The joke was already making the rounds among diplomats during his first term: Negotiating with the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is like playing chess with a pigeon. The bird furiously flaps its wings, knocks over all the pieces while cooing with delight, then defecates on the board and says, “I won!” In reality, Trump has lost a lot at this game.

When facing down China, which Trump threatened with a tariff apocalypse, or the head of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, whom he tried to destabilize, Trump merely flapped his wings wildly, but it made no difference. And when he “wins” – which does happen – it is at the cost of indescribable chaos that affects everyone. That is how, at the end of June, Trump shattered a jewel of multilateralism: the global minimum tax on multinational profits, the result of the broadest international tax agreement ever reached.

In October 2021, for the first time, this agreement put a stop to the global race to the bottom in corporate taxation, which for decades had undermined state revenues and exacerbated inequality. More than 130 countries agreed to a minimum tax of 15% on large corporate profits. Admittedly, the rate remained modest; admittedly, exemptions weakened the measure. But at least, under the leadership of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20, an agreement finally made it possible to stand up to large corporations.

    • Pistcow@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Its really hard to come up with an insult for Trump that isnt disparaging to what’s being compared to.

      • Zozano@aussie.zone
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        1 day ago

        This right here, is the insult you were looking for.

        The answers for this kind of fucked up lay in paradoxes.

        For example:

        If Trump was just 10% better, he would seem far worse.

        What do I mean? Every single day is some new shit we need to digest, yet we hadn’t even spent the time to fully digest the last ridiculous shit he said. If we actually had time to process everything then he would appear far worse.

    • ShieldsUp@startrek.website
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      1 day ago

      I recently saw a pigeon doing its mating ritual trying to attract another pigeon in my yard. That other pigeon had been dead for over a week! That didn’t stop the mating attempt. This is also how I picture trump.

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m pretty sure you could drop a phone-less trump less than even 100m from his home without him being able to find his way back