The vast majority of countries have barriers preventing our highly efficient production from selling in their countries. Think Argentina and meats, Switzerland and all things cattle, EU and pretty much everything.
Tariffs were one way to pry open those markets, but of course, the few agricultural products that were already selling , were affected in the retailiation . It will take some time for things to sort out.
Not surprisingly most countries want to be self sufficient with food production, so tarifs on food imports makes sense.
Unfortunately though I don't think US tarifs are the solution here. Leaving aside that antagonizing the end-consumer seems unproductive (eg canada) there's also a perception in Europe that US food products (especially meat) are of low quality.
Whether that perception US true or not US immaterial. (My own visits to the US and experience of US food would suggest the US optimizes for quantity not quality, but anecdotes are not data.)
Much of the barrier with exporting beef are the higher food standards, and documentation, required in Europe. Lowering the standards doesn't seem to be politically acceptable either.
Click on the meeting, where you will land on a download landpage. Then click the big download blue button in the center of the screen. WHen you click it a link will appear in the 2nd row below the blue button, something like "continue from browser", click on that, and you are golden
every once in a while, someone will ask me to screenshare on a shared monitor, then i will have to explain i cannot , because i am on zoom browser.
Its always great to see the reactions that gathers. Its a true rainbow: bemusement, curiosity, exasperation, outright suspicion...and everything in between!
The tobacco companies like RJR, packed with scientiests researching how to make cigarrettes more addictive, were trojaned into mass food companies like Nabisco [1]
It should not be a surprise that there's been a relentless pursuit of addictive food ever since.
This is the Ron Paul position and its a solid one.
The non-intervention principle applies if you are not actively suffering intervention.
The flaw however, is that applying non-intervention in this instance, is choosing to ignore the real, direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM + US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows Maduro, may be worse.
If I'm getting poked by a neighbor for years and i finally punch back, punching is a valid response. If the neighbor then comes back later and shoots me with a gun, it doesn't mean that my self-defense act was invalid.
> The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or head of state to head of municipal government or head of a chivalric order. As a result, the word sovereignty has more recently also come to mean independence or autonomy.
It isn't necessarily just a non-interventionist stance. Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things, not whoever is doing currently doing it.
> Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
> People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things
Why would people who don't want Trump doing it want an Eisenhower doing it? He helped overthrow democratically elected Árbenz in Guatemala with even weaker justifications than Trump overthrowing Maduro (Maduro at least seems to lack popular support and probably cheated in elections).
Eisenhower:
Overthrow of Árbenz to protect fruit company profits > series of military dictators > 30+ years of civil war where the US-backed government committed a genocide against Maya people
You are 100% right in all your assertions, and still miss the point.
I'm in agreement with everything you said, but none of it applies.
The US (or any other country) should never intervene due to a "bad person" or "illegitimate" or "dictator"
Instead, US intervened because the policies of Maduro directly led to the flight of 8M causing harms to many countries in LATAM, and US.
If a dictator was not actively enforcing policies that made foreign innocent (bystanders!) neighbors hurt or destitute, then your argument would apply
It was not a war bullet that have killed random Chileans, or Ecuadoreans or Americans. But nevertheless, there have been hundreds of venezuelan bullets (and drugs) kiling everyday civilians. The act of aggression exists (exporting hardened criminals and economic destitutes abroad) .
That was the casus belli. The US just happened to respond in force, when other countries couldn't.
I’m not disputing the right of the U.S. to intervene. I’m saying that we should call this “intervention” what it is — an act of war. It doesn’t matter what the cause or impetus for the act is; we need to stop pretending that forceful, military-based aggression into sovereign land (regardless of who the leader of that land is) is anything other than an act of war.
I suppose my argument is then that war was already happening, and it was declared by Chavez/Maduron on most of LATAM and USA, the moment they decided to export their problems (drugs, criminals, destitutes), into LATAM and USA, hurting our citizens.
You could make a moral argument for it. But we should NOT support that. And i think the US framers were clear on this topic.
Personally, I would say no.
However, a country persecuting its citizens doesn't bode well for the neighbor's citizens own security or well being, which is usually why it often leads to some form of govt vs govt war.
A government should not act with force until its own citizens are suffering, meaning, if brazilians themselves were hurt because of US policy.
Regardless of your opinion of maduro, you can still acknowledge that if the head of a sovereign state enacts policies that result in the mass emigration of 8M to neighboring countries, destabilizing all of them [1],[2] in the process, exporting criminal enterprises, any affected head of the affected government certainly has casus belli on said head of state.
The policy of no aggression applies. If a government, thru its actions (or inactions) causes massive aggression and hurt on your own people, then its your *duty* as elected official, to stop it and protect your citizens
Self-defense is literally the most important mandate a government can have.
Amusingly what you described translates to USA actions if you are from a country in the middle east. For example did you know that there are at least 5M emigrants of Afghanistan in Iran?
Not arguing about other nations actions, just a reminder that if you apply many western logic indiscriminately, the resulting bad actors are very different.
Unfortunately, everyday Americans' security is deeply impacted by the clowns with office desks in DC, since the 1990s.
It's not lost on me that I may lose living relatives living in the US because of Kissinger playing RISK for a living, back in the day.
Just as the clowns in government made horrible decisions and should potentially be legally in jeopardy for them, I can also say they are getting the venezuela one, right (at least for now).
The reasons for doing something and public justification, aka casus belli, are different things. Casus belli makes it cheaper to execute, but reasons are what actually drives them.
The clowns and the reasons that drive them are the same for Middle East and Venezuela. Does it make it any better that they happened to have a casus belli that you or I may sympathesize with, given that the reasons not in line with our values? Even a broken clock is right once a day.
The difference between casus belly and a state of war is:
Casus Belli is a 1-time event, whereas
State of War means ongoing action that is bellicose in nature.
So i chose my words wrong.
I'd argue that a state of war already existed, well before the events in the gulf. It just didn't involve formal military movements.
I think there were that many immigrants. I don’t believe they are so many living there now. Iran demonstrated pretty conclusively that mass repatriation is completely possible if you have a government that actually wishes to do so.
Great question. Let’s take a deep dive on money. Getting $100 at the right time can be a game-changer! It’s not only a store of value — it’s a means of exchange!
Tariffs were one way to pry open those markets, but of course, the few agricultural products that were already selling , were affected in the retailiation . It will take some time for things to sort out.
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