President Trump: “Politics is the craziest business.”

by Hans Izaak Kriek*

Trump’s campaign leader, Brad Parscale, is optimistic about the Trump family. “They are a political movement with the potential of transforming the Republican party, I think they’re a dynasty. I think they’re all amazing people … with amazing capabilities,” he said, according to Associated Press. “I think you see that from Don Jr. I think you see that from Ivanka. You see it from Jared. You see it from all.”

Parscale was speaking at the end of a week that saw Ivanka Trump embark on a trip to Argentina, Colombia and Paraguay to promote the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative; saw Republican political strategist Rick Wilson predict in a Daily Beast column that Donald Trump Jr. will seek and likely win the 2024 GOP presidential nomination; and saw Jared Kushner appoint a lieutenant in his role of crafting the president’s Middle East policy, according to Politico.

Earlier Saturday, Parscale told the convention crowd in Indian Wells that the Trump family’s influence would likely ‘last for decades,” and propel the GOP’ into a new party, none that will adapt to changing cultures.

“One must continue to adapt while keeping the conservative values that we believe in,” he added, though when speaking later with reporters he declined to speculate on whether any of the president’s family members would seek elected office, AP reported.

At the California GOP convention, party delegates sought to develop an election strategy. The party’s struggles in California are well known. Democrats control every statewide office and both chambers of the Legislature, while holding an edge of nearly 4 million in voter registrations. Both U.S. Senate seats are in Democratic hands, and the party has a 46-7 edge over Republicans in U.S. House seats in the state.

"This is not a swing state," he said, drawing laughs from the crowd. But he noted that on the other hand California was the biggest source of the president’s campaign donations.

Trump at the center of international politics

Foreign policy remains a daily activity for President Trump, such as the negotiations with North Korea on phasing out of nuclear armament, the Trade War with China on tariffs, the implementation of the Middle East plan, and also the problems about limitations of the nuclear capabilities with Iran.

The drone attack recently on the oil installations in Saudi Arabia is very topical. President Trump told journalists that it looked like Iran was responsible for the attacks on Saudi Arabian oil plants, but he wants to avoid war. "It is certainly looking that way at this moment," Trump told reporters when asked if he believes Iran carried out the attack. Without providing evidence, the president said: "we pretty much already know" and "certainly it would look to most like it was Iran" but that Washington still wanted more proof.

"We want to find definitively who did this," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. We want to find definitively who did this, you’re going to find out in great detail in the near future," he said. "We have the exact location of just about everything. "But with all that being said, we’d certainly like to avoid war”, he said. "I don’t want war with anybody, but we’re prepared."

The attacks cut five percent of world crude oil production. The government of Saudi Arabia already started with the recoveries of the damaged installations. So far there’s no conclusion who were the perpetrators and from which country the attack was carried out, Iraq or Iran. Iran has rejected the allegations. The president tweeted in the meantime that he plans to ‘substantially increase’ sanctions on Iran, a move that comes after the attack on the oil facilities.

‘Locked and loaded’ doesn’t mean a military response

President Trump’s claim the US is ‘locked and loaded’ may not refer to military action, the vice president’s chief of staff said this last Monday, calling the term tweeted by Trump ‘broad’.

“I think that locked and loaded is a broad term and talks about the realities that we’re all far safer and more secure domestically from energy independence,” Marc Short told reporters on the White House lawn. “This is not the 1970s oil embargo. It’s not 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. We’re now a net oil exporter which means that the American market is much better protected.”

Trump delays tariff increase on $ 250B in Chinese goods for two weeks to Oct.15.

President Trump announced recently that the U.S. will delay a planned tariff increase on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods for two weeks. “At the request of the vice premier of China, Liu He, and due to the fact that the People’s Republic of China will be celebrating their 70th Anniversary on October 1st, we have agreed, as a gesture of good will, to move the increased Tariffs on 250 Billion Dollars’ worth of goods (25% to 30%), from October 1st to October 15th,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The announcement came 10 days after the U.S. imposed 15 percent tariffs on about $112 billions of Chinese imports, the latest salvos in an ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing. In total, Trump has imposed or announced penalties on about $550 billions of Chinese products, or almost everything the United States buys from there. After Trump proposed tariff increases on billions in Chinese products in August, Beijing responded with increased tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. products. Trump called the move “politically motivated."

"For many years China (and many other countries) has been taking advantage of the United States on Trade, Intellectual Property Theft, and much more. Our Country has been losing HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year to China, with no end in sight,"

Trump tweeted Aug. 23. "Sadly, past Administrations have allowed China to get so far ahead of Fair and Balanced Trade that it has become a great burden to the American Taxpayer. As President, I can no longer allow this to happen!"

Democratic primary debates show divided candidates

In the meantime, the Democratic Party is still busy finding the best candidate to beat Donald Trump at the 2020 election. The party has held three debate primaries. It shows how divided the candidates are about a lot of issues, like gun control, healthcare, tax, Obama’s policy, socialism as democrats struggle to show unity. Joe Biden and Elisabeth Warren were named the best debaters with Bernie Sanders in the third place.

The fourth Democratic presidential primary debate will take place in Westerville, Ohio, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced recently, as candidates fight to qualify for the televised showdown. The debate, the fourth round, will be hosted by The

New York Times and CNN at Otterbein University, the party said in a news release. The debate is scheduled for October. 15 and if enough candidates there will be a second night on October. 16.

To qualify for the debate, according to the DNC, candidates must meet a 2 percent polling threshold in at least four qualifying polls; they must also have a minimum of 130,000 unique donors, and 400 unique donors per state in at least 20 U.S. states. Eleven candidates have qualified so far, according to the NYT. Among them former Vice President Joe Biden, 5 Senators, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro.

*International political commentator for European Business Review and editor-in-chief of Kriek Media