The International Rules-Based Order

I usually wait a day or two before commenting on current affairs, because the first act is usually only the start of the story; to make headlines for one narrative or another. It’s like Trump with his endless executive orders. Those were good for headlines, some were just to reinstate the executive orders Biden wrote to abolish Trump’s executive orders from the first term. But they don’t mean anything significant unless he can work with the congress to ensure that they are also legislated into a law he can sign. Go ahead, abolish USAID, but until the congress removes the funding for the program it will fill with our tax dollars the same way it did under Biden. Trump can stop spending on all sorts of programs, but the money remains tied to that program until either he can convince the Supreme Court to uphold his impoundment claim, or the congress can reallocate that money to something else, like the debt.

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