The Trump administration reportedly threatened to cut off Iraq’s access to its account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York over a proposed withdrawal of American troops.
Iraq learning the hard lesson about ETTD.
We could be seeing IUDs exploding on the streets of the USA if Donald continues to threaten our allies?
Quick editing note: “withdrawal,” not “withdrawl.” Lindsey Graham is with drawl.
Ummmmm…IUDs or IEDs??
So, rather than a financial occupation, we’re just going to go with straight occupation. ‘American interests’ means rich Americans getting the publicly funded war machine to do their dirty work.
Truth is, we should all be finding land outside of the flood plains and let these ridiculous shits fight it out for themselves.
History is usury.
Extortion is all there is when you failed to think through the consequences of your actions to begin with. Any reasonably intelligent person would have foreseen Iraq’s response.
The one thing the Trump regime has down cold is blackmail and bribery. First Ukraine, then NATO, then South Korea and Japan, and now Iraq.
Improvised undergarment deodorants?
LBJ, when France demanded that NATO and the Americans get out: “When a man asks you to leave his house, you don’t argue. You get your hat and go.” But we’re talking about a tantrum-throwing baby here, so it’s, you know, different.
[ Reposting this from another thread, where it was probably a bit off-topic. ]
And I suspect there will be more long term consequence from this idiocy.
The world financial markets have been divided since WW II between London and New York, with the dollar serving as the default reserve currency. This has served us well, but I suspect that’s going to change. Concerns about Brexit instability is forcing Europe to migrate a lot of its financial business to Frankfurt, and this sort of shit (and throw is the Trillion dollar deficits, etc) could well threaten the US role as an exchange and the dollar’s role as reserve currency.
Folks, Donnie is a very, very dangerous moron…
There’s a direct line between Trump’s lack of respect for the sovereignty of women’s bodies -referring to the 18+ women that have legitimately accused him of acts ranging from unwanted kissing and groping to actual sexual assault to his lack of respect for Iraq’s sovereignty. And when called out on it, he does what he always does. Traumatizes the victim even further. In this case, with extortion.
Everything is about him and his needs. Everyone and everything else is just a vessel to fill those needs.
Nancy! Hold on to those articles, he’s done it again!
Trouble is Trump is not only a goddamn stupid and ignorant lummox on this and every other subject, but that he also considers himself a total genius and expert here. He could wreck the economy. He really could.
Shame LBJ didn’t understand Vietnamese.
Again the west plays the part of invader in Persia. The new Crusades are next.
“Get out of my yard.”
“No!”
Sadly, yup and not just in a “caused a downturn” way. Right now the US enjoys extremely low borrowing costs (i.e. interest on T-Bills) because we are rightly regarded as a stable economy who always pays our debts. Miss one redemption cycle and the cost of those Trillions in U.S. government debt would skyrocket. Anybody want to bet your retirement funds on Donnie not doing anything that stupid?
Oh wait, we already did - now we’re just waiting for the croupier to call out the numbers… 
They may have learned a lesson, but US voters and EC forced this upon them.
Next time Grumpy Trumpy has a problem he’ll try and use cutting off access to their own money that is banked at the NY Fed. So since Grumpy Trumpy probably had no idea that this was a thing, which Grumpy Trumpy minion told him?
We don’t have a choice. : ( Let’s hope the McConnells of the world can pull the plug before that happens. They don’t care about democracy or the republic but they sure hate having a bad quarter.