Michael Cohen - The Infomercial Presidency Hits Riyadh
Let me take you back to something Donald Trump said—bragged about—when we first kicked off the 2016 election cycle. “This is going to be the greatest infomercial in the history of U.S. politics,” he boasted, flashing that smug Cheshire grin to a room of sycophants—myself included. At the time, I thought it was classic Trump hyperbole: loud, crude, attention-grabbing. But I was wrong. He wasn’t kidding. It wasn’t a metaphor. He meant it. And now, nearly a decade later, we’re living through the sequel to The Apprentice: The Presidency Edition, except this time, the cost isn’t just measured in dollars, but in national integrity, global credibility, and American livelihoods.
Let’s talk about China.
In April, Trump puffed out his chest and declared he was not like the presidents before him. No more caving to China. No more fake toughness. They are ripping us off like no one has ever seen before. He promised big, beautiful tariffs that would force Xi Jinping to heel—swore there would be no blinking, no bluffing. Fast forward thirty days later, and guess what? The man folded like a cheap suit made in—where else?—China. As The Atlantic recently laid out, Trump’s big trade war bluff was called, and guess who won? Spoiler: it wasn’t the American worker.
The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. importers are now scrambling, warning of a summer filled with price hikes and product shortages. Shelves are about to go bare at big-box stores across the country, and the tariff tit-for-tat is already hitting U.S. consumers right in the wallet. According to The New York Times, corporate CEOs who once kissed the MAGA ring are now fuming behind closed doors as supply chains fray and margins shrink.
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/the-infomercial-presidency-hits-riyadh