Economics Matters — Blog/Podcast/Financial Riddler/MaxiFi Puzzler
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There is something rotten, something that smells of treason, in the hidden, not-for-We-the-People-to-see Iranian MOU, which Trump is dispatching his lickspittle, J.D. Vance, to sign in Geneva on Friday. Why else would Trump refuse to make his grand bargain public?
If he doesn’t trust the American people or our 535 members of Congress to take a look, who does he trust? Answer: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard. They, of course, have seen the MOU. From the sound of it, they dictated each and every word of the vast one-page document.
You can’t say much in one page. But that’s plenty of space to give away the store, which is precisely what Trump appears to have done.
Trump’s game, of course, is to make this deal a fait accompli – something that we’re stuck with before we know what we’re stuck with. Neville Chamberlain delivered one of those in Munich when he handed Hitler much of Czechoslovakia on a platter. No disclosure, no debate, no vote in Parliament. He just grabbed a plane to Munich and signed a pact dictated then and there by Hitler. When he returned, he headed straight for 10 Downing Street, where he addressed the public via reporters and newsreel cameramen.
My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time…
Churchill described matters differently.
You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.** *** *
Trump has spent the last four months publicly proclaiming the Iranians were “dying to make a deal.” Each of his 40 such pronouncements was pathetic acts of begging our enemy to let our country surrender. The begging got worse as Trump’s 80th birthday approached. He became frantic to receive a birthday present — a signing on his birthday. When a physical signing wasn’t possible, he arranged to have the pact DocuSigned on his 80th. So, the deal’s done, but it’s still being kept from us until J.D. holds it triumphantly in the air this Friday in Geneva. Maybe he’ll quote Chamberlain.
The Iranians know they are dealing with a 10-year-old who will turn 9 in a year. And, rumor has it, Trump’s deal is worse than anyone could imagine. In particular, Iran is set to receive $24 billion almost immediately and $300 billion in the near term in exchange for what? Agreeing to agree to do things they previously agreed to do and never did.
The MOU delivers enough cold hard cash to Iran to build roughly 20 million drones (priced at the Ukrainian cost per drone) or buy multiple dirty North Korean nuclear bombs or stock up on thousands more short- and long-range ballistic missiles. The MOU also ends sanctions on their oil exports. So, they can put one of their ballistics on an oil tanker, park it off Virginia, and deliver next year’s birthday present direct to the White House.
Who knows? The House may go blue in the fall. And maybe there are a couple dozen Republican senators who are sick to death of watching our President knife our country in the back. Then again, they won’t want to give up free stays in luxury suites at Trump International Tehran.
And now for a commercial extralude.
