increase in prices (fuel prices, in particular) since the start of the Iran war in March.

With prices rising faster than wages, the BLS also reported on Wednesday that “real average hourly earnings”—that is, wage growth once you account for inflation—were down by 0.3 percent in May.

Averages only get you so far, of course. Some Americans are feeling the sting of inflation more than others, depending on their purchasing habits and lifestyles, and wages are never rising for all workers equally. Still, there’s no getting around it: Life is less affordable now than it was a few months ago—before the Trump administration steered the country into a war of choice in the Middle East.

And, yes, the runaway inflation that America experienced during the first part of President Joe Biden’s term in office was a lot worse than what the country is seeing now. But since early 2023, wage growth had consistently outpaced inflation even as inflation remained above the Federal Reserve’s target annual rate of 2 percent.

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US To Withdraw a THIRD of NATO Fighter Jets, Other Deep Strike Capabilities From Europe: REPORT

Europeans will have to put their money and effort where their big mouths are.

After years of working to counter almost every move by US President Donald J. Trump, the loud-mouth European leaders will have to pick up the slack and fend off for themselves in the defense of their troubled continent.

Reports are arising today of US’ plans to diminish access to military capabilities for NATO ‘allies’, part of its plan to withdraw from the European security architecture.

According to  Euronews, “everything linked to deep strike capabilities will be cut, Euronews has learned. Specifically, this includes US long-range bombers such as the B2 and B-52. Naval assets, including missile-launching submarine and aircraft carriers, will also be withdrawn and re-directed to other theatres.”

The New York Times reported:

“The United States plans to significantly reduce the aircraft and warships that it makes available for NATO operations in Europe, according to two senior European officials, accelerating America’s effort to scale down the protection it has offered to European allies for eight decades.”

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Biden Judge Orders Trump Administration to Restore Slavery, Climate Change Displays at National Parks

A left-wing activist federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to restore propagandistic signs and exhibits related to slavery, climate change, and other contentious historical topics at America’s national parks and monuments across the country.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, a Joe Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction requiring the Interior Department to reinstall the displays within 21 days after ruling that the removals likely violated federal law.

The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of conservation, historical, and scientific organizations, including the National Parks Conservation Association and the American Association for State and Local History.

In her ruling, Kelley said the administration had removed materials that “do not align with its preferred narrative,” and claimed that doing so undermined the integrity of the national park system.

“Removing these signs not only undermines the integrity of the National Parks; it sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization,” Kelley wrote.

The dispute stems from a March 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to eliminate what the administration described as “false revision of history” in parks, monuments, and memorials.

The White House pointed out that the exhibits portrayed the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed” and ordered a review of educational materials displayed at federal sites.

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Trump Develops Plan to Get His First Term Impeachments Expunged: ‘I Did Nothing Wrong’

President Donald Trump is reportedly seeking to have the two impeachments from his first term expunged from the congressional record through a resolution.

“It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump said when asked about the resolution in a phone call, The Wall Street Journal reported. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.”

The Democrat-led House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump in December 2019, saying he had wrongfully tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by delaying aid money, into investigating Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden for alleged corruption involving millions of dollars.

Zelenskyy said at the time he felt no pressure from Trump, and he opened no investigation into the Bidens, and the aid money was delivered on time before the end of the 2019 fiscal year.

In January 2021, the Democrat-led House impeached Trump again, claiming he incited the January 6 Capitol incursion.

At a “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on January 6, the president stated, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

The Senate voted not to convict Trump following both House impeachments.

The Wall Street Journal reported, “The effort to ‘expunge’ Trump’s impeachments fits with a wider campaign to erase black marks on his record. His lawyers are trying to overturn his criminal conviction for falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star, and they are seeking to reverse unfavorable civil rulings.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson told the news outlet that he has discussed the resolution with Trump.

“I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” Johnson said, noting that the conversations about the resolution picked up about a month ago. “We were saying it at the time, now we know. And they make a very compelling case that it should be expunged from the record, because it was a hyperpartisan attack job.”

Just the News reported in April that Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz argued that Trump does have grounds to have the 2019 impeachment expunged based on documents recently released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

“It’s never been done. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done,” said Dershowitz, who represented Trump during the Senate impeachment trial in early 2020.

“But I have to tell you one thing, history will expunge it already based on your work, because what you’ve done is you’ve created so much doubt about the credibility of the main accuser that it’s hard for anybody to sit back now and say that was a just, a just impeachment, but I don’t know that there’s going to be any remedy,” he added. “Maybe we should try to create one.”

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