This morning (which is night in the US), when you were busy taking your #OOTDs for your CNY visits, something major happened.
The President of the United States Donald Trump gave his second State of the Union speech.
Unless you know about how the political system works in the US, or you’ve been watching US dramas like House of Cards or Designated Survivor, you might not know why Channel NewsAsia was airing it this morning and why your Facebook newsfeed is filled with #SOTU
Here’s a brief idea of how the US political system works in Goody Feed style (i.e. simple to understand style).
Just think the country as a company: a company would need someone to make the rules (e.g. how many days of annual leave employees have), someone to execute the rules and operations (e.g. employees taking annual leave must be approved by that someone) and someone to interpret the rules (e.g. what is annual leave?).
The person making the rules is the Congress, the person executing the rules is the President and the person interpreting the rules is the Justice.
This works the same way in the US political system: the Congress is the body that’s made up of many politicians to create laws (and approve certain positions), the President is the head of the Executive Branch that executes the laws (and operations, if you’d like to call that) and the Judicial Branch is made up of nine justices that interpret the laws.
That is why there was a Government shutdown recently: Congress didn’t want to include a wall in their 2019 budget, but the President wants a wall. They made a compromise to continue funding the Government until 15 February without the wall first (what’s going to happen after that is anyone’s guess).
This system is there to ensure that no one person has full power over the control of the country: while it slows things down, it ensures impartiality.
And the State of the Union is an annual event when all the branches are together under one roof to hear what the President has to say about the plans for the year.
It’s more of a tradition than a “must-do”, since it’s not exactly something that’ll lead to new policies or whatnot. In fact, it was initially scheduled to be on 29 January 2019, but it was postponed to this morning (or in US date, 5 February) due to the Government shutdown.
But why the long lesson about the State of the Union?
Well, other than showing you how educated I am, the US President also disclosed something to the public today.
Second Trump-Kim Meeting to be in Vietnam
Before today, it was still unconfirmed on when and where the second Trump-Kim meeting would take place.
Back in early January, the two countries shortlisted for the event were Singapore and Vietnam, and it was rumoured to be in February. NSmen all over Singapore began to pack their barang barang as they prepared for another high-level high-key high-everything activation.
However, in mid January, a Japanese newspaper reported that President Trump has suggested Vietnam, and North Korea was then reviewing the proposal.
Today, Trump said this in front of everyone: “If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea. Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a good one. Chairman Kim and I will meet again on Feb 27th and 28th in Vietnam.”
Yes, it’s confirmed: it’s going to be Vietnam. The exact location wasn’t mentioned as Trump spoke about other stuff immediately after that statement.
So Vietnamese, don’t worry: It’s not during the CNY period. You can still celebrate your CNY.
Why a Second Summit?
Lest you’ve not been following the news, or prefer to follow news like a “kidnapping” incident instead, here’s what has happened since the first meeting.
Trump and Kim signed a rather ambiguous agreement to North Korea’s denuclearisation, and while there has been some progress, the threat isn’t completely gone: there has been a bit of back and forth on the denuclearisation deal, with the US wanting North Korea to take more concrete and tangible actions like submitting a list of its nuclear weapons while North Korea wants less sanctions.
Whether there’s a concrete treaty or agreement to be signed at the end of this month is yet to be determined.
But at least we now know that you, or your friends, won’t be activated.
If you watch at least 10 minutes of brain rot content daily, you must know this:
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