Tariffs, Tarrifs, Tarrifs!

[Animavore]

The US has done their best to fuck up South American countries. I don't think they have any grounds to complain.

Prepare for many more as the climate worsens. And thank your fuckwitted government for their inaction and deliberate exasperation of the problem when it happens.

[Rum]

The world does seem to be going to hell in hand-basket after a peak in ‘improvements’ in conditions in less developed areas. I used to be optimistic that technology, education, improved governance and birth control might be enough of a brake on the hurtling towards disaster. Now I’m not so sure.

To wit, the story today about new outbreaks of Ebola and other diseases and a decreasing ability to deal with them because conditions on the ground are deteriorating. Where’s Crumple when you need him?

Here: Large Ebola outbreaks new normal, says WHO https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48547983

—
So why are modern outbreaks so much bigger?
"We are entering a very new phase of high impact epidemics and this isn't just Ebola," Dr Michael Ryan, the executive director of the WHO's health emergencies programme told me.
He said the world is "seeing a very worrying convergence of risks" that are increasing the dangers of diseases including Ebola, cholera and yellow fever.
He said climate change, emerging diseases, exploitation of the rainforest, large and highly mobile populations, weak governments and conflict were making outbreaks more likely to occur and more likely to swell in size once they did.

[Animavore]

QED

It's one of the paradoxes of climate change that those who contributed the least towards the problem will suffer the most. That's why we need climate justice going forward which includes reparations and aid.

Don't expect that from any racist right-wing government who will probably welcome the loss of millions of brown people. The cynical part of me thinks this might be the plan.

[Seabass]

Well, the Mexicans are falling over themselves to cut a deal before the tariffs actually bite. First time they've ever taken the border situation seriously. O'Bammy could talk up a fucking storm, and the Mexicans nodded their heads and said "Si, Si, we're working on it", and then did exactly fuck all. Trump threatens tarriffs and suddenly there's a high level delegation in D.C. to "discuss" this issue? Discuss what? How about you stop letting literally hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens march through your country completely unrestricted, so long as they're swiming the Rio Grande and not taking up residence in Tijuana. Exactly what the fuck are we supposed to do? Make up the fucking couch? Give them a burrito and a green card? NOBODY else on the planet allows this sort of unregulated, illegal immigration, not any country in Europe, not any country in Africa, nor Asia, but we're supposed to because.....Trump? FFS. 133,000 last month, and that's just who they caught. You know goddamn well that's 10-15% of the total, so we're looking at several million uneducated, unskilled, peasant farmers crossing the borders every year. How is any coutry supposed to deal with that? The Hondurans don't want them, the Guatemalans don't want them, the Mexicans sure as hell don't want them, so they just send them north. Fuck that, not our circus, not our monkeys. I don't mind buying Florida avocados, and I grow my own limes. Fuck Mexico. Sort your shit out, esse.

He got them to... schedule a meeting? Wow! The master deal-maker does it again! Sure, we're rapidly turning the planet into an uninhabitable shithole, but at least there will be fewer brown people in the US...

[JimC]

I'd suggest that the problem isn't the border, or even that people want to get into the US, but that the places these people are coming from are, to coin a phrase, 'shithole countries.' All the US is doing is trying to put a bandaid on an ever-expanding puddle of blood.

That is probably true, but it is not something that the US can have much effect on...

[Brian Peacock]

I'd suggest that the problem isn't the border, or even that people want to get into the US, but that the places these people are coming from are, to coin a phrase, 'shithole countries.' All the US is doing is trying to put a bandaid on an ever-expanding puddle of blood.

That is probably true, but it is not something that the US can have much effect on...

Not singlehandedly in the short term perhaps. But in the long term, internationally through coordinated efforts it is just a matter of political will. Somehow I don't think Trump, the GOP, or the Dems are going to be big on recognising the common humanity that would require.

[laklak]

Yeah they're shithole countries. Yeah, the U.S. fucked around in Central and South America. But the question remains, exactly WTF are we supposed to do about it now? We can't fix their shitholes, we can't financially support them, we can't let everyone in who wants to come in. It's great to criticise and feel all superior from 5000 miles away, safe in your countries that have immigration laws just as restrictive (and in many cases far more restrictive) than ours, regulations that are far more rigorously enforced. Until you're dealing with literally millions of illegal immigrants flooding across your borders you've got little justification for criticism.

If you're so worried about the humanitarian "crisis" why don't you lobby your government to let them in? We'll pay the shipping charges.

[Tero]

Let's just send them straight to Canada. Cunt can fix them up with some hunting and gathering. State supplies free wheat first 5 years. Meanwhile, we turn in to docile GMO corn, soy, chicken and pig consumers. Until nature punishes Monsanto.

[laklak]

Looks like the Mexicans caved.

It ain't stupid if it works.

[Animavore]

. It's great to criticise and feel all superior from 5000 miles away, safe in your countries that have immigration laws just as restrictive (and in many cases far more restrictive) than ours, regulations that are far more rigorously enforced. Until you're dealing with literally millions of illegal immigrants flooding across your borders you've got little justification for criticism.

This is fucking hilarious. There's literally a whole thing in Europe of Europeans shitting themselves, believing in a big, scary brown takeover, the way you believe in such. Only with Middle Easterns instead of Mexicans.

[Tero]

The deal is a trade deal. Trump is advertising it as an immigration deal.

[Animavore]

White men in a foreign land talking about walls to keep out natives.

[laklak]

I'm a native. Born here. Whatever happened isn't my fault, and I don't owe anyone anything because of what a bunch of Spaniards and Brits and Scots and Irish and Poles and Germans and Swedes et. al. did centuries before I was born. This isn't 'Nam, there are rules.

Why is securing our borders any different than every other country in the world doing exactly the same thing? Immigrating to the U.S. is no harder or more onerous than immigrating to any European country. I can't just up sticks and move to Germany or the UK, and I sure as hall can't sneak across the Irish border and expect a warm welcome from the locals.

And it is an immigration deal, not a trade deal, at least according to the LA Times (hardly a pro-Trump rag).

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-po ... story.html

[Tero]

In practice, the deal does nothing on immigrants:
The Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, mocked the agreement on Twitter, saying that since the president claimed to have solved the migrant crisis, “I’m sure we won’t be hearing any more about it in the future.”

In a statement Saturday, Schumer said the deal "is likely to have only a small impact on solving the root causes of Central American migration because many of the components are things Mexico is already doing.
USA Today

[laklak]

Maybe they'll start doing what they claim they're already doing? Like stopping hundreds of thousands of illegals to transit their country.

I think that people who support unrestricted immigration should offer to take in migrant families. Put their money where their mouth (and neighborhood) is.