Item — HN Reader

>I never said Trump is at fault for these results.

No, but you blamed Trump for not getting the results for other countries. Let me repeat again what you wrote:

>Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement.

That you wrote the above without understanding the full ramifications of the change is immaterial, because you

* Take a swipe at Trump ("This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished")

* Then say, based on your misunderstanding, that this "is really not an improvement".

The implication is clear: Trump is at fault for not obtaining the same improvement he gained for the US for other, "small rich countries" as well. I reiterate my original reply to you:

>Trump is president of the United States, not of the EU. It is the EU and its member states' onus to obtain similar changes, should they believe them desirable.

>That you begin with a snarky remark about Trump, and then go on to say that he is at fault for not helping Belgium or Austria win the kind of changes that the US needed to seriously threaten to leave the UPU for, says more about you than about the US or Trump.

1 comments

> "No, but you blamed Trump for not getting the results for other countries."

As you can see from your own quote out of my comment, that is simply not the case:

> ">Replacing a rule where rich countries subsidize long distance mail from (former) poor countries with a rule where only small rich countries have to pay for that subsidy is really not an improvement."

Nowhere do I mention Trump. I'm not blaming this on Trump.

> "Take a swipe at Trump ("This might actually be the one good thing that Trump has accomplished")"

Well, it is. There's not a lot of good he's accomplished in other areas, has he? He's mostly a disaster. This is the one truly good thing I can see that he has accomplished.

> "Then say, based on your misunderstanding, that this "is really not an improvement"."

And indeed it wouldn't have been an improvement if it had only created an exception for the US. I'm glad that's not the result of these negotiations. I will absolutely credit Trump for this one good thing he has accomplished.

But if it hadn't been this good result, and it had only resulted in an exception for the US, he would not have accomplished this one good result. Surely that's clear, right? You can't claim credit for something that didn't happen (though I'm aware that Trump sees that differently).

However, had the result been not as good, that doesn't mean that Trump is automatically to blame. I understand the assumption, but he's not doing these negotiations on his own. It would be the whole of the UPU, and particularly the EU negotiators, that would have failed to replace the previous rule with a better universal rule, opting for an exception instead. That exception would probably have been good enough for Trump, so he'd still have gotten what he wanted, but this is an issue that's bigger than just the US, and I'm glad the UPU recognised that. I'm also glad Trump addressed this issue. Credit where it's due.