He’s trying to get all big and bad, you know
Joe Biden warns Xi Jinping of ‘consequences’ if China backs Russia
Joe Biden spoke for nearly two hours with Xi Jinping as the US sought to dissuade China from backing Russia’s war on Ukraine.
A White House account of the call on Friday said that the US president “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians”.
A senior administration official said there would be consequences “not just for China’s relationship with the United States, but for the wider world”, but would not give more details on whether Biden had gone into specifics on possible sanctions, other than to point out what had happened to Russia as an example.
“The president really laid out in a lot of detail the unified response from not only governments around the world, but also the private sector to Russia’s brutal aggression in Ukraine,” the official said. “The president made clear that there would likely be consequences for those who would step in to support Russia at this time.”
The problem with getting all big and bad is that the person you’re fronting up to might be big and bad, as well, and not care, finding you actually weak. Russia didn’t care. Those supporting Russia didn’t care. The Taliban sure didn’t care about any threats from Biden. They all see the weakness.
JOE BIDEN OFF TO REHOBOTH BEACH, DELAWARE. WHILE VLADIMIR #PUTIN CONTINUES HIS ONSLAUGHT OF THE #UKRAINE PEOPLE. #MAPOLI #BOSPOLI #NHPOLITICS https://t.co/vy94RsJ2Qp
— Darius Mitchell_ Hip-Hop Republicans 2024 ???????? (@LowellCouncilor) March 19, 2022
That would be his 36th trip to his home for the weekend. Rather hard to take Joe serious when he doesn’t take the job serious.
In fairness, others aren’t doing so well, either
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, both had hour-long conversations with Putin on Friday morning,
According to Scholz’s office, the German leader had “put pressure on [Putin] to introduce a ceasefire as soon as possible, to improve the humanitarian situation and to make progress in the search for a diplomatic solution for the conflict”.
The solution should be that Russia leaves Ukraine and pays reparations for their invasion, at a minimum.
