You are of course entitled to your opinion, and moving a head Office back to America does take time: They have had over a year since Trump was elected to consider their options.
What takes no time at all to organise is the repatriation of overseas funds: $200 Billion from Apple alone this year. “ “With the Trump administration and Beltway imposing a 15.5% tax on [repatriated] cash earnings vs. the previous 35% tax rate we expect a surge of overseas cash to come back into the US with large cap tech being the clear beneficiary for 2018 and beyond,” Daniel Ives, head of technology research at GBH Insights, wrote in a note to clients Thursday.”
“ You see socialism and think USSR. I see it, and I think Finland, Norway and Sweden.” To be fair I also think China, Cambodia and North Korea! Finland, Norway and Sweden are lesser disasters, but if it were not for Nationalised North Sea Oil propping up their Welfare system, they would be bankrupt by now.
“Plus, they don’t know if Trump stays in office after 2020, he may not have a GOP congress after November, and the American government has proven itself mercurial to the point of spite: a lot of the decisions Trump made first served no purpose other than erase Obama’s legacy. I’m no Obama fan, but I am a big fan of consistent foreign policy that moves slowly toward a new paradigm.”
The smart money is betting that Trump will win in 2020 and that he will still have a GOP Congress. Why? Because the Democrats are in disarray, are in denial about why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, and are deeply divided about what their party did to Bernie Sanders. Also because Trump is ticking off all his election promises and the economy is booming.
The ONLY thing I liked about Obama was that by electing a Black President America proved once and for all that racism is a thing of the past, just as the election of JFK proved that America had moved beyond its anti-Catholic prejudices.
In my opinion, Obama’s legacy deserves to be erased. Another two Rotary Polio Plus vaccinators were murdered in Pakistan this month, primarily because Obama authorised the CIA to impersonate Polio Plus vaccinators in order to seek DNA evidence that members of Osama Bin Laden’s family were hiding in a compound in Pakistan, so that he could have him executed while he watched on live CCTV. To the Taliban this “proved” that polio Plus was just a cover for CIA agents. Since the May 2011 OBL execution, 50 Rotary volunteers working to make Polio extinct have been murdered, and the only countries where Polio is still active are Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama and the CIA are responsible for these 50 deaths and the 500 or more cases of Polio infection since 2011 that could have been avoided. I don’t miss Osama bin Laden but the end does not justify the means.
Rotary International started this and partnered with WHO and the CDC to get it done globally. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation have been a major sponsor of this effort. The annual number of polio infections has dropped from 350,000 cases per year to 20 in 2017. We were this close to eradicating it, when the Taliban started executing our volunteers as CIA spies. The Pakistan/Afghan border Tribal Zone is the only place the disease still exists, because our people cannot safely be sent into a killing zone. As long as a single child remains infected with polio virus, children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease. As a Rotarian, I think this will be one of the best things we have ever done, once we have finally rendered the polio virus extinct.
“Consistent foreign policy” is a fine thing unless you campaign on changing it: then it becomes a matter of Trump honouring his campaign promises. Building the wall, pulling out of the Paris Accord and the TPP Free trade agreement, and bringing American jobs back home are all promises he made on the campaign trail, and so far he has honoured all of them. I find that Trump is brash, can be offensive, and appears to make policy on the fly, but he at least keeps his promises, and usually has carefully reasoned logic supporting his apparently sudden policy changes. Consider his thinking on DACA for instance:
“In June of 2012, President Obama bypassed Congress to give work permits, social security numbers, and federal benefits to approximately 800,000 illegal immigrants currently between the ages of 15 and 36. The typical recipients of this executive amnesty, known as DACA, are in their twenties. Legislation offering these same benefits had been introduced in Congress on numerous occasions and rejected each time.
In referencing the idea of creating new immigration rules unilaterally, President Obama admitted that “I can’t just do these things by myself” — and yet that is exactly what he did, making an end-run around Congress and violating the core tenets that sustain our Republic.
Officials from 10 States are suing over the program, requiring my Administration to make a decision regarding its legality. The Attorney General of the United States, the Attorneys General of many states, and virtually all other top legal experts have advised that the program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court.”
And consider the measured way in which he ends DACA: “The Department of Homeland Security will begin an orderly transition and wind-down of DACA, one that provides minimum disruption. While new applications for work permits will not be accepted, all existing work permits will be honored until their date of expiration up to two full years from today. Furthermore, applications already in the pipeline will be processed, as will renewal applications for those facing near-term expiration. This is a gradual process, not a sudden phase out. Permits will not begin to expire for another six months, and will remain active for up to 24 months. Thus, in effect, I am not going to just cut DACA off, but rather provide a window of opportunity for Congress to finally act.”
Trump is learning fast how to manage change smoothly. I have to give him credit for how he has repealed Obama’s unlawful program.
Obama’s only remaining legacy will be to have proved that America with only 13% of its population black can elect a black President. That is historic, and is what he will be remembered for.