MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
EU claims Trump administration has downgraded the block's diplomatic status
EU says the US government has changed the bloc's diplomatic status in Washington, in practice downgrading it. The Trump administration did not notify the EU about the change. The EU has asked the US to explain the move, EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic says. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesOh dear what a shame, shame on you America, he says with tongue in cheek
Jan 09th, 2019 - 10:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0I just love the Eurocrat and indignation shock: “...but, but, but he was called up as the last...”
Jan 09th, 2019 - 01:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0An insult to the EU is an insult the members, I wonder if they'll retaliate in some equally minor diplomatic way? Perhaps they'll downgrade US representation until they get their government running again.
Jan 09th, 2019 - 02:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Chicureo, I meant to ask you before. What happens if Bolsonaro 'seeks supremacy in South America' by invading a few neighbours? Could Brazil succeed?
DemonTree
Jan 09th, 2019 - 04:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Mercedes, BMW and Audi-VW would not like that attitude... Unfortunately for the Europeans, they're hardly in unison as the once firm hand of Germany and France is now unable to resolve their own internal affairs. Although Donald Tusk was able to viciously bludgeon May in Brexit negotiations, Trump (after finishing spanking China) will eventually turn his Nationalist focus on the EU making them absolutely miserable. (No, I don't agree with that, but that's the plan.)
I'm fascinated about the UK's biggest trading partner is the USA.
* * * * * *
“Bolsonaro 'seeks supremacy in South America' by invading a few neighbours?”
No way in Hell, with the exception than a possible participation in a UN peacekeeping post-Maduro failed Venezuela state. They do however have an impressive overall military force, the largest in Latin America, but they're weak regarding fighter jets due to high level corruption. (Reference the Dassault Rafale and the Saab Gripen Brazilian telenovelas.)
@Chicureo
Jan 09th, 2019 - 04:59 pm - Link - Report abuse -1But as we've established, Mercedes, BMW and Audi-VW do not rule the EU; nor should they.
And if the US ever becomes our biggest trading partner it will be because we have cut ourselves off from trade with nearer countries. Not a smart move. I would not like to see our trade become dominated by one country like the US or China, it gives them far too much power over us.
“No way in Hell”
Glad to hear it. I expect Bolso will have his hands full with the civil war, judging by events in Fortaleza.
DemonTree
Jan 09th, 2019 - 05:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Oh yes they do! Even the state owned companies wield considerable power over your politicians. Besides individual nations, the Council of the EU is also one of the most impenetrable and murky institutions of Europe.
Quick search on the internet:
These are America's top trading partners for 2017, ranked by total exchange of goods:
China – $636 billion.
Canada – $582.4 billion.
Mexico – $557 billion.
Japan – $204.2 billion.
Germany – $171.2 billion.
South Korea – $119.4 billion.
United Kingdom – $109.4 billion. (UK Exports to United States: $59.2 billion)
France – $82.5 billion.
Nah, if they did they would have forced the EU to give us a good deal, the way lots of Brexiters promised would happen. Those car manufacturers are going to lose a lot of money due to the hard Brexit.
Jan 09th, 2019 - 09:36 pm - Link - Report abuse -1What's so murky about the European Council? It's just the head of government of each member state.
Re America's trading partners, seems to be a list of nearby countries and big economies. No surprises there.
With lots of officially registered lobbyists:
Jan 09th, 2019 - 10:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.integritywatch.eu/lobbyist.html
Seems like May is going to fail in her proposal. I really think the Eurocrats have really screwed the British and it does not end well for anyone.
So does every national government, it's a pointless criticism. The EU has a much better track record of passing laws to benefit consumers than individual countries, even big ones like the US.
Jan 09th, 2019 - 11:39 pm - Link - Report abuse -1And what do you think the 'Eurocrats' could have done differently since the referendum to avoid 'screwing' us?
The Eurocrats ruthlessly negotiated like Joachim von Ribbentrop against Neville Chamberlain, who as you know historically returned to London explaining that he negotiated successfully. The parallel of Tusk and May is ironic.
Jan 10th, 2019 - 12:59 am - Link - Report abuse 0“Chicureo, I meant to ask you before. What happens if Bolsonaro 'seeks supremacy in South America' by invading a few neighbours? Could Brazil succeed?” Maybe you should try it out...
Jan 10th, 2019 - 07:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11223/operacao-littorio
@Chicureo
Jan 10th, 2019 - 09:33 am - Link - Report abuse 0Chamberlain's alternative was to go to war. Are you proposing May should have threatened the same as Hitler?
Anyway, you haven't answered the question. I don't expect you to know the essentials, since Brexit has no effect on you, but an uninformed opinion is not worth anything.
@imoyaro
Heh, perfect. How would the Paraguayan government react if Brazil sent some troops a liitle way over the border to stop smugglers or arrest their own criminal gangs?
DemonTree
Jan 10th, 2019 - 03:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Forgive this poorly educated Latino mestizo for making a feeble attempt to answer an earlier question by my progressive superior.
Despite my obvious intellectual deficiencies, I might point out to you that some of us inferior third-world underlings are fairly enlightened on international affairs.
My “uninformed not worth anything opinion” is that Chamberlain's alternative was instead to aggressively negotiate using a wider strategy using the other policies he had available to him.
A half-breed Englishman had an interesting perspective worth revisiting...
“How erroneous Mr. Chamberlain’s private and earnest reasoning appears when we cast our minds forward to the guarantee he was to give to Poland within a year, after all the strategic value of Czechoslovakia had been cast away, and Hitler’s power and prestige had almost doubled!”
—Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, 1948
Well since you asked, in the game Paraguay is in a 3 way alliance with Uruguay and Argentina. An attack on one would trigger all three. ( The game was published in 1976.) There is also a nuclear option, as the Argentines had a a bomb program back then, and Brazil is assumed to easily be able to build one. Good times!
Jan 10th, 2019 - 05:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@Chicureo
Jan 10th, 2019 - 06:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Nicely dodged, you should have been a politician. ;) Which puts me in the position of Jeremy Paxman, so... the question was what the EU negotiators could have done differently to achieve a more satisfactory resolution?
@imoyaro
I saw a Brazilian online say that if they conquered South America, they'd let us keep the Falklands just to piss off Argentina. But actually I meant what would happen in real life?
As Stalin said, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” A perspective by Paul Joseph Watson why Macron is screwed because les déplorables have figured out the EU does not represent the will of the people.
Jan 10th, 2019 - 07:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xQIO8KR5z0U&time_continue=434&ebc=ANyPxKot-tAGsD98VKemAMU5BtBjfK9lw6fhf6odwt6CVwIqshJYjfE4dc60mnd6mwBs9CkFoy5AKw1HX_TdIrn4Nr9TPbP4bQ
I didn't think you'd be able to answer.
Jan 10th, 2019 - 07:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 0PS. Before the referendum some people (probably based in St Petersberg) were spreading rumours the vote would be rigged to make sure Remain won. It wasn't.
DemonTree
Jan 10th, 2019 - 10:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0No, you are not understanding what I was perhaps poorly explaining: the UK has been screwed by the EU. I was not referring to polls on wanting to leave or stay.
Whatever your politicians decide, I humbly think will result badly for your country.
Tough hard and stubborn, unkind, unpredictable and cunning negotiation can result with breaking your opposition. Trump right now has outragiously shut down a large percentage of the US government over one point of disagreement with the Democrats. In the end, Trump will win because he's brutal just like Tusk was with May.
I admire and like the UK. I've repeatedly vacationed and taken 2 naval training assignments there. Generally very polite and civil people and that's your problem. It really saddens me that your country has been Eurocratically screwed.
No, you're not getting it. I wasn't talking about polls either. Negotiation is not magic. The EU did not do anything cunning; they have been extremely predictable. They simply have more leverage, and that's all there is to it. Probably someone else could have done a little better than May, but there was no good outcome possible. The very highest imperative for the EU was ensuring members get a better deal than non-members; it's a matter of survival for the union.
Jan 11th, 2019 - 02:30 am - Link - Report abuse 0If Chile negotiated with the EU, I'm sure you wouldn't bitch and moan when they put their own interests first. Yet the Brexiters think they can be outside the EU and not be treated as a non-EU country. They need to realise that Brexit means Brexit.
DemonTree
Jan 11th, 2019 - 01:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“...Probably someone else could have done a little better...”
“...there was no good outcome possible...”
Defeatist excuses for inept negotiations.
What you needed was a ruthless and brutal negotiation team.
Chicureo DT is what we term as a Remoaner. They all suffer from the same affliction....
Jan 11th, 2019 - 10:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7055100/middle-class-remoaners-so-upset-by-brexit-theyve-developed-a-psychological-disorder-top-doctors-warn/
We should have started from the position that we were just leaving and started from there. As it is we gave kow towed and landed up with a dog's breakfast.
The majority voted to leave, we are leaving.
The Voice - DemonTree
Jan 12th, 2019 - 02:06 am - Link - Report abuse 0Lyrics of a song of my generation, that perhaps you've heard:
“Take me in, O gentle woman.
Take me in, for heaven’s sake.
Take me in, O gentle woman,
cried the vicious snake.”
Sounds just like how Tusk negotiated with May...
I feel sorry for the UK...
The affliction Remainers suffer from is the same one the non-socialists did in Chile in the 70s - seeing your compatriots enthusiastically vote to f*ck up your country.
Jan 12th, 2019 - 10:52 am - Link - Report abuse 0All you needed was a ruthless and brutal negotiation team to stop America ruining your economy, right, Chicureo?
I've been talking to my friend who's a HGV driver; he said a hard Brexit is gonna completely screw the haulage industry, and I won't repeat what he said about the Brexit voters.
Ay Chicureo, Tusk and drunkard Mayor of Trumpton Juncker, an axis of unelected evil if ever there was one. A Nottingham based HGV driver doesnt like Brexiteers, so what? The EU f** d the UK over 40 years, thats why we are leaving.
Jan 12th, 2019 - 12:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0No they didn't, we're leaving because a bunch of fatcat unelected newspaper owners lied to you and you believed it. And my friend is based in Grimsby.
Jan 12th, 2019 - 12:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Grim sby, sez it all. Unlike you, I make up my own mind after 40 years awful experience of the Superstate. You have known nothing else and cant concieve of anything different or better.
Jan 12th, 2019 - 01:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Freedom!
Oh yeah, it's been so awful having money and influence, getting all the benefits of the single market without having to use the Euro or sign up to Schengen, and even getting a rebate on the membership fees. I can totally see why you want to go back to a time when Britain was the sick man of Europe, while France and Germany raced ahead.
Jan 12th, 2019 - 06:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0May's negotiations with the EU were not an anomaly, that is what happens when a medium-sized country negotiates with a much larger block. We can expect to get equally screwed if we try to make a deal with the US or China. Get used to it.
DemonTree
Jan 12th, 2019 - 08:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“All you needed was a ruthless and brutal negotiation team to stop America ruining your economy, right, Chicureo?”
Seriously...
First: I was educated at a British-Chilean school, trained in a naval academy modeled after a British model and was stationed two separate tours there in England. I actually greatly like and admire the UK. I sympathize with your side.
Allende and Pinochet were both economically brutalized 1969-onwards by the overpowering powerful behemoth USA. They had by far weaker negotiation advantages than the Czechoslovaks had against Nazi Germany in 1938.
Germany's political influence is substantially weakening and France is in near revolution! Macron and Merkel are now paper tigers.
However in your country's case, the UK has enormous political/military/economical negotiable weapons to bring the Globalist Eurocrats to their knees. You just needed a vicious/cunning/take no prisoners/Nationalist b*stard/b*tch PM to fight them.
Brexit or no Brexit, Tusk and his band of Eurocrats sadly f*cked your nation.
Like I said, your politicians are too civilized, gentle and polite.
“I was educated at a British-Chilean school, trained in a naval academy modeled after a British model and was stationed two separate tours there in England. I actually greatly like and admire the UK. I sympathize with your side.”
Jan 12th, 2019 - 10:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0But you still think we're weak. Do tell us how you could have done any better, Mr Macho Chilean.
PS. The US backed Pinochet, they were very helpful once you sold out to them.
DemonTree
Jan 13th, 2019 - 01:50 am - Link - Report abuse 0You need to revisit your history, Richard Nixon did indeed do everything to support our coup d'état in 1973 and then he was impeached in 1974. Pinochet then received tepid support at best through the administration of Gerald Ford until Jimmy Carter as elected in 1976. Then, we became a human rights pariah according to the Americans and we were again severely punished. The British meanwhile saved our proverbial asses and we greatly reciprocated in 1982.
The Brexit negotiations is are above my pay grade, but it would be the ruthless method: if you're familiar with the TV series Billions...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MfC54kLXNQg
Bobby Axelrod sets them up and then causes the deal to collapse breaking the carefully negotiated agreement. He later on wins. The focus to win at any cost, he never settles on losing. He never planned on allowing them to cash the check.
The UK will become a better place when it makes its own laws, control's its own borders and fusheries and trades with whosoever it wants on terms it negotiates. Leaving the dying protectionist undemocratic Superstate will revitalise Britain increase productivity and the tax take and enable us to fund schools, the health service and the police force properly.
Jan 13th, 2019 - 05:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@Chicureo
Jan 14th, 2019 - 09:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0What you've got to realise is that the EU holds all the cards. Either we agree to their red lines or there is no deal. It's not about clever techniques or ruthlessness, but who has the power to walk away. Better leverage in bargaining is one of the purposes of the union. As for your ATM video analogy, it amounts to threatening violence in order to get our way, something the loonier Brexiters would no doubt get behind. I think and hope that you have more sense - just look how it worked out for Hitler.
@TV
Why not just elect Corbyn? Getting rid of the dying austerity-ridden elitist Tories will revitalise Britain, increase productivity and the tax take, and enable us to fund schools, the health service and the police force properly.
DemonTree
Jan 14th, 2019 - 11:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I just feel sorry for the UK.
So do I. You don't believe TV's big promises then?
Jan 14th, 2019 - 11:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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