Liar-in-Chief Trump

All politicians lie, heads of state most notably because their prominent positions reach a large audience and get widespread media coverage.

Trump exceeds the worst of his predecessors, operating in bad faith, never to be trusted.

He broke virtually all positive pledges made to ordinary Americans, ones he doesn’t give a hoot about, treating them with contempt.

His MAGA agenda is all about serving wealth, power, and privileged interests exclusively, waging wars of aggression, color revolution attempts, and coup plots, aiming to replace legitimate governments with US-controlled puppet regimes.

Virtually nothing he says is credible. It’s simple to know when he’s lying. Read his lips.

Following G7 summit talks in Biarritz, France, he held a news conference with French President Macron.

His remarks featured a litany of meaningless mumbo-jumbo misinformation. Despite three days of talks achieving nothing, Trump called the summit “truly successful”—defying reality.

He falsely claimed “[t]here was tremendous unity…great unity… We were accomplishing a lot…(W)e were getting along very well.”

A separate article called G7 summits talking shop theater on the world stage alone, things agreed on arranged well in advance by senior and lower level officials.

Macron is widely reviled in France. Months earlier, his approval rating sank to 23%. Endless weeks of anti-neoliberal Yellow Vest protests highlight public disdain for his extremist pro-war, anti-social justice agenda.

Trump falsely called him “a spectacular leader.” He describes some of the world’s most ruthless despots the same way—notably the Saudi regime and Israel’s Netanyahu.

Asked if he’s concerned that his trade war with China can harm the global economy, Trump said “they want to make a deal very badly.”

President Xi wants an equitable deal respectful of China’s sovereign rights. He rejects unacceptable Trump regime demands—unlikely to soften enough to matter ahead, making the prospect for a deal unlikely ahead of the US November 2020 presidential and congressional elections.

Time and again, Trump exhibits geopolitical and economic ignorance. He fails to understand China’s steadfastness, its unwillingness to accept unreasonable US demands harming its own.

He falsely said “the longer they wait, the harder it is to” make a deal. They’re very doable when equitable to both sides—not the other way around with China for sure, the one-way type deal Trump regime hardliners seek.

He bragged about waging tariffs war, failing to acknowledge or understand harm done to the US and global economy.

“[I]f you look at the goods coming in from China, we’re talking about China, not other countries, if you look at the goods, they have a power that others don’t have, but that power is only good for so long,” he roared.

He falsely blamed Beijing for corporate America having offshored thousands of facilities to China and other low-wage countries, millions of US jobs lost by their actions.

He exaggerated changes in China’s currency. Most of what he said was misinformation and disinformation.

Example: “It’s a brilliant, brilliant market. The world market. A lot of markets are brilliant. And frankly, I think that China cannot, I don’t know, but maybe they can, maybe they can’t. I don’t think…they’re going to be able to compete.”

China’s model is very competitive, its economy growing. The larger it becomes, the lower the rate. No nations can sustain annual near-double-digit growth rates like China did for years.

Its economy is too mature to sustain this rapid pace, its growth rate still way outpacing the US and other Western nations—the country heading toward becoming the world’s largest economy one day, a key reason why the US wants its development undermined.

Trump falsely claimed China may sustain millions of lost jobs, adding it’s “going to be magnified many times over, and it’s going to break down the Chinese system of trade.”

“…I think they want to make a deal. I’m not sure they have a choice.”

Beijing clearly has a choice it’ll surely take—to do nothing harming its development by accepting unacceptable US demands.

Trump doesn’t understand what may become crystal clear if his wrongheaded China policy thrusts the US and global economies into a stiff recession, making him a one-term president.

China want an end to US bullying. It firmly rejects anything smacking of submission to hostile US demands.

At the G7 summit over the past weekend, Trump said Chinese officials called Washington “twice” about resuming trade talks.

On Tuesday, the South China Morning Post reported that Beijing’s Foreign Ministry knows nothing about any weekend phone calls, explaining that contact between both countries is only at a “technical level.”

It’s unclear if or when trade talks will resume. Trump’s misinformation is further proof of his serial lying.

In June 2018, a Washington Post fact-checker tallied nearly 3,300 false statements from Trump since taking office. At that pace, he’d lie about 10,000 times by end of his term in January 2021.

Last April, the estimate was revised much higher. The broadsheet’s fact-checker tallied 10,111 falsehoods from Trump in 828 days—an astonishing total, likely way exceeding any of his predecessors, maybe all of them combined over a comparable period.

It bears testimony to someone never to be trusted. China’s Commerce Ministry said its last contact with a Trump regime official was on August 13.

Teams from both countries had 12 rounds of high-level talks since spring 2018—accomplishing nothing.

Each time agreement seemed possible, the Trump regime raised the bar, falsely blaming China for its own bad faith.

Its official People’s Daily broadsheet said Trump fails to understand China’s determination to resist unacceptable White House demands, adding:

“Any attempts to force China to make concessions through extreme pressure will be in vain.”

Hostile US tactics against the country are all about wanting its development as a world power undermined—unrelated to the trade deficit favoring China, a Trump regime smokescreen, concealing its real objectives Beijing understands clearly.

On Monday, China’s Vice Premier/chief negotiator Liu He said “[w]e are willing to resolve the issue through consultations and cooperation with a calm attitude and resolutely oppose the escalation of the trade war.”

Beijing intends to stay the course for as long as it takes to preserve and protect its sovereign rights.

On issues mattering most, it won’t sacrifice them to unacceptable hegemonic US demands.

A final comment

Asked about Iran, Trump repeated long ago debunked US Big Lies about the country. State terror globally is how the US operates, not the Islamic Republic.

Some of Trump’s biggest Big Lies are about nonbelligerent/good neighbor Iran, seeking cooperative relations with other countries, threatening none.

He lied about an Iranian nuclear threat that doesn’t exist and never did. He lied about its (legitimate) ballistic missile program—solely for self-defense.

He lied about its threat to Israel and other nations. Unlike the US, Iran fulfills its international obligations.

President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif made clear that no talks with the Trump regime will be held unless it returns to the JCPOA nuclear deal and lifts all illegally imposed sanctions.

It surely won’t happen as long as hardline extremists Pompeo and Bolton run Trump’s geopolitical agenda.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.