Trump’s dealmaking is beginning to bear fruit. Last week, the South China Post ran a story headlined, “US seals Panama deal to deploy troops to canal amid Trump’s takeover threats.” Ironically, though Panama denies any significant Chinese presence on the canal, the sub-headline said, “the pact stops short of allowing Washington to build its own bases on the isthmus, a move Panama warned would ‘set the country on fire.’”
It might have been a tad overly dramatic. Even though the U.S. agreed to build no new bases, the deal allows US forces to occupy Panama-controlled facilities, for training, military exercises, and “other activities.” It includes former US bases that were myopically handed over to Panama by Democrat president Jimmy Carter, a one-term president with all the grace and foresight of a Columbia University gender studies major.
Anyway, the new deal also prioritizes U.S. military vessels in the queue for the Canal— “first and free.” Suck that, China. Go back to the Pacific Rim.
SecDef Pete Hegseth reported the new arrangements to the President at last week’s Cabinet meeting (1:18). Secretary Pete told President Trump, “We just got back from Panama last night. We were at the Panama Canal… and signed a couple of historic deals… we’re taking back the Canal. China’s had too much influence. Obama and others let them creep in. We, along with Panama, are pushing them out, sir.”
China was madder than a noodle shop patron told “no refunds!” after he got Szechuan spicy instead of mild. “A furious Beijing,” the Post reported, “has since announced an antitrust review of the deal.”
Hegseth said it was just the first agreement to float through the Canal. More are planned.
Meanwhile, peace talks with Iran continue, defying predictions the Iranians would quickly balk. Axios ran the story last night, headlined, “Scoop: Iran, U.S. talks expected to continue Saturday in Rome.” The Trump administration said it was ‘satisfied’ with this weekend’s initial round of talks in Oman, which got the Iranians to agree to shifting from indirect talks — brokered through Omani intermediaries — to direct talks, with Iranian and U.S. officials sitting in the same room.
It may not sound like much, but the Ayatollah had vowed to never negotiate with the US. Indirect talks were the first compromise, but it now seems we’ve moved beyond that childlike phase. In another surprise development, reports emerged yesterday that the two lead negotiators, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, spoke directly for around 45 minutes on Saturday, also breaking the separated format.
Keep an eye on Witkoff. He’s the guy Trump sends to all the key talks. We’ll discuss him more soon.
Despite widespread media sneering, the tariff negotiations are apparently beginning to bloom. Yesterday, White House Advisor Peter Navarro was on Meet the Press (which Rush always called “Meet the Depressed”), and said that during Trump’s tariff pause, “we have 90 deals possibly pending over the next 90 days.”
CLIP: Navarro said Trump aims for 90 trade deals in the next 90 days, a ‘deal-a-day’ (1:19).
A overlooked facet of Trump’s tariff bluster were his several off-the-cuff remarks last week that, to get the many trade deals done, he “guessed” he would have to, reluctantly, “use those big law firms.”
In other words, some very lucrative legal contracts are in the offing. That was the carrot.
So it was no surprise when the AP ran a story headlined, “Trump reaches deals with 5 law firms, allowing them to avoid prospect of punishing executive orders.” The last thing the firms want is to be left on the sidelines as smaller firms race up the federal ladder ahead of them. To the chagrin of far-left activists and the American Bar Association (but I repeat myself), five more mega law firms folded like cheap polyester suits last week and agreed to drop DEI, to hire based on merit, to not discriminate on political views, and to provide hundreds of millions in pro-bono (free) legal work to Administration priorities.
In exchange, the EEOC withdrew its pending investigations into the firms’ discriminatory hiring practices.
Countless corporate media articles complained about Trump “targeting” leftist law firms and those who’d helped with RussiaGate and the 2020 Election debacle. But those articles got amnesia about the cancellation and criminal prosecution of conservative attorneys under the Biden Administration. Weird. You’d think it would be a noteworthy comparison.
Anyway, DEI is really dead. The big law firms are the DEI enforcers who blackmail corporations into compliance through lawfare and financial scoring shenanigans. Now they’re sworn to uphold fairness and merit.
It’s the Art of the Deal.
