Also during the pandemic, Putin was the leader of a relatively important country. If giving a few cheap tests to a global leader improves the relationship with the country by just 0.0001%, then I still think it’s worth it. Even though these tests were rare at times, they were never really expensive. If you can bribe Putin a little bit with a tiny amount of money, I’d say go for it.
I think there is a difference between being nice to a hostile nation and giving up a valuable resource to them during a national emergency. Also that gesture got Trump nowhere and you have to look at the overall picture of what he did as president with foreign leaders.
Look at all the stuff he did for Kim Jong Un and how he snuggled up to that dictator and got nothing out of it. If anything, their meetings were a large detriment to the US relations with our allies in the end. Same thing with president Xi of china, he had plenty of great things to say to inflate that leaders ego but again we got nothing out of it and at some point it began to feel like jealousy for other dictators.
You don’t have to convince me that Trump is a jerk. There are many scandals around Trump that deserve our attention but this one from my perspective is really not a big deal.
If Harris gifts Putin a nice pencil next week and there’s a 0.001% chance for a positive impact, why not try it? Putin is a narcisstic dictator with tons of money. I doubt you can bribe him with money. A small gesture that’s well thought out on the other hand, might reach him possibly if it comes at the right point in time.
I can appreciate that but there are a million and one gifts to give him that your nation isn’t dependent on for survival. That’s the messed up part. You always take care of your people at home first, gifts second. Especially during a pandemic or other crisis. If people are panicking for a vital resource and you’re giving it away for diplomacy, you’re a dumbass
Is there an info on how many tests he gave away? As it’s said to be for personal use, I would expect it to be a two digit number. Let’s assume 50. What difference do 50 tests make for the survival of the nation? How many lives would have been saved if there would have been 50 additional tests? Hard to quantify. Could be none at all but also thousands. If you’re very lucky you might test just the right person at the right point in time. And by putting that one person into quarantaine, you avoid a huge superspreader event. Or all 50 tests are negative. Maybe you even have some false negatives that cause a super spreader event.
Of course, the more tests a nation has and performs during a pandemic, the better. Fully agree. But it’s hard to quantify the effect of such a small amount.
Similarly, it’s very hard to quantify the effect of diplomacy. Maybe (most likely!) the gift had no effect at all. Maybe Putin didn’t even use them in fear of contact poison on the swabs. But maybe, they also had some effect. Maybe the gesture subconciously influenced Putin to not do something stupid, do it a little later, or slightly less stupid. We’ll never know. Not even Putin himself knows.
Independent of the diplomacy part, let’s try to deconstruct the scandal into two parts.
Completely ignore the “Putin” part of this scandal. Let’s assume Trump had a stash with Covid tests for his personal use. Let’s assume someone finds out now that Trump hoarded 50 tests in his drawer all the time that he never used. The effect on the US pandemic would have been the same as giving the same number of tests away. Maybe even worse: If Putin used the tests and broke some infection chain, that might have saved people in Russia from catching Covid that might have travelled to the US later.
Now ignore the “Covid tests” part. If we assume a value of $5 per test, that leads to a total value of $250. So Trump gifted Putin a rare cigar or a nice pen whatever. This is completely normal diplomacy and global leaders exchange such things all the time. Also with nations that aren’t your allies. So from my perspective, the Putin part of the scandal is not relevant and can be ignored.
What stays is “Trump reduced the number of available Covid tests in the US by 50”. You can call that whataboutism but is this a scandal that deserves our attention in comparison to all the traitorous, imorral and illegal things he did?
Also during the pandemic, Putin was the leader of a relatively important country. If giving a few cheap tests to a global leader improves the relationship with the country by just 0.0001%, then I still think it’s worth it. Even though these tests were rare at times, they were never really expensive. If you can bribe Putin a little bit with a tiny amount of money, I’d say go for it.
I think there is a difference between being nice to a hostile nation and giving up a valuable resource to them during a national emergency. Also that gesture got Trump nowhere and you have to look at the overall picture of what he did as president with foreign leaders.
Look at all the stuff he did for Kim Jong Un and how he snuggled up to that dictator and got nothing out of it. If anything, their meetings were a large detriment to the US relations with our allies in the end. Same thing with president Xi of china, he had plenty of great things to say to inflate that leaders ego but again we got nothing out of it and at some point it began to feel like jealousy for other dictators.
You don’t have to convince me that Trump is a jerk. There are many scandals around Trump that deserve our attention but this one from my perspective is really not a big deal.
If Harris gifts Putin a nice pencil next week and there’s a 0.001% chance for a positive impact, why not try it? Putin is a narcisstic dictator with tons of money. I doubt you can bribe him with money. A small gesture that’s well thought out on the other hand, might reach him possibly if it comes at the right point in time.
I can appreciate that but there are a million and one gifts to give him that your nation isn’t dependent on for survival. That’s the messed up part. You always take care of your people at home first, gifts second. Especially during a pandemic or other crisis. If people are panicking for a vital resource and you’re giving it away for diplomacy, you’re a dumbass
Is there an info on how many tests he gave away? As it’s said to be for personal use, I would expect it to be a two digit number. Let’s assume 50. What difference do 50 tests make for the survival of the nation? How many lives would have been saved if there would have been 50 additional tests? Hard to quantify. Could be none at all but also thousands. If you’re very lucky you might test just the right person at the right point in time. And by putting that one person into quarantaine, you avoid a huge superspreader event. Or all 50 tests are negative. Maybe you even have some false negatives that cause a super spreader event.
Of course, the more tests a nation has and performs during a pandemic, the better. Fully agree. But it’s hard to quantify the effect of such a small amount.
Similarly, it’s very hard to quantify the effect of diplomacy. Maybe (most likely!) the gift had no effect at all. Maybe Putin didn’t even use them in fear of contact poison on the swabs. But maybe, they also had some effect. Maybe the gesture subconciously influenced Putin to not do something stupid, do it a little later, or slightly less stupid. We’ll never know. Not even Putin himself knows.
Independent of the diplomacy part, let’s try to deconstruct the scandal into two parts.
Completely ignore the “Putin” part of this scandal. Let’s assume Trump had a stash with Covid tests for his personal use. Let’s assume someone finds out now that Trump hoarded 50 tests in his drawer all the time that he never used. The effect on the US pandemic would have been the same as giving the same number of tests away. Maybe even worse: If Putin used the tests and broke some infection chain, that might have saved people in Russia from catching Covid that might have travelled to the US later.
Now ignore the “Covid tests” part. If we assume a value of $5 per test, that leads to a total value of $250. So Trump gifted Putin a rare cigar or a nice pen whatever. This is completely normal diplomacy and global leaders exchange such things all the time. Also with nations that aren’t your allies. So from my perspective, the Putin part of the scandal is not relevant and can be ignored.
What stays is “Trump reduced the number of available Covid tests in the US by 50”. You can call that whataboutism but is this a scandal that deserves our attention in comparison to all the traitorous, imorral and illegal things he did?