Trump demanded an equity stake in Intel. Guess who else wanted that. Next up, a tax on patents.
Trump, Intel Agree to 10% U.S. Stake
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump, Intel Agree to 10% U.S. Stake as President Promises More Deals
The U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel, a deal that caps a two-week frenzy for the troubled chip maker and marks the latest in a series of extraordinary private-sector interventions by President Trump.
Under the terms of the agreement, $8.9 billion in grants that had been awarded to Intel from the 2022 Chips Act, but not yet paid, will be converted to equity, the two sides said Friday. The government could get more stock depending on what happens to Intel’s chip manufacturing business.
The deal is a remarkable turnaround. Just over two weeks ago, Trump called for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to be fired for his ties to China. After meeting Tan and talking about the business last week, Trump became a fan and saw an opportunity to deepen their partnership, he said Friday.
“I said, ‘I think you should pay us 10% of the company,’ and they said yes,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
Cheers from Socialists
Also consider Inside Intel’s Tricky Dance With Trump
In return for Trump’s support, the administration proposed taking an equity stake in the company. It decided to convert nearly $9 billion in grants—promised to Intel as part of the 2022 Chips Act—into a 10% equity stake in the company, an unusual arrangement that makes the government Intel’s biggest shareholder.
The meeting was the pivot point in a frenzied period for Intel, once one of America’s most venerated technology companies, now stuck in a yearslong downward spiral. The company’s scramble to control the fallout from the president’s demand that Tan step down—triggered by a Fox Business Network segment—underscores the unpredictable environment major corporations face under Trump.
“He came in, he saw me, we talked for a while. I liked him a lot, I thought he was very good,” Trump said of Tan from the Oval Office. “I said, ‘You know what? I think the United States should be given 10% of Intel.’ And he said, ‘I would consider that.’”
In his first term, Trump touted Intel’s plans for a $7 billion manufacturing plant in Arizona. Trump advisers began discussing what became the Chips Act, wanting to attract companies such as TSMC to the U.S.
While the bill was being negotiated, senators including Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) pushed unsuccessfully for a version that would see the government receiving equity in companies it backed.
Wish Granted
Trump delivered the government stake Warren and Sanders wanted.
The Cult cheers. It booed when Warren and Sanders wanted to do that.
Government Tenacles
The president won a “golden share” of control over Japan’s Nippon Steel in return for allowing it to take over U.S. Steel. And last month, Trump struck a deal with Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices for the federal government to take 15% of their chip sales to China in return for allowing the exports.
In early July, the Defense Department took a minority stake in MP Materials, a maker of rare-earth magnets.
Trump Seeks a Patent Tax
If the above was not bad enough, please note the possibility of a New Tax on Patents.
Congress has delegated the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office authority to set patent fees within certain parameters. They must be reasonable “only to recover the aggregate estimated costs” of USPTO activities. The agency currently charges flat fees to apply for, maintain and renew patents.
Trump officials are reportedly discussing overhauling this system by imposing a tax of 1% to 5% on the government-assigned value of patents. The idea is for the government to reap some of the reward on an invention. This would reduce the return on innovation, resulting in less of it. That’s what taxes do. But encouraging investment and innovation is why Congress provided full expensing for research and development in the recent tax bill.
Such a scheme would also empower the administrative state. A patent’s value is subjective, and it can rise and fall with technological and market shifts. Many products are protected by dozens or hundreds of patents, which makes it hard to calculate the contribution of any given one to a product’s value.
Bureaucrats would assign an arbitrary value to hundreds of thousands of patents. This would give the government more power over companies, which may be one of the Administration’s goals.
Congress hasn’t authorized such a patent tax, so it isn’t clear the Commerce Department even has the legal power to impose it. But these days that doesn’t seem to matter. Corporate statism is riding high.
Why aren’t Republicans pushing back on Mr. Trump’s Intel deal? They might consider how the next Democratic President could use the government’s stake to press the left’s political imperatives—Intel profits to build low-income housing? Statism is gaining currency on the political left and right, resulting in a bizarre fusion of ideas.
Mercy!
So for an update on this, Zero Hedge quotes as follows:
On Monday, President Donald Trump signaled that he wants the U.S. government to hash out more deals like the one it made with Intel, telling reporters at the White House, “I hope I’m going to have many more cases like it.”
. . . [Commerz Secretary] Lutnick responded to [Rand} Paul’s concerns on Monday, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that the deal “is not socialism” and would “take care of the American taxpayer.”
So: the government can’t control its interest in arm’s-length deals with defense contractors, but taxpayers will benefit from government-corporate marriages? Where on the planet do these jackasses believe this model has worked?
In the last election, I thought I was voting against statism. Now Trump and his lickspittles have become the central planners. Tomorrow, do MAGA morons respond with stiff-armed salutes?
It’s inevitable, government must know it’s in trouble financially. This is a way to extend the game. Socialism is probably always the endgame.
That patent tax is an incomprehensibly bad idea. It will drive multinational companies to file their patents outside the US. It may even cause some companies to set up new affiliated shell companies outside the US, just to file patents. This is really, really dumb. The US can kiss its reputation as an “innovation magnet” goodbye if it goes forward with this, as all future “innovations” will move outside the country.
Patents are only enforceable in the countries you apply to for a patent. Anyone with a good patentable idea will continue to apply in the US irrespective of the tax. The ones who might have second thoughts are underfunded average Joe, sole inventors who won’t ever get their product to market because they lack capital and business experience.
The US constitution doesn’t forbid the gov from collecting debt, converting debt to shares, from investing in co, buying or shorting shares
Are chips still permissible on an EBT card?
When AMD and NVDA start shooting each other Intel will not stand in the line of fire. Intel cut staff, but not R&D. Intel improves chips we need for our daily lives, instead of buying them from China. Obama destroyed bond holders in favor of GM unions.
From Wolf:
“The Trump Administration announced on Friday that it had extracted a 9.9% stake in Intel, valued at $11.1 billion, in return for the $2.2 billion in grants already paid to Intel under the CHIPS Act, plus $5.7 billion in grants to be paid under the CHIPS Act, plus $3.2 billion to be paid under the Secure Enclave program, which were passed by Congress and signed into law by Biden in August 2022.”
How is it socialism for Trump to have extracted new shares from Intel using money Biden signed into law?
Because Congress passed the CHIPS Act, not President Biden. But Congress did not negotiate the Intel stake; a lone President Trump did.
See the difference?
Yes, I see where Trump is getting $11B in Intel shares that may very well rise in value. Again, just utter incompetence on the part of the fake Brandon administration?
There are degrees on the spectrum of economic constructs between socialism and capitalism. For example, China has a private industry. Still, the Chinese government exerts central control over these companies using the levers of government to punish, reward, and micromanage many aspects of these companies. Germany has a capitalist system with a robust private sector; however, it commonly owns small equity stakes in companies within key industries, has board representatives within these companies, and mandates that companies with unionized workforces have a union representative on their corporate boards. The United States, with its highly successful capitalist system, has generally not engaged in state ownership or overly intrusive mandates on the governance of companies. China and Germany are both on the capitalist system spectrum, with China being relatively low on that spectrum, Germany being significantly further to the right, and the U.S. historically being at the very top of the capitalist spectrum in terms of freedom. Donald Trump is taking pages out of both the Chinese and German playbook and moving us further down the spectrum away from free market capitalism and closer to socialism.
The fact that GOP is cheering this on, while if Biden was doing it, they’d howl, is just disgusting. This is actual fascism behavior (not the faux fascism that the Left would toss around in previous years against Trump). This is a fusion of corporation and government. Anti-capitalism anti-Founding Fathers. Puke!
“Mercy!” and then some!
Do you remember that early critics of the New Deal–was it Garet Garrett?–likened Roosevelt’s economic control to Mussolini’s? So now we have a “Republican” president (yes, in quotes) galloping us into a kind of nationalistic authoritarianism that has corrupted every society it touched. No, between Harris and Trump there was no choice, but the current meaning of “no choice” should keep us awake nights. I’ve always resented leftists accusing Republicans of fascism, because the left is fascistic to its roots. But now I can’t complain except on the so’s-your-mother ground. Politicize FCC licenses? Why not? Nationalize corporations? Rig rates? But of course.
The GOP is no longer a conservative party. It is a socialist/populist party.
And, per his sister, Donald Trump is a big fan of Mussolini and Italian Fascism (to be differentiated from Hitler and is genocidal brand). Mussolini was a frustrated socialist who saw a particular path to power: remind the population that Italy (Rome) was once a great nation that could be great again, but it had been brought down by a craven elite, and only one Great Man could intervene, overcome the elite (deep state) and return the people to their rightful place. Mussolini worked hard to foment division in the country and began putting his black shirts (militia) in key cities so that once he took over, he would be able to crush any dissent. Nothing like Trump himself of course.
Sounds familiar this afternoon.
When you give a lot of money to a company to build a factory in Ohio and it is way behind schedule, turning that taxpayer given gift into equity might give management the idea that the money was not a freebie and that now the new shareholder can actually have a way to look at the books and enforce compliance. Either they should have let Intel go under as it was heading to to of they bail it out with conditions that are tied to performance. Since Intel is intimately tied to national security then doing nothing is not an option.
Why give a free gift to a company that blew billions on buyback? An equity stake should dilute some of the unearned gains from buybacks. There should also be no buybacks going forward.
Problem is government is absolutely terrible at making money. So enforcing compliance and other things is going to make Intel even less competitive and more of a money loser.
If we truly need Intel for national security (and I’m skeptical) then the defense department should have just taken the small piece it needed and let the rest go.
I agree, Tim. And even more importantly, to Mish’s point, is the precedent this sets for a future Democratic President to do the same.
Future President AOC ‘invests’ in US gun makers and then uses her bullypit or actual voting shareholder rights to change the products or the components of guns, or have them make hippy flower holders instead.
Or future President Warren ‘invests’ in Ford or GM and uses ‘her’ shareholder voting rights, or threats of exports taxes, to force the auto manufacturers to produce EVs only for the sake of national security.
Do you like that option, Doug? Anyone else that’s full of hubris or hypocrisy?
The precedent is terrible, and the rationale is both disingenuous and illogical. With U.S. capitalism, I take a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. We have historically had the freest and most legally protected private sector in the world, and this has consistently delivered superior economic growth, job creation, and innovation compared to those of Europe, Japan, and other nations around the world. The Trump administration is taking pages out of an inferior version of capitalism from China, Europe, and Japan, and distorting our capitalist system in ways that we have historically criticized and proven to be inferior.
Well imo the middle is where most problems will be solved. But know one can cross the isle these days. Thats most of the problem.
It would be nice if the government could claw back some of the tax dollars it has invested. In research and tax breaks. Those who benefited dont seem to be paying taxes and the consumer (ie taxpayer) does not seem to get a break on prices
Privatize profits public debt. Or something like that.
Not sure if this is the way though.
I guess the question now is can Intel still produce a viable product?
If private equity thought so, Intel wouldn’t be in the shape it’s in.
I’ll say this. Trump is getting very creative on the revenue side.
I’m not sure he knows the difference between taxes, tariffs & fees.
He’s all about taking money out of the system to then turn around and spend on defense & securing the border, both of which are important.
Granted, he’s making cuts, but he’s spending 10x as much energy trying to figure out how to bring in new revenue vs making additional spending cuts.
I’m not sure this makes TACO a socialist, but it sure as hell means he doesn’t have conservative Bonafide’s either.
You forgot tax cuts for the wealthy.
…and for my bonus daughter single mom and for my bonus son near-mininum-wage worker and myself, earning less than $40,000. that monstrosity gave money to everyone. We can argue about who got more via various measures but I know saying it was for the wealthy sells more tickets to DNC fund raisers. Oddly enough there are LOTS of wealthy folks who are on the D side of the aisle that get the benefit of false outrage as they choose to accept the tax cut themselves while saying it’s bad. I have an idea, Buffet, Gates, Bezos, Brin, Page, Ellison, Heinz-family Kerry, etc could all refuse the tax cut if they believe it to be putrid–they won’t. And the millionaires that support the DNC will all feign disgust as they pocket their cut.
You can make the point by just saying tax cuts, they cost a lot regardless.
I am glad to see a president that understands what a P/L consists of. For most politicians a P/L is as easy to understand as Quantum Mechanics.
I agree. I just wish he would loop back around and send another Special Message to Congress to cut more appropriated spending.
Here comes a “command” economy
– Trump demanded an equity stake in Intel. “Guess who else wanted that”. > Does it truly matter?
Trump, Intel Agree to 10% U.S. Stake:
– The U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel. > The U.S. government “is taking” (> Have Both Agreed) to a 10% stake in Intel. I believe security reasons come into play here, and they are not taking over running the place. It’s a stake in discussions about what they do, and how it could affect what the Federal Government is doing. They must be on the same page to a certain degree I suspect.
– Under the terms of the agreement, $8.9 billion in grants that had been awarded to Intel from the 2022 Chips Act, but not yet paid. > I would hope not, as parameters most certainly need to be met and such. Lots behind the scenes goes on before it’s at the hand over the $ stage of things. This isn’t the Harris / Biden Administration’s with zero accountability.
Wish Granted:
– Trump delivered the government stake Warren and Sanders wanted. > The People Wanted.
– The Cult cheers. It booed when Warren and Sanders wanted to do that. > They Happily “Eat There Own”
Do you have confidence in Warren and Sanders??
Nope, but I have trust in Trumps Agenda.
Problem is Intel is a loser so it’s going to drag down Trump and successive governments until such time as they sell off the entire stake.
That’s why we now will own 10% and have a say about some things.
Which is a whole hell of a lot better than just giving them tens of billions of dollars. It’s just hilarious that people are being so negative about this. There’s a chance it may let the US taxpayer recoup some of its investment.
Oh crap, I forgot. It’s a Trump deal, so it’s gotta be bad.
The “Old Guard” just tossed Taxpayer Money around, like it was candy. We fell into debt and inflation as a result.
Now Trump puts an idea together, that many once stood for themselves, and they go bonkers due purely to TDS.
We could make money, save money, do some things with combined resources, stop wasteful spending on duplications and unneeded designs that become that way, along the way. Why not try it, as long as it’s highly monitored and stays along the expectations.
The whole idea of government owning stakes in corporations and making demands on them is idiotic.
The US government lost approximately 10 billion on it’s Government Motors (GM) investment.
I expect it to lose at least that on it’s Intel investment as I can already see that more and more government money will be poured into Intel in order to keep it afloat (like GM). The specter of more government money is why the CEO quickly jumped on Trumps offer of a 10% stake.
As soon as the government wants to (or has to) take a stake in private companies is the minute you know they are doomed in the long run.
USG — the investor of last resort. If private capital won’t go near something, it is doomed, as you said.
Conservatives have decided it’s bad for Biden to break one law, but it’s fine for Trump to ignore and break all of them. That’s just the way they want it.
There are no conservatives, only trump simps.
To paraphrase from “As Good as it Gets”
”How do you write conservatives so well?”
”I write a man, and I subtract reason and accountability.”
Trump got the middle. The Traditional Democrats screwed up and the Traditional Republicans screwed up as well because they both migrated to the edges, forgot about common sense solutions and went full in on ideology. They are clueless as to what hit them.
Trump won all 7 swing states. You can throw names around all you want, but your team lost big time. Say hello to Brandon for us.
Thanks!
One law is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.
Warren Buffett converted BAC $5B debt to equity in 2017. In 2025 he sold 50 million shares. BRK.B still has 650 million shares. Trump put a threat on Lip Bu Tan before converting INTC debt to shares. Colleges herd together, imitating each other, raising students tuitions, expanding foreign students enrolments, creating a high edu bubble. Now they herd together, cutting staff and payroll, blaming Trump. Trump conversion will increase his influence and profit, when Intel renew paying dividends, while cutting gov staff by a half. He need the cash flow. He will make sure that Intel will be doing well.
There is a precedent: post-2008. The feds took big stakes in many firms. They bent the bankruptcy laws (as in Detroit City, and automakers). But that was to avoid global catastrophe. It did mostly come out not too bad. The pretexts this time are dubious. One might try to hang something on runaway national debt, except the Big Beautiful Bill utterly doesn’t fit the narrative.
Trump inherited the Chips Act and he is now improving the outcome for the American people’s Tax money
William, when did you become a supporter of state owned corporations? Are you a commie, socialist, or (however unlikely given your stated views) something else?
Fascist. The difference is the worship of Dear Leader.
The only USA person this frightening and experimental was FDR.
Except FDR could, perhaps ironically due to his illness, draw a clock.
And yet most of FDR’s experiments made the USA into what it was for 50 years, a fully infrastructured ass kicking machine. Too bad we lost his zeal for the good life.
Trump at least on some awful level seems to comprehend what the American left monumentally did not: you cannot just endlessly write checks to everyone and expect nothing from them. He expects a quid pro quo, though it is unhealthy and arbitrary. I mean, Intel sucks.
So what you’re saying is instead of the American Left that kept delivering money because they’re left in name alone, he’s a Banana Republic Mussolini type who couldn’t successfully play a game of monopoly to completion?
He could just stop writing checks, you know like he campaigned on.
Biden wrote the check and Congress voted it. Trump is just making sure that if it works out we get a return on the check we wrote.
Kinda like the forgivable Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) checks that Trump gave out to businesses in his first term LOL
You are the king of hubris and hypocrisy here – as long as it fits your guy’s narrative
Trump is drifting (galloping?) toward being a composite of Xi and Putin.
The Donald lacks their intelligence and acumen.
No, Mussolini.
Did he sign up for first semester CS 100 ?
Trump is nothing like either of those men.
This is so grotesquely inefficient from any view of markets, free trade and rule of law, the engines of the world’s prosperity for centuries. The Constitution was cutting-edge with this, as it was framed around limits on arbitrary and capricious use of (particularly executive) power, in great fear of dynastic kings. And here we are. Everything has “emergency” or other spurious justification. The mob in Congress are milling about like sheep. SCOTUS has signaled its acquiescence. There was an exception during the world wars — but these jokers think everything is a climactic conflict on that scale, justifying their wild swings.That is, if they think that much.
The moment that George Washington led the army against bootleggers resisting the whiskey tax the constitution was dead.
An argument the GOP conveniently adopted only once their King Trump ascended to the throne
Funny how the right always said the left was the party against free trade. Looks like the dishonest liars have been fully exposed in the GOP
MIsh,
Your last paragraph:
Why aren’t Republicans pushing back on Mr. Trump’s Intel deal? They might consider how the next Democratic President could use the government’s stake to press the left’s political imperatives
Is another “Tell”.
Perhaps there will be no “next election” that will allow anyone but the far right into government or business in our lifetimes?
Billionaire Tech Bros 2020 = Billionaire Tech Bros 2024 = Billionaire Tech Bros 2028.
Really? Do you actually think there will be no elections? My lord the bubble you liberals live in.
If anyone has been close to doing this its the democratic party.
Biden ran from a basement and you created new voting laws on all state levels while gladly trumping(lol) covid rules to shut the economy down.
You control 95% of the media, universities, hollywood, entrenched in our government, entrenched in the judiciary, you have destroyed all our major cities, DC, Baltimore, Newark. Detroit, on and on run 50 plus years by you new liberal & sl called inclusive clowns and you want to scare people into thinking no more elections.
You new liberals have destroyed what true liberalism was.
Another white liberal virtue signaling from afar, like all the white liberals that went into DC to complain about a government take over. All the black people there suffering from all the crime are happy, but you white liberal virtue signalers from your 3/4 million homes living in your nice counties are upset.
Everything you touch now you destroy.
Thank you!!!
“A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator”… Trump from the Oval Office this afternoon. When Congress and the Senate have abdicated their responsibility and given basically unfettered power to one person, one can see why some people might entertain the possibility. Do I think it will happen, no, do I understand why some think that Trump would take the opportunity and not think twice about it, absolutely.
Beautiful!
They turned a Kennedy into a Republican………………..let that sink in.
And too arrogant to realize they created a Trump. The guy was a NY liberal almost his entire life, at least up until 2016.
Todays liberals ought to look in the mirror to see all the things they have screwed up for the last 15 to 20 years.
The GOP would be thrilled to eliminate any shreds of democratic elections. Remember they are the ones reminding us (with all their intellectual and pedantic dishonesty) that the USA is a Republic. So now the republic has its King, will the right fight fascistic power? I sincerely doubt they have the morals and courage to do so.
The U.S. is a republic. Benjamin Franklin said so. Marxist propagandists call Trump a king. He is president. Biden was going to only allow 3 or 4 companies to participate in AI, under government control. I don’t recall Democrats standing up to fight him on that. Did you call Biden king?
CNBC: So we should expect the US government to be taking more equity stakes in businesses around the country?
KEVIN HASSETT: It’s possible, yeah. That’s absolutely right.
I’m old enough to remember when Zohran Mamdani was called a communist for putting grocery stores in neighborhoods. Now Trump has the government getting a handle on Intel and others.
bwaaahhhhhhhhh. anyone who has observed the amerikan empire in the past 60 years ain’t surprised at blue and red team………democracy works. the amerikan people love world wide imperial warfare and usa government controlling everything. the actual libertarians only muster 2% in a good year voting tallies.
It’s called… ‘gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free’, perhaps you’re not old enough to remember that?
If you expect moral consistency from the right, you’re their fool
Have we seen a nation so quickly slide from professed freedom to absolute control by its leader?
Intel market cap is worth what it wasted in share buybacks. It is writing a new textbook chapter on bankruptcy by share buybacks.
Gov Inside! Founded by libertarians, owned by the government.
Trying to suss out whether Trump or AOC is the dumbest of the socialist public figures is beyond my pay grade.
did anyone in the past 60 years really think the Ds and Rs are different. democracy works. hat tip “republic of plato”. amerikans elect themselves. the blue/red colors are about as different as pro wrestling or sports nights for young women in 70s high schools.
Socialism and Fascism ARE a bit different.
A BIT.
the VA is pure marxist communism. government controlling and now outright owning companies is pure fascism, aka corporatism. amerikans are idiots. democracy works. they elect idiots.
“Change you can believe in.”
Welcome to 2009-10, Trump voters. Will you follow the path of Obamabots and stand by your choice despite your candidate ruling so differently than they campaigned? Or will you wise up and not be conned so easily the next time?
Hahaha. That was a trick question. This isn’t 2009-10. It’s more like 2013-14 or 2005-6, when people re-elected a proven P.O.S.
The difference between Trump and Warren/Sanders is that the companies had a choice up front, not after the fact. Trump is practicing Italian style national socialism. Orange Duce!
bingo. benito was 100x smarter than hitler or peron. he invented fascism, or corporatism, as he defined it. fascism was the only new form of government in past century. marxism before that. the 1848 revolution in europe is fascinating to study. glad i vote in italia and also in amerikan empire.
Intel’s bord could have refused the lifejacket but they didn’t.
Trump is getting a “return on investment” for the American people that their tax money is being spent to support. This is something akin to creating a sovereign wealth fund rather than a free grant with no return but future jobs and tax revenue.
Personally, rather than pay “the NATO oligarch tax on cheaper products” I would prefer to buy a BYD for $15k.
You’ll need a big fire extinguisher and you can’t ship the car to Hawaii via Matson
You could just buy a Buick EV, fully made and designed by the Chinese. GM sold out the US after Obummers bailout wasn’t enough and went to China to get loans and sell their soul.
A “Free market”. Heaven forbid!
And that’s certified proof you are dealing with mentally ill people that have no principle or intelligence. I’d like to hear from Wisdom Seeker on this matter because I recall him calling Kamala a Marxist and here we have Trump doing the exact same thing democrats wanted to do and far worse too.
Socialists in New York and communists in Washington D.C. Troops being deployed to cities. Where are those AR-15 gun toting MAGA defending themselves from an oppressive government?
Does having an exit strategy starting to sink in yet or does everyone need to see more?
Don’t worry, surging prices across the board are coming to kick you in the nuts soon enough.
It’s communism when they do it and capitalism when we do it.
WEAPONS are useless in world history without 2 things. brains and balls. amerikans lack both.
Noticed the trade deals came in the middle of August?
I cannot believe how maleable Republicans have become. For all of my life, Republicans have criticized European governments for their industrial policy and tariffs. Germany, France, and the UK have historically been protectionist governments, using a combination of tariffs and direct government equity ownership and board representation in key industries. Republicans told Americans how these policies stifled the economies of these nations and how American free market capitalism was far superior, showing how the US economy had outgrown and out-innovated those European nations.
Then Trump comes along and thumps his chest, tells his voters how Europe and other nations have so egregiously taken advantage of the US for too long. Question: If these other nations have been taking advantage of the US, how is it that they have not been kicking our ass economically all these years? They have not been taking advantage of us; they have been shooting themselves in the foot and enabling the US to compete with them across the board.
However, now Trump is adopting the European model, the exact model that hindered their ability to compete with the economic miracle that the US system created. REPUBLICANS, INSTEAD OF STANDING ON LONG-HELD PRINCIPLES THAT ARE TIME-TESTED, ROLL OVER AND PARROT TRUMP EVERY OPPORTUNITY THAT THEY GET!
It’s a cult that worships and protect pedophiles now.
It’s a cult mentality that have suspended critical thinking and line in a state of “Suspended Reality”.