China hits back at America with retaliatory tariffs, export controls on rare earth minerals Beijing has responded to the Trump administration's latest round of import taxes with retaliatory tariffs and new restrictions on rare earth minerals. Effective April 10, the People's Republic of China will enact a 34 percent tariff on all American goods coming into the Middle Kingdom to match the Trump administration's 34 …
I look forward to the entire world hitting back at the unjustified American tariffs. And I do blame America, not just Trump, because Congress, Senate, and Court system that are supposed to be the "checks and balances" to prevent this kind of rogue behaviour are notoriously absent and therefore complicit with his behaviour.
The only way to deal with a bully is to fight back to the best of your ability, and if the whole class rises up against them, the bully is in for a sound thrashing indeed.
Besides, China has trillions in assets they've earned being the world's manufacturer; they can afford to go toe-to-toe with the American administration on this.
Perhaps the most curious bit about the whole "rare earths1" story is they're not actually especially rare, at least according to the excellent, if a bit cheeky, Australian Broadcasting Corporation program If You're Listening.
Also, according to the ABC, they aren't particularly abundant in Ukraine.
What they are is difficult to extract and extraction uses and produces rather toxic and radioactive byproducts in great abundance.
The only advantage China has in the whole deal is that they're willing to dump tons of nasty effluent into their environment while mining and isolating the stuff.
Oh, and sell it's so cheap that it's impossible to compete in a way that's even approximately environmentally friendly.
_____________
1 Not to be confused with the band Rare Earth, which was remarkable largely in being the "first successful act signed by Motown consisting of only white members". Not half bad as bands go, if you like that sort of thing.
It's not so much that processing rare earths is too polluting for the USA but that it's not profitable
They are a minor byproduct of mining other metals, generally Nickel.
So the more nickel you mine (and the more rare-earth rich your ore) the more potential rare earths you have and the cheaper you might be able to obtain them
But then you have to make the decision to perhaps double the cost of your processing plant to extract a tiny % rare earths.
Is this worth it, based on global demand, cost of other suppliers, risk that other suppliers (cough China) could dump stock on the market, current tariffs and sanctions, future tariffs and sanctions...
And you have to do this at an existing mine that might be nearly tapped out with a few years of production left or plan to double the cost, and half the profitability, when making the business case for a new mine
Understood.
It's obviously a complicated proposition, largely governed by the willingness of a single producer (China) to grab all the market and undercut other suppliers by selling the material at what might be a loss.
This is analogous to some "big box" stores muscling into a market by selling product at a loss until the local businesses all are forced out of business.
So the more nickel you mine (and the more rare-earth rich your ore) the more potential rare earths you have and the cheaper you might be able to obtain them......And you have to do this at an existing mine that might be nearly tapped out with a few years of production left or plan to double the cost, and half the profitability, when making the business case for a new mine.
This is where it gets FUN! and Tim Worstall wrote a great article here explaining 'rare' earths and some of the misconceptions around them. So picking on my favorite example-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine
Production expanded greatly in the 1960s, to supply demand for europium used in color television screens. Between 1965 and 1995, the mine supplied most of the worldwide rare-earth metals consumption
Europium was used for the red phosphor in good'ol CRT screens, which went the way of the dinosaur once LCDs took over. So the market for europium collapsed and the mine closed. But what was actually mined was this stuff-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastn%C3%A4site#Extraction_of_rare-earth_metals
with Bastnäsite containing other 'rare' earths than just europium, and other ores containing 'rare' earths like Yttrium. But some of those had very little economic impact at the time, so weren't extracted, and are sitting in massive spoil heaps. Mining those is a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly than opening up massive new mines, especially if the regulatory costs are lowered to saner levels. If the US wants 'rare' earths, it's already sitting on massive amounts that were previously considered as 'waste'. One of my favorite examples is thorium because of it's potential as a fuel source for LFTR power plants.. Especially as it's one of those pretty common 'rare' earths that's again sitting quietly in spoil heaps, waiting to be extracted and exploited.
Basically, it's another instance of the US buying from China something it could produce itself but can't be arsed, largely, I suppose because they wouldn't start getting an ROI by the end of next quarter, and then whining about it being so unfair that they have to pay for it.
Bingo! And because they are such slaves to Wall Street that they'll do what Wall Street demands ("we want profit, we demand divvies"), rather than learn from the other 'Great Evil White Man' (aka Bezos) and say "bugger off, we'll deliver profits when we're ready to!" (that's what ol' Jeff did between 1997 and the early 2000s, much to the annoyance of all the investment wankers).
Yes because everyone is richer if Americans work as programmers using AWS and buy cheap minerals from China.
So long as nobody does anything stupid to fsck-up gobal trade we all win.
But soon all those silicon valley intellectuals will become subsistence farmers just about raising enough food to feed themselves. Make America Medieval Again
"Basically, it's another instance of the US buying from China something it could produce itself but can't be arsed"
Mining companies want to make money so setting up in the US is a bad way to go about that. It's been effectively banned for so long now that there isn't a company in the US that will take it on. The biggest Borax mine was bought out by Rio Tinto some years ago. Funny how a foreign company can make a go if it when a domestic company can't.
… because it was cheap and they could fuck off (expensive) American workers.
See Global capitalism since the 1970’s, hugely driven by US (and European) Companies offshoring/outsourcing.
There is a reason why Apple make almost all of it’s kit in China and India.
<St Michael (patron saint of UK High Street clothing) will be spinning in his grave)>
See Global capitalism since the 1970’s, hugely driven by US (and European) Companies offshoring/outsourcing.
Yep, could be be witnessing the death of Globalisation? And see also-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence
The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world (i.e. Western Europe along with its settler offshoots in Northern America, Australia and New Zealand[2]) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilizations..
Which is also part of the impending 'Great Reset', which might not be working out the way the globalists and WEF elite quite intended.. and their 'policies' might just be accelerating the collapse of the West.
"Yep, could we be witnessing the death of Globalisation?"
Only if we see the USA as an essential member of the club. How about another way of looking at Trump's pronouncements:
* The USA is so anti-competitive in world markets that nobody really wants to buy from them.
* What does the USA export (materials, not services) that we cannot source elsewhere? Looking around my home (a very limited survey, I'll admit) the only item actually manufactured there is my Leatherman multitool (Leatherman advertise their tools as USA manufactured, though they no longer brand the actual tools as such); good tools but there are good alternatives on the market nowadays. There are plenty of American brands but everything else I've checked has labels saying it's manufactured elsewhere (e.g. China, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc).
* If we stopped buying from the USA, would it seriously affect us (according to Trump, it won't).
* If we stopped selling to the USA, would there be other markets? JLR have announced they've stopped USA exports for the moment; if the USA pulls out of world trade, there will be markets to now fill.
Change won't be painless. There would be. quite a shake-down but, once the dust settles, the rest of the world carries on. We'll miss the USA in the West as they've been such a big player in our culture, but we'll get over them.
> Is this worth it, based on global demand, cost of other suppliers, risk that other suppliers (cough China) could dump stock on the market, current tariffs and sanctions, future tariffs and sanctions...
Sounds like you need to make is a strategic national security item so that your industry can't be held to ransom.....
"The only advantage China has in the whole deal is that they're willing to dump tons of nasty effluent into their environment while mining and isolating the stuff."
Not so much. What you do get along with the heavier R-E's is Thorium. In the US, that's classed as a radioactive waste and makes RE mining not pay so well. In China, the government is caching the Thorium so it's available when their LFTR or MS reactors come online. The US could do the same thing with mining companies delivering it to this place in Nevada that already glows in the dark and where 55 gallon drums of something can be seen in satellite photos being covered up.
Until there are reactors that can use Thorium, it's a hard to dispose of byproduct. Dispose of legally, that is.
There has been mining of rare earths in the us, but nimby. Believe rare earths are often found together with thorium deposits, but with thorium mantles having been replaced where gas lamps are still used, no one wants a radioactive lamp in the house. isn't samarium also used in magnets? survives higher temps than neodymium magnets.
Yeah, almost everyone expected that China would fight back in a trade war, a few deluded souls excepted. They have before. And as this very article points out, they've used their control of some mines to try to exert pressure before also. I wasn't expecting they'd back out of the deal to sell the Panama port a Chinese firm runs, but I guess they want as many things to trade with on their side of negotiations to end the trade war as possible once it gets to that point.
And the way the USA thinks means everyone else doesn't even count. Looks like them chickens have come home to roost.
Canada is a weak country. For years it towed the American line but with no benefit to itself. When Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, as a small example, the result was not good for Canada. When Canada imposed tariffs on Chinese electric cars, the result was not good for Canada. In the USA, people like Donald Trump were quietly thinking "look how much Canada bends over and gets nothing in return. Let's push it some more". Doug Ford, after saying he would not remove ANY of the tariffs and electricity export charges until the USA did the same, caved in about two seconds later after going to a meeting. He could meet me and get nothing either. He is another "talk big" but otherwise weak politician. Carney, who I have never liked, so I won't even put his first name here, is weak too. Watch how he loves to gesture with his hands, but says nothing.
It makes me chuckle when people like John Kennedy say that Canada should just remove its tariffs and the USA will do the same, he forgets to mention there already is a trade agreement in place negotiated by none other than Donald Trump. But Canada thought it was special, which is another sign of weakness.
Canada can talk big, but can't back it up. I wonder how long it will be until it capitulates. The voices will start being heard: maybe becoming a US state won't be too bad.
Trump is not entirely correct when he says other countries have taken advantage of the USA, but there is some truth in it from a different angle. If the much touted 'richest country in the world' (actually most in debt) really is the richest, then it can't be doing too badly. It is the top 1% who offshored production to cheaper countries. Cheaper countries did not take the business, they were given it. It is the 1% who wiped out the middle class and much of the working class. Bringing back production to the USA for something as basic as shoes will lead to higher shoe prices, because the cost of labour is so much higher. Tariffs will not fix that.
Canada is not in the same league as China. The response will not be the same. China's total exports to the USA amount to about 3% of its GDP. China can survive without the USA. But the USA consumer is going to have a hard time. Sure, there is lots of cheap Chinese crap out there. But there is also a huge amount of good stuff.
The USA is not a friend. It is looking out for its own interests. The non-weak countries around the world do the same.
There will be lots of spin, as can be seen in this very article. Check the language: "This of course isn't the first time China has weaponized its rare earth reserves."
When the USA imposes tariffs, sanctions, or whatever it is spun as being somehow 'right'. When China does the same, it is called 'weaponizing'. To the author of this article, get your vocabulary consistent. The USA has long weaponised the dollar, and them chickens are coming in to roost around the world. The USA has weaponised electric cars, but banning Chinese electric cars. So let's have a little consistency and a less spin.
Why do you assume that this article or this paper is painting US tariffs in a good light? While this article only uses the word "weaponize" for China's actions, do you see them praising the US's? How about the many other articles describing how damaging those tariffs are expected to be and demonstrating that the US is also using their tariffs as a weapon. I think you are mistaken in ascribing that opinion to The Register or to this author.
Not that you need to work hard to show how the US is weaponizing tariffs; the announcements by the people putting in the tariffs make it very clear that they are intended as offensive actions against people seen as competitors at best, enemies at worst. Nearly every discussion of relations between the US and another country involves a tariff threat to make that country do something desired. Admittedly, that's just one of about four things the US appears to think a tariff can do, and tariffs are not great tools for any of them, but they're really not hiding the intent to use them as a punishment. In fact, even when they consider a use of tariffs that's less often seem as a punishment, they still phrase it like that. One could make a pro-tariff speech about the self-sufficiency and local prosperity they are intended to create, and many who support them have made such an argument before because it sounds the most optimistic, but the US isn't making those statements central to their announcements, instead focusing on all the bad things bad countries have been doing to them, mostly without clarification. They have made it ridiculously obvious how they see tariffs and the people on which they are placed. While some journalists will probably defend these or change the arguments to look more sympathetic, I have not seen any on The Register fail to note the statements made or the likely results.
> people like Donald were quietly thinking,
> It makes me chuckle when people like John Kennedy say, ... But Canada thought it ...
Wow, you're really good! A real psychic? (Like on TV?)
I didn't negative vote your comment, but maybe some reflection: I would suggest this post consists of putting one's own thoughts into a target's head, and then denigrating the target for having those thoughts.
Feel free to speak of actual actions taken, or the results of those actions, but when one provides their own reasoning (and then attacks it)... experience shows: that one is always wrong. Such simple, concise reasons never sufficiently encompass the situation - and suggesting such things shows a lack of understanding of the problem on the part of the psychic, in every, single, instance. It's basically the definition of "straw-man argument".
If you show yourself to be a psychic, telling me what others are thinking, it's time for me to stop reading. Personal pet peeve. (My dad used to do it too (military family?), and I'm pretty sure his dad did it to him. I mostly looked at him sideways when he said things like "You think ...", which were clearly nonsense, while he was yelling at me and fighting his urge to hit me. I could never understand how he could create such self-serving drivel. It's as though it was solely meant to be insulting, while penalizing me for.. something? incorrectly? Getting away from him later in life was _great_.)
This post has been deleted by its author
Next up, china's leadership decides might as well start the Taiwan blockade now. Then either it goes to war right away or delay long enough for China to take at last a few intact fabs. Then they impose whatever export restrictions they feel like on all those chips we need. We'd be reminiscing about that not so bad 20% market decline.
If they wait a few months, the USA may have withdrawn it's troops from Taiwan. Either because the USA can't afford them any more, or because Taiwan won't pay for them at the price demanded by the USA (perhaps "give us TSMC or we withdraw our troops"), or because Trump just doesn't want to support them any more.
Americans are effectively trapped.
Those who don't vote - don't vote because it won't make a difference. It doesn't make a difference because too few of those who don't vote vote. It's a self-reinforcing problem where there's no alternative but what you have. Some of this is non-swing states where your vote truly wouldn't matter, as no candidate will get any electoral college votes despite any popular vote. A candidate needs 10% to make the presidential debates, and without at least that, they won't ever have any chance. If they don't nail it on any point, they won't have any chance. So 3rd party is hopeless, and 1st/2nd party is a given.
The rest of people fall into a couple groups:
- old people voting as they always have
- party loyalists, because the other party is *SO* much worse!
- church-goers, who are told to vote by their church, and *DO* vote as part of their devotion (and usually vote for a single / the same party)
- people who are voting for very specific points, regardless of overall issues (George Bush Jr: "he won't split an immigrant family who are in the US illegally, so he got my and my whole family's vote -- whereas the other guy would have!" would have split (yes) or gotten vote, idk.)
- Everyone is convinced the "other party" is a *worse* evil than their party, and whatever happens, the other party would have been worse than even that.
The fact is: the two US parties will give you the worst possible option. It's a vie to be *just* above the absolute bottom. The example is: the democratic party had a *slam dunk* candidate (Bernie Sanders) that was acknowledged as the victor even before the primaries. Instead, they shanked him and put in place a candidate that was *so bad* everyone hated her. How bad? This candidate was *SO* bad: THEY LOST TO _DONALD_. I think that last point is pretty inarguable: the candidate, and their platform, was utterly horrible - beyond simply "inexcusable". That this candidate was chosen for candidacy, even despite a large uproar in the party, is baffling. That the same party presented for their next candidate a person who would simply stop when someone hit pause on their VCR remote, ....
Occam's razor: the only possible parties are placing the worst possible person for candidacy. Why not? What have they got to lose? (See first paragraph, and following support.)
And You, whatcha gonna do about it? Vote them out? (What are you going to vote for? the other party that's doing the same thing?)
Really, it's the same party: Donald left presidential office, and the Chinese exportation bans were .... expanded. Massively. The thing that everyone was yelling and screaming "this is nonsense" about - was simply doubled-down on. Now the US is tripling-down on those bets, to Great Effect(TM).
Skipping a few steps, there are serious societal problems that will probably not be fixed without a bloody war to temper expectations. The American people have no voting choices, and there's effectively no possibility for an alternative. Everyone has been voting for the "lesser-evil", and now the evil is so absolute that the candidates get 48% / 49% of the vote each: people are so unable to choose a viable representative that it's a coin toss. Sometimes the coin lands on a shoe a third party candidate gets a vote or two.This isn't the fist time those numbers have come up. It's hard to say that a given candidate represents a majority of people *so well* that people can't decide based on each candidate being just *that good*.
You might argue for replacing the party members, but there _was_ an uproar when Bernie Sanders was shanked. It resulted in... towing the line, or throwing out? etc etc: the system is self-reinforcing: if you don't do the party's bidding, you won't have the party's support, and out you go. There's no chance for anyone with a different mindset to achieve anything. There will be no up-and-comer's that can change this; they'll be filtered out.
The American people are simply trapped. They've been tapping on the glass, and no one is coming to help them.
Maybe for the next four years, someone can champion social media campaigns, "Vote Green And White," a campaign to vote for anything but the major parties. Just vote at random. Your voice now isn't working, voting the lesser evil isn't, and it's been tried and has failed, so vote random-but-not-major-party. It doesn't matter who wins, it can't possibly be worse than the president elect now.
If a candidate only needs ten percent, and voters vote at random, maybe two or three potential candidates can get enough votes - based on say 30 million people voting randomly we could get one or two. We'll still have the major parties' candidates, but they'll have to stand against people who can consider issues. If three decent people get to the presidential debate, maybe one of them can win, but I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself.
Maybe. Any champions? "Vote No Purple 2028"? (Don't call it "Vote the Rainbow")
I honestly expect worse before better, and people will have to vote knowing their choice won't prevent suffering before things will start to get better. A major party vote is a throw-away vote. You have to vote knowing you will not win, but that your vote will actually matter for a change.
First off, it's "toeing the line" not "towing the line" as it refers to navy sailors standing barefoot at a line on the deck for inspection.
Anyway, that's the only fault I can find. As an American, I must say this is absolutely on-point.
Who did I want to vote for? Neither of them.
Who did I want to vote against? Both of them.
I voted against Trump anyway, but I was effectively ignored, because this is Florida.
> Maybe for the next four years, someone can champion social media campaigns, "Vote Green And White"
No. Nothing will happen. People here don't vote rationally. As per the OP they vote what their church says, or vote "cuz the other bastards are SO BAD"
There's also the fact that Trump has pulled a Putin on his support base: he has been telling them that they'll have to suffer a bit for a great future. Putin has been running that particular scam for decades, which is why sanctions did not produce the political upheaval they were expected to create.
Most sane people know that that shiny future is an unsustainable pile of BS, but most of these folks have been deliberately kept dumb and it shows.
I take one step back and note that if people are allowed to utterly ignore laws as if they do not exist and get away with it, the justice system in a country is no more - and trust in trade will follow shortly because if you cannot trust or enforce a contract you better do not deal.
Most sane people know that that shiny future is an unsustainable pile of BS, but most of these folks have been deliberately kept dumb and it shows.I take one step back and note that if people are allowed to utterly ignore laws
Yes, well, enough about the Democrats. So America (and the EU, UK) problem is people have been kept dumb and believe that high energy costs are key to a sustainable future. But once upon a time, a small island nation figured out that wind sucked when it didn't blow, and steam could do stuff bigger, louder and faster. And so the Industrial Revolution happened, which the Dumbocrats want to reverse. Of course there are reasons why some Demorcrats love the Green-
https://www.kennedy.senate.gov/public/2025/2/kennedy-condemns-biden-admin-for-doling-out-2b-to-abrams-backed-climate-change-organization
“I try to see the world from other people’s bell towers as much as I can, but I cannot come up, not for the life of me, with a single rational justification as to why the EPA under the Biden administration thought it was appropriate to give Power Forward and Rewiring America—two brand new nonprofits with no business experience, no accomplishments according to the IRS forms, and only 100 bucks in the bank—to give them $2 billion of taxpayer money, especially to the exclusion of every other qualified applicant for that money, if there were any other qualified applicants.”
So it's easy to see why the Democrats and their fellow travellers are so butt-hurt about the new administration cutting their stimmies.
Of course the US hasn't been competitive due to combinations of high energy, labor and regulatory costs. Trump has been busy trying to cut energy & regulation, the Dems of course have been whining about that. Trump's problem is a lot of stuff will take >4yrs, but could set some of the ground work by cutting regulatory burdens on things like domestic rare earth extraction and processing, fast-tracking nuclear approvals etc. Labor costs would still be a challenge, but automation instead of off-shoring Nike assembly to Vietnamese sweatshops might be possible.
Oh good, idiot boy is chiming in.
I had noticed. One effect of Trump's tariff war is US 10yr treasury bills dropped 75bp off their yield. With a few trillion in debt, care to guess how that translates into debt repayment obligations? Especially when around $2tn needs to be either repayed or refinanced real soon now?
I am a noob on treasury bills. Please explain what happens?
Depends. But Trump understands debt. See this as an example of some speculation-
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/us-treasury-yields-investors-digest-aftermath-of-trumps-tariffs.html
U.S. Treasury yields continued to plummet on Friday, with 10-year Treasury yield earlier falling below 4%, after China retaliated against President Donald Trump’s aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy rollout, causing investors to flood into bonds for safety on fears of a global recession.
So picking the 10yr as an example, price currently 105.0469, coupon 4.625%, yield 4% and maturity 2035-02-15 with the casino banking on price/yield and inflation. Once the Treasury's flogged it though, what the markets make of it are mostly an accounting exercise. Price might be $1.05 but come 2035, they've only got to pay back $1 in 2035 money, plus 4.62c a year. But other bonds are due before 2035, and a lot of them. Plus between now and 2035, the US is going to want to print more money.
So I'm wondering if the cunning plan is carry on inflating away bond debt, and raise cash in the form of tariffs. Currently Apple might flog a $1,000 phone, or Nike a $200 pair of trainers, but the US sees very little of that money because US companies offshore the money as well as the manufacturing. So say a tariff of 20% and the US gets $200 per phone and probably $40 for the trainers, and Apple & Nike can't really avoid that. If that depresses equities and incentivise investors to put money into bonds, that might make it easier to flog more. Which thanks to the magic of financial engineering, debt gets converted to asset and banks lend money to Nike to build sneaker factories in Detroit.
Maybe.
The bit I can't decide is if that would ever have a hope of working. So the US has to pay existing bondholders a carpton of money for bonds close to maturity. Foreign bondholders might not be so keen to roll over their dollars into new Treasuries, and de-dollarisation might accelerate. Trump had previously been making threats against de-dollarisation or any country that might dare to 'retailiate', but who knows what is going to happen. Most of the media's focusing on equities, but I get the feeling gilts are where things are going to play out.
More importantly, Trump has absolutely MASTERED bankruptcy - something I'm sure the rest of the USA is looking forward to.
Yup. Trump's used (or abused) Ch.11 restructuring to eliminate debt. But that's not really an option for government debt given that's sovereign default and generally rather bad, and not just for the USA, but anyone holding US gilts and dollars.
"But that's not really an option for government debt given that's sovereign default and generally rather bad, and not just for the USA, but anyone holding US gilts and dollars."
On the other hand, it is unthinkable in the USA, and political suïcide, to repay debt held by foreigners.
There are three ways to default on sovereign debt: Not paying, Inflation, and devaluation. Not paying was the choice of, eg, Argentina. They love the Orange utang there, at least, their president Milieu does. So that might still be an option.
The other way, inflation and devaluation, is currently in the works.
Rumors have it that a Mar-a-Lago accord is designed to devalue the dollar (by half?) and at the same time force other nations to keep dollar reserves in interest free perpetual bonds. That is a kind of tributes.
The Orange utang should have a very big stick to get that accepted as there are no carrots for the recipients.
It appears that your comment is well written and informed; I'm unsure why people are voting you down - all I've got is, "We don't like this, this is a bad situation, this shows me how terrible things are and I can't cope, so we're down-voting the comment, ugh." No one is clarifying.
Sometimes I really don't understand the moderation here, and that's all that I can attribute it to.
Sometimes I really don't understand the moderation here, and that's all that I can attribute it to.
It isn't really the moderation, but the users. I've developed a bit of a fan club that'll downvote any comment I make, and one commentard has even gone as far as scripting that. So it's best to ignore the votes, and I just focus on the comments.
"It isn't really the moderation, but the users."
Well, if you were totally honest, you'd admit it was one particular user.
I was at a party and heard some people laughing about the stupid drunk, so I jumped up on the table and looked around to spot who it was ... and would you believe it? Everyone but me was drunk!
'It appears that your comment is well written and informed'
It's being voted down because it is a crock of shit, it's financial word soup and by his own admission, ' I'm wondering' , total conjecture.
To credit the Orange idiot a cunning plan is laughable. This is the guy picking a trade war with a bunch of penguins. Anyone else would be embarrassed or ashamed of such a basic error being released to the world.
Not him, he doesn't possess these basic attributes.....
It's being voted down because it is a crock of shit, it's financial word soup and by his own admission, ' I'm wondering' , total conjecture.
Same for most comments. Well, except the ones that resort to crude ad homs, of course..
To credit the Orange idiot a cunning plan is laughable. This is the guy picking a trade war with a bunch of penguins. Anyone else would be embarrassed or ashamed of such a basic error being released to the world.
As is using descriptors like 'Orange idiot'. But you do you, and wear your TDS with pride. Trump is not entirely an idiot, and is currently the leader of the free world and is in charge of the largest economy. That economy has been in trouble for a few decades now with it's collosal debt mountain, inflated in part by the dreams of 'globalisation', which have turned into a bit of a nightmare. But Trump is also fairly transparent, thanks in part to this book he 'wrote', which included stuff like this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_the_Deal
Two months before publication, in a bid to promote the book, Trump waded into national politics. On September 2, 1987, working with his publicist, Dan Klores, and long-running political interlocutor, Roger Stone, Trump ran full-page ads in major newspapers excoriating Washington for defending allies on the American taxpayers' dime.
Does that sound at all familiar? The US has been busily bombing civilians in Yemen and running up a tab probably over $1bn now. It's doing this to defend it's ally, Israel. The Signal fiasco showed Trump's executives mulling ways to charge Europe for defending America's allies. Then of course there's the bottomless money pit currently known as Ukraine. A conflict the US under Obama and Biden started, and now Trump wants the US to exit.. or at least make some money. So that cunning plan involves a lousy minerals and infrastruture deal for Ukraine, forcing the EU/NATO members to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP, absorb the costs of propping up the Ukrainian kleptocracy.. And to sweeten the 'deal', just loaded around $300bn in tariffs on the EU.
But of course in any deal, the partner can always walk away.. Which is also a bit like the EU and Brexit. The EU became a lousy deal, the UK walked away. The EU has 20% tariff, the UK only 10. The deal makers in Brussels also now seem hell bent on encouraging Hungary to leave the EU and join BRICS. But then just prior to the onset of Ukraine's civil war, Ass Sec Nuland famously said 'fsck the EU', and the US did, and are still doing. Once upon a time the EU economy was larger than the US, now it isn't.
And there's more-
Chapter four, "The Cincinnati Kid", tells the story of Trump's "first big deal". According to the book, Donald came up with the idea of buying Swifton Village, a struggling apartment complex in Cincinnati. He partnered with his dad to turn Swifton around, then, just as the neighborhood headed irretrievably downhill, tricked a buyer into overpaying:
Ukraine again, and the mineral deal, or the tariff/trade war. But Trumps idea of dealmaking is pretty obvious from that book, or his performances on The Apprentice. Problem is it's usually a very agressive and one-sided deal, which usually results in a bad deal. But it can also work-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2093qgx14po
Bessent also argued that Trump had "created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation".
Although it's debateable how much leverage the US actually has, even if the strong-arm approach to trade dealmaking might appear to be working. Or what it's wants around 'currency manipulation' might be, which might be back to cunning plans for devaluing the dollar and trying to deal with the US debt mountain.
I get it, you drank the Koolaid and are one of those people who believe just because someone has personal wealth and reached high office they must be rational and smarter than most, more dangerously, must be afforded unquestioned respect due to the position they hold. In the absence of reasoned argument, you resort to taking offence on someone else's behalf, regurgitate copious amounts of text, barely relevant to the specific point in question so clouding the issue to support your position.
It's like observing a Polar bear on an ever-dwindling ice floe.
I also notice a hint of desperation, 'Trump is not entirely an idiot' or 'The Signal fiasco showed' amongst your copious musings, not evident in your past posts, perhaps you are subconsciously recognising the real damage being done when you see it?
My criteria are actions and visible competence when dealing with people, little of which I have seen to date. Only time will tell how it pans out, somehow though, I think you will continue to justify the past, current and future actions just to prop up your faith.
I also notice a hint of desperation, 'Trump is not entirely an idiot' or 'The Signal fiasco showed' amongst your copious musings, not evident in your past posts, perhaps you are subconsciously recognising the real damage being done when you see it?
I notice another hint of ad hom. But you might have noticed, whilst picking your cherries that issues are often a whole lot more complicated than allowed for under the tribalist system that infects modern politics. Orange man bad! Anything Orange man says, or does bad! Fascist! Nazi!.. etc etc. Oh, and of course dick & butt barbs.
Me? I think it's the simple minded lefties who have lost objectivity and an ability to actually spot 'real damage'. So a simple example would be the Remnants, still whining about how they lost Brexit.. And not noticing that EU (all 27 'sovereign' nations) get slapped with a 20% tariff, whereas the UK has only been hit with 10%. And the UK is free to negotiate with the US, for UK interests. France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and even Estonia cannot, despite having very different economies and trade. So they're forced to depend on whatever Latvia's Dombrovskis and the 'Article 133 Committee' can come up with.. eventually. It's not like Doha has been dragging out for 25yrs now, mainly because of an inabilty to resolve agricultural disagreements between US and EU. Or, I dunno, Latvia and Ukraine. Latvia might be rapidly Russophobic, but might not be entirely keen on Ukrainian crops displacing their own given both economies are very dependent on agriculture, grow much the same crops, but in rather different quantities. But then of course, so does the US..
"Depends. But Trump understands debt. See this as an example of some speculation-"
Thanks
"Price might be $1.05 but come 2035, they've only got to pay back $1 in 2035 money, "
I do understand that inflation is historically seen as the preferred way to get rid of national debts.
And tariffs are aso a great way to increase government income without sounding like taxes.
I do understand that inflation is historically seen as the preferred way to get rid of national debts.And tariffs are aso a great way to increase government income without sounding like taxes.
I don't claim to fully understand the bond market, but that's because when I dabble in bonds, it's because I want a safe investment. So in the example I gave, I buy a 10yr Treasury and get 4.625% a year, which is better than most bank savings accounts pay. Downside is money is locked up for 10yrs, so inflation becomes a factor.. Which is also true for savings accounts, ie if they pay 2% and inflation is 3%+, your're losing money.
But there are riskier ways to play the casino, ie I've sometimes bought corporate debt in a distressed company. Then $1 bond might be buyable for say, 20c. Then the company does the Ch.11 routine, existing shareholders are wiped out and the bonds converted to new shares, because bond holders are secured creditors. Then it's the gamble that new equity is worth more than 20c on the dollar, which it often can be. I'm not really a fan of the Ch.11 process because it's often used by companies to clear the books and offload debt ahead of a sale. But then that can mean the new equity becomes worth more when the company gets bought. Which is often the plan when vulture funds snap up bonds in distressed companies, trigger defaults and Ch.11, buy the company, load the aquisition costs onto the ''new' company as debt and the casino wheel spins again.
Which is a bit of a digression, but might also be part of the plan, ie US companies that rely heavily on imports are going to face pressure and might default.. So picking on a forum favorite, dear'ol Tesla. Wildy overvalued, heavily indebted, very dependent on imports and it's last 10Q wasn't great reading.. Plus very reliant on financial engineering (or just PFM) to justify it's current valuation. So whether that's heading for some restructuring shenanigans.
T'other aspect is what it will mean for customs declarations. So picking on Nike again. They flog $200+ trainers, but with financial engineering, Nike USA magics most of that $200 out of the US so it doesn't get taxed. But from a tariff perspective, those trainers are taxed based on their declared value, which was probably a lot less than $200. But whatever that value was/is, it's now going to be 46% more expensive given the tariff slapped on Vietnam. Which might be a message to companies like Nike that offshore both manufacturing and profits to stop taking the pish. So the declared value might be forced to more closely approximate the actual value, then onshoring makes more sense. So a trainer that costs maybe $10 to make gets imported and taxed at closer to the $200 price, or Nike brings manufacturing onshore where it might cost $40 to make, but can still be flogged for $200 and without the 46% tax.
But we're living in interesting times, and despite fancy formulas for tariff calculations, the actuality is kinda bizarre and irrational, eg-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp34nkj1kv2o
The White House said adjustments had been made to account for red tape and currency manipulation. A closer look at the, at-first, complicated looking equation revealed it was simply a measure of the size of that country's goods trade surplus with the US. They took the size of the trade deficit and divided it by the imports.
Which is a pretty bonkers way of doing it because there are many factors that affect the balance of trade that don't involve cheating. Some stuff simply can't be made in the USA.. But others, like 'rare' earths aren't actually that rare, the US has them, it's just made it uneconomic to extract them in the US.. Which Trump is also changing by restructuring entities like the EPA. But there's also a lot of bluff and bluster, so the tariff imposition is also a way to force trade negotiations.
Ultimately stuff which is made cheap, imported and sold dear isn't going to suffer. They can cut down their profit a bit or maybe cut down on advertising to get some of it back. Raw materials are a different matter, particularly if they're going into products intended for export because then the US is effectively levying tariffs against its own exports. And the suppliers are likely to tell the customers to pay up in advance in a currency they can trust.
" Raw materials are a different matter, particularly if they're going into products intended for export because then the US is effectively levying tariffs against its own exports. "
There's products such as NdFeB magnets and ceramic magnets as well that China has striven to take over in the US. You'd be amazed at all of the things that have magnets in them. If China cuts off shipments or the tariffs go way up, that's it for US manufacturers. At the same time, the products using magnets being made in a country that has begged for special tariffs from the Orange Menace can get the from China, so China has made the sale while punishing US manufacturers that may not weather the storm long enough to remain in business. When all of this goes back to normal. something like microwave ovens and PM motors will be two more complete casualties of US manufacturing never to return. (Using these examples with no idea if microwave ovens are even built in the US anymore).
So you're thinking that the Cheeto's Project 2025 sponsors (we all know who is behind the Cheeto's policies - it ain't him!) want to engineer a 'Chapter 11' of the US government without it looking like one to cut its debts? Japan won't be pleased (biggest US bond holder), and neither will China (biggest US currency holder).
"... want to engineer a 'Chapter 11' of the US government without it looking like one to cut its debts?"
Indeed, I too think this is the plan. But they want to add a way to extract new money from those who lost on all the old bonds.
The idea is to switch to a tribute system (Roman Empire style, look up the Mar-a-Lago accord), also known in the US as "protection". I understand it will be formulated as something like "Keeping dollar reserves by buying perpetual interest free bonds".
I am not sure yet about the stick the Orange utan plans to use to get others to pay this tribute or protection.
Who knows how this turns out. It has to reach equilibrium for a while before it will be clear and it may be just a kick-off for negotiations. We should remember every nation is uisng tariffs, bureaucracy or other measures of protectionism. These have been quietly introduced without the left-wing press uttering a word.
"We should remember every nation is uisng tariffs, bureaucracy or other measures of protectionism."
The current offensive is not a question of "grade". This is a question of intend.
It is the difference between a supplier asking for higher prices and "The Don" of the local mob telling every business it would be a pity is they would not have any customers anymore. And then demanding 25% slice on anything you sell.
The Orange utan is attacking countries with which he himself has signed free trade agreements with, and whom he threatens to invade.
"other nations to cheat"
We should remember:
Every accusation by a Republican is a confession!
The USA have broken every trade agreement they ever signed whenever it suited them. So, don't start about who is cheating whom.
The USA has had very good growth, being one of the wealthiest nations on earth. That cheating didn't do too much harm, did it?
The fact that all this growth since 1980 (5 decades) did not end up in the wallets of the average American (actually, the growth passed by 90% of the population) is not the fault of the "foreigners", but of American politicians. [1]
So the next round of "robbing the poor" is started by blaming "foreigners" for US poverty and then taxing import, raising prices, and dividing the spoils among the billionaires. When the MAGA followers find out they are holding the short end of the stick again, the money will be gone and the blame will be loaded upon the "foreigners" again.
[1] See also Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
Every accusation by a Republican is a confession!
Or just 'Politician'. Every 4yrs, those change, but SS, DD..
[1] See also Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart
And see also-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j04IAbWCszg
With Stand-up Maths providing a simple explanation to the fancy looking equation that was designed to confuse the less mathematically inclined.
"but with financial engineering, Nike USA magics most of that $200 out of the US so it doesn't get taxed."
The trick is never having the money in the US. Nike manufacturing makes the shoes for $6 in some depressing sweat shop somewhere and sells them to Nike Sales US, LLC for $175/pr from Nike Distribution, LTD located in a very tax friendly country where they have a small office that earns the money and pays tax on the net.
The US would love to tax Apple for every iPhone they sell, but that includes the ones that never see US shores. Apple contracts to have them made in China and sells them worldwide so I see it as fair that they aren't paying US taxes on those out-of-country transactions and there's numerous ways they can do that. There's the example above, another holding company that buys the phones and licenses the Apple branding for sales in certain countries/regions, etc. The only money that Apple needs to bring into the US is a sliver of the profits to pay for the head office, design, R&D (hasn't been much of that since Steve J. died) and that sort of thing.
If I sign a deal with Bangalore Widgets to be the exclusive seller of their widgets in the US and pay them a licensing fee to use their branding and trademarks, I'm not that company. Even if they had a piece of the company but less than controlling interest, it would be hard to argue that I'm that company rather than an independent sales company. There's a firm that's the exclusive importer/sales firm for Guinness in the US. I happen to be out, so I can't pull out a bottle to see the name and I'm too lazy to look it up. Bangalore widgets will dictate what I make, but I might do very nicely.
There's a firm that's the exclusive importer/sales firm for Guinness in the US. I happen to be out, so I can't pull out a bottle to see the name and I'm too lazy to look it up. Bangalore widgets will dictate what I make, but I might do very nicely.
That's one of those examples where some reporting seems to be missing the point. So for the USA, DBC is the importer and distributer, which is the Diageo Beer Company. Which is probably going to be FUN! for them given most Guinness is now brewed in Dublin so DBC is going to have to pay 20% import on top of existing alcohol duty. And I suspect DBC has slim margins over landed cost vs wholesale price to play with and avoid passing that 20% through to US Guinness drinkers. But they've got until next St Patricks Day to figure that out, or do what Trump probably wants and Diageo opens up a brewery somewhere 'Irish', like Baltimore. And on the flipside, the EU is threatening reciprocal tariffs that include services, which could be bad news for the Irish part of the traditional tax dodging sandwich, or good news for Ireland's energy customers, if Dublin's datacentres are priced out.
But that then gets FUN! given that although data is relatively easy to shift outside the EU to avoid reciprocal tariffs, it gets a lot more complex because that would also shift it outside EU data protection and sovereignty regulations.
And when China takes Taiwan since there is no longer any unified bloc to impose sanctions on them, resulting in far bigger problems than Trump was thinking of, his supporters will doubtless contort their excuses so it's all somehow "part of the plan", with nary a hint of surprise, shock or embarrassment (or any other kind of self awareness). 50% odds China's leader has decided to start final preparations to take Taiwan. I'm hopeful the risk of Europe imposing sanctions keeps them at bay because it surely isn't us anymore.
UK electricity prices are mostly dictated by the price of natural gas as the wholesale generator price is set by the most expensive source in the mix at any given time. It was our last Conservative government that cancelled all the preceding Labour government's plans for new nuclear power stations, purportedly as they wouldn't produce any results they could crow about before the next election. Those power stations would've come online in the early 2020s.
Succesive governments have indeed shot us in the foot and will continue to do so unless the electorate grow up. Nothing hard can be done anymore because the electorate wants everything immediately. Unbelievable that the last steel plant is closing and that they will put small farms out of business. Once everything is owned by a handful of corporates controlled by psychopaths we will be enslaved.
I agree with much you say in there, the argument that this who don't vote are to blame is a fallacy, those who do vote are the ones who got whichever adminstration into power.
And there's nothing to say that even if you could get the non voters into a poll booth the outcome would have been different.
But, one thing I will pull you up on, it's not "towing" it's toeing. It's an old British Navy phrase
This looks like half the "free world". I mean, Italy is more or less in this trap too, and has been like this since the end of WW2. The dual party lockin situation as you described it tends to happen in a lot of countries, and yes, it spirals down to the most horrible conclusion, where no one cares to vote anymore and both parties are absolutely shit.
In this situation, at least here in Italy, the pendulum effect seems to drive the results. The small percentage of people actually voting with some sense will tend to vote for the non-ruling party at every election, because they have lived 5 years of utter idiocy and want to try the *other* idiots for a change. Then of course the other idiots are worse than the previous ones, so the next time the voters will again vote in the older idiots, and so on. This situation leads to an infinite loop of policy reversals that makes so that the nation just barely keeps driving, swerving left and right and again left and right and so on. And this is good because it avoids full-on Nazism (from both sides) but it also means that we are not going anywhere in the race for the future.
Meanwhile in the non-free world there is just one party, so it's useless to vote anyway.
PS: the dualism of the idiots has been broken once, here in Italy, by the advent of "Movimento 5 Stelle", that was able to win an election against both the usual idiots, just to become the worst of the whole group of idiots immediately once they came to power. Hilarious indeed, if only I was not living in Italy.
Since China is starting to require brands to remove Made in Taiwan from products (see AMD story back in Jan) and forces brands to mark them with COO of China instead, the cost for buyers probably will have to use China import duties even higher than for Taiwan. So even lowering Taiwan duties is not going to do much good in this case for US consumers.
Trump 'shorts' the market after creating a market crash to order !!!
Pocket(s) suitably lined for him and his friends !!!
The Donald is a very 'Happy & Richer Bunny' !!!
Is this allowed, can the POTUS monitise the post with NO comeback ... because IF so this is the norm for the future !!!
All hail the 'King of America' !!!
P.S.
Why does this bring to mind "Sing a Song of Sixpence" in particular :
The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.
:)
But yet according to Trump, all is good. It sort of reminds me of when Trudeau was campaigning saying that the budget will balance itself.
I would like to see this golden age come back, and it would be nice to have more manufacturing jobs here in the United States and Canada. But there must be a better way to go about things politically and diplomatically, rather than with this aggressive talk and actions involving tariffs and depicting the United States as being raped, pillaged and all that other stuff Trump keeps saying. I wish he would just tone down the rhetoric a little bit, rather than going about things in a Conan the Barbarian fashion.
Having said that, what is Trump's solution on the vast amounts of American and Canadian IT jobs that have been farmed offshore for cheaper labor in India and Philippines to name a couple of countries. Is he addressing any of that? Is he equally concerned? Or is he just more concerned about factories and blue collar manufacturing jobs. What about white collar workers, who have no doubt been affected in many felds besides just IT.
Nothing less than Trump's removal from office and the GOP from power, will solve this problem.
I am not convinced even that would solve the problem, undo the damage done. The genie is out of the bottle, the world has belatedly realised they put all their eggs in one basket and Trump has nuked it from space. The entire house of cards which could sustain itself while everyone was cooperating has collapsed, and could collapse again any time in the future if rebuilt.
One option is A World Without America, where we reclaim the asylum and put America beyond harms way.
I think that's what going to happen and there is going to be significant readjustment needed to accommodate that - "We have always been a friend of China, we have always thought America was a rogue nation who could not be trusted" - but how do we stop 'Rapture Ready' Trump and MAGA really going off the rails?
Sorry folks; I don't have any answers. The people we would normally rely on to rein things in and restore normality are all as nutty as Trump is.
I can't help but remember that resolving an issue usually involves identifying the problem and removing it.
"but how do we stop 'Rapture Ready' Trump and MAGA really going off the rails?"
Our only hope is their ignorance and incompetence do them in.
Not very consoling to have to rely on incompetence for our future. On the other hand, the levels of incompetence and ignorance on display are unprecedented.
>Having said that, what is Trump's solution on the vast amounts of American and Canadian IT jobs that have been farmed offshore for cheaper labor in India and Philippines to name a couple of countries.
Elon's approach to that seems to be to import as many H1B Indians to the USA as possible.
Why? There appears to be no shortage of employment in the USA - indeed as migrants are being eliminated from the workforce several states seem to be looking to child labour to make up the shortfall as adult labour isn't available. What's special about jobs in one specific sector?
Is it nostalgia for a past in which manufacturing jobs were relatively secure and well-paid? Because, I'm afraid, any new manufacturing jobs in the US are likely to be neither as they depended on the kind of heavily unionised workforce that modern employers are going out of their way to prevent despite laws that are supposed to protect workers' rights.
The principal reason the average American (or British, or German) worker is discontent is that their standard of living is no longer increasing. In the past you could aspire to see the fruits of your labours reflected in increasing material comfort over the course of your career - to greater or lesser degrees depending on your job. That's no longer true and it's mostly due to increases in the cost of non-negotiable expenditure (housing, transport, power, food) and partly due to the transfer of resources to the already wealthy. None of those things will be fixed by a new car plant, but the idea of a 1950s-style car plant with 1950s-style Kodachrome conditions might just distract the hoi polloi from the real challenges they face.
and yttrium is used in steel and aluminum alloys as a strengthening agent – but also has applications in radar and phosphors for LEDs.
Yttrium is all sorts of fun, eg-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yttrium_aluminium_garnet
With things like Cr:YAG having a lot of useful applications in and around q-switching. But on the plus side, it's potentially available here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine
Assuming the US government can kick the dopes out of the EPA. Or just tell people they're digging for dope.
Can’t really blame Trump, he is of severely limited intellect and does what he does best, crave and draw attention, while drawing the worst of humanity to him (JD Vance, anyone??)
My fury is with the Democrats, these are educated people with some gifts of intellect (Obama, Clinton, Harris, Pelosi et al) but they chose to suck at the public teat and grow fat and happy vs recognising and doing something about the fears of the average voter (immigration, stable jobs, self-sufficiency) and encouraged rampant consumerism (Temu anyone?) and vile social media (FB/Tiktok anyone?) vs thoughtful intervention in key parts of the economy.
When Harris was asked what she would change in her govt during the election cycle and she responded “Nothing”, I thought, oh s**t , are we totally and properly screwed !!
The orange muppet has the knack of discerning the fears of the average voter and misappropriating that in a spectacular fashion. We will all collectively pay the price. Mark my words, this will result in a depression, followed by war. History repeats itself.
I hope the Obamas, Clintons and the Pelosi’s all lose their wealth, their privileged status and burn in hell for having failed to do what was required of them by virtue of the gifts and privileges they were bestowed with.
As for the orange muppet, he will end back in the zoo but at what cost? The cost will be yours and my future means and aspirations.
But it's not entirely wrong. I had a four hour long argument with a longtime friend the night before the election, he was a never Trumper but said there was no way he could vote for Kamala so he was going to vote Trump while holding his nose, and I said normally I'd never vote Kamala but no way would I vote Trump (I've voted democrat for pres for almost thirty years) so I was doing likewise but for Kamala. Notably, he didn't really trust Trump ever since Jan 6th (which is what led him to become a never Trumper). We both wished it was Nikki Haley going up as we both agreed she was a far better candidate for the nation. I mean c'mon, she was part of the administration for four years and it was pretty clear the populace was not thrilled with the administration. Nevertheless, I wish she was the idiot in charge right now. I really believe Trump's support is not as large as it was before Jan 6th, but he's leveraged his power over the republican leadership and combined it with the complete inability of the democrats to mount a unified defense. Trump could hardly have picked a better candidate to run against.
When Harris was asked what she would change in her govt during the election cycle and she responded “Nothing”, I thought, oh s**t , are we totally and properly screwed !!
So Trump arrived, changed lots and now you really are screwed. Did you want people to invest in the US? The one thing that puts off potential investors is instability. Offering to change nothing was the sensible answer.
The sensible answer was the Democratic party didn't engage in Genocide which make it exactly the same to vote for them as the NSDAP.
Genocide is a red line for most people, it's incredible that seems to matter so little to people's calculations.
Trump is not worse, nothing is worse than Genocide. The open nature of the Trump administration is simply the USA revealed - it's absurd to suggest the US has somehow been a decent country and has now been besmirched by Trump.
The US Empire inherited the British Empire and has spent the intervening years devoted to upholding and enforced white supremacy globally, causing the end of life for millions of people.
It has funded Nazis continuously since WW2 - https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/britain--operation-gladio-s-secret--headquarters
“You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people from outside the political arena. The reason was simple, force the public to turn to the state and ask for greater security…People would willingly trade their freedom for the security of being able to walk the streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This was the political logic behind the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.”The scandal triggered in Western capitals by the exposure of Gladio dominated mainstream headlines for months. The European parliament responded by passing a resolution condemning the existence of a “clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization [which] escaped all democratic controls, may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states [and] have at their disposal independent arsenals and military resources…thereby jeopardizing the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating.”
Offering to change nothing is putting your head in the sand, singing la, la, la and hoping it would all go away! The US was being destroyed. The bigger that debt bubble grows the larger the implosion. It's going to blow and there will be a depression the question is if it will set off nuclear holocaust.
I agree 95%.
We don't know what the orange man will produce as an outcome. I also doubt he is as stupid as people like to think. A lot of what we may see will be posturing to manouver people into positions to help negotiation. Maybe wishful thinking. If he eventually stops doing Israel's bidding it will be a sign for good. A return to the gold standard too. But these are enormous undertakings that could backfire massively not because they're wrong but because they're hard requiring a great deal of management and support.
"The orange muppet has the knack of discerning the fears of the average voter and misappropriating that in a spectacular fashion.”
The modus operandi of most autocrats and demagogs; give simplistic answers to what are actually complex problems. The apparent ‘issue’ of trade deficits - so the US say, (actually other countries do exist), purchases more widgets from country X than they sell to said country. Why is that? Could it be that it’s simply not economic to manufacture widgets in the US, and could it be that the US simply doesn’t make products that would sell in country X?
Let me give you an example, cars. Now there is no law preventing the sale of US-manufactured cars in the UK; you are absolutely free to sell cars here. Yes, they do have to conform to safety standards, but these are not too onerous, crumple zones, don’t design it to positively maim any pedestrian you might hit (cough, Cybertruck, cough). And there are a few US cars on the road in the UK, I’ve seen them - but what’s the biggest (bigly) issue? Petrol (gas) consumption! It’s not that we ban or over tax US-made cars, they just cost too much to run! Make a car that is good and appropriate and we’ll buy it; you don’t, this is not our fault.
Tariffs are a massively blunt instrument to try to fix what isn’t really a major problem, it simply invites retaliation, and yes, you might ignore this on the grounds that “well we are America, and the most powerful nation on the planet so everyone else will bow down”. OK, yes, piss off the entire rest of the world, force, encourage them to join forces against you - this doesn't seem to be a good strategy. Your number one position starts to look a bit tenuous.
But, I think there is something much more important here, a few years ago, you (ie the US) was seen as the ‘good guys’, the white hats, the country/system to look up to. We now have a situation where fellow democracies are actively planning on how to deal with you, how to best retaliate, even arguing the merits of any visitor to the US bringing a burner phone with them; because we have to regard your boarder security staff in the same vein as China’s.
In three months, what the actual fuck has happened to your country?
To continue with the car theme. There seems to be a further complaint that too many foreign cars are being imported into the US. Perhaps the US manufacturers are not only failing to produce the sort of cars that sell in other countries, there're also failing to supply some of the sorts of car that would sell in their own country.
It’s not that we ban or over tax US-made cars, they just cost too much to run! Make a car that is good and appropriate and we’ll buy it; you don’t, this is not our fault.
Err.. Oh yes it is. See-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3xe7ppmn2o
A ban on producing new petrol and diesel cars will still come into effect in 2030, but manufacturers will now have more flexibility on annual targets as well lower fines.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told BBC Breakfast its changes were not a "silver bullet" but part of the solution to responding to US tariffs.
With the 'flexibility' means some ability to defer the fines. The EU has much the same policy, so obviously this is a bit of a trade barrier to any US automaker that wants to import ICE cars into Europe. Not that many Europeans really want US vehicles given cost, quality, fuel consumption or just size. I've driven Chevy Suburbans around the US, and it's an interesting experience trying to fit a 'full size' SUV around some of the old-town areas on the east coats, let alone around European streets. SUVs have become a lot more popular in Europe, but most are smaller and derived from car-sized body plans.. But size (and quality, perceived prestige) is one of the reasons why BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche etc SUVs have also become popular in the US.. And a bit of a German theme there. Oops.
...even arguing the merits of any visitor to the US bringing a burner phone with them; because we have to regard your boarder security staff in the same vein as China’s.In three months, what the actual fuck has happened to your country?
To be fair, that border farce long pre-dated Trump, and it's just one of those FUN! overheads in dealing with the USA. Also a bit of a use-case for 'cloud', albeit a private one. So image a laptop or phone so it's clean at the border, or just load the phone with a minimal itinerary so border staff have something to look at. Then re-image or sync once you're through the border. It's been policy for over a decade(?) now, so their security theatre troupes are mostly used to tech-savvy travellers now.
It's going to be interesting to see the outcome of this game.
I assume the plan was to get other nations to drop their tariffs. Of course they must be encouraged by the media support they are receiving which is barking mad because they are being tariffed because they do! The media so full of hatred for Trump and their viewers they want to damage their host nations by supporting other to be the only ones to tariff or bureaucratically block imports.
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