Quotation of the Day – Oct. 16, 2017

“Peer nation-states make agreements with the US in part because we tend to stick to our agreements, even through the change of administrations. The entirety of Trump’s vision of ‘deal-making’ is one in which you bully and cajole and threaten the other party until you get a deal that works for you and not them. That may make sense in the highly shystery world of New York real estate. But in the global order we’re going to be dealing with Germany and France and China and Mexico … well, we’re going to be dealing with them forever. Not everything is Kumbaya in international relations. Far from it. But except in war, and not even always then, it’s not zero sum.” – Josh Marshall at TPM, explaining why a strategy that relies on “For Me to Win, You Have to Lose” is self-defeating in international affairs