Democratic lawmaker slams Stephen Miller's diatribe on US imperialism in Venezuela and Greenland. Miller claims US will secure resources unapologetically. Sanders calls out administration's priorities.
This is getting dark but at this point US is clearly on a path to start using their powerful military to invade and occupy other countries. They are becoming the Nazi Germany of the XXI century but since they have nuclear weapons no one will be able to stop them. This will basically mean new cold war between US and China (and maybe EU if they manage to unite and develop a common position). So yeah, a lot of suffering ahead of us with a chance of nuclear war.
Except that, if China went full cold war with the US, all they’d have to do is stop selling to the US and the entire US economy would collapse. Not to mention that economic sanctions against the US would cripple the country completely, because Trump would just immediately default on the country’s debt (as he loves to do) and, oh yeah, the entire NYSE would crater to 0 in about 5 minutes flat.
the scenario in which China just stops selling to the US would probably collapse China’s economy too. Think about it. Why is the national debt so high? How is it that high and yet “most prosperous nation in the world”? International investment. There’s a lot of money invested from China and other countries. Their investments are only good so long as the American economy is good. International investors can leverage American debt to them as sort of capital asset to thereby invest in other things…
It’s a giant domino effect. When China pulls out, the American economy will likely collapse… but, then all the money people had invested and had leveraged also collapse… and so then those international investors can’t pay their debts because they have nothing to leverage it with and thus also collapse… and so on and so forth… the ripple is wide.
But while america has been investing in making itself dependent on foreign resources, China has been investing in making other countries dependent on theirs. I think that, if it were about the math of overall risk, China has less risk from the us. There are wartime measures that can boost an economy, but they require that economy to actually have the resources necessary to function.
The EU is almost the same size of market as the US, and the southeast Asian countries as a group are a larger customer than either of those.
Cutting off the US won’t cripple China. Plus the Chinese government is very willing to play the long game if they can foresee an eventual positive outcome for themselves.
Which would suck for American citizens but dictators usually don’t really care about those. I don’t think this administration sees US public as an obstacle anymore. They survived ICE raids and Epstein backlash. Everyone just stands their ground, there were 0 resignations. They built up their gestapo real fast, National Guard fell in line and the military has no problems fallowing illegal orders. They still take it easy because they don’t really have to go full fascist dictator right now but they know nothing will stop them when they have to do it.
I’m talking about his core team. Even Hegseth and Waltz are still there. Press secretaries usually don’t last long but Leavitt is still there. Kennedy is still there. I might be missing somebody but nobody from his core team resigned. During his previous term he had 4 press secretaries and 4 Chiefs of Staff. This time no one moves despite massive fuckups and controversies.
Trouble is, China and Russia are quite happy to have spheres of influence that don’t overlap with the US’. The only issues are places like Taiwan, where the US still has some kind of residual genetic memory that letting China take it over would be bad - though as the US regime manifests its destiny ever harder I expect they’ll realise that makes no sense in their own worldview.
It really doesn’t leave many big players interested in a rules-based international order. My understanding is that African nations by and large don’t give a shit about Ukraine.
The problem for anyone still interested in it is that they’re torn between trying to keep whatever scrap of interest the US has in upholding national sovereignty in Ukraine and making any meaningful progress on what happens when Trump finally abandons it for good, or annexes Greenland.
Trying to keep Trump onside makes short-term sense, but in the long term European citizens need to be prepared for worse standards of living as the cost of defence and goods increases because we need to become independent of the US. If you fail to articulate the necessity of that independence, there’ll be more backlash against the sacrifice. Far-right parties will be the beneficiaries of that backlash, who will happily put their respective countries under the boot of whichever fascist autocrat they prefer.
100% agree. EU is totally failing on messaging ever since Trump won his first term. They still pretend everything will be fine and they can maintain the status quo indefinitely. I see two options here:
EU wakes the fuck up and realized they can only survive together, stands up to Trump and unites around a common cause (both politicians and citizens). Trade war will hit us hard but we can save our freedom
EU continues to fall apart while every country only cares about their own short term interest, each country falls under the influence of USA, China or Russia and becomes a puppet state
This is getting dark but at this point US is clearly on a path to start using their powerful military to invade and occupy other countries. They are becoming the Nazi Germany of the XXI century but since they have nuclear weapons no one will be able to stop them. This will basically mean new cold war between US and China (and maybe EU if they manage to unite and develop a common position). So yeah, a lot of suffering ahead of us with a chance of nuclear war.
Except that, if China went full cold war with the US, all they’d have to do is stop selling to the US and the entire US economy would collapse. Not to mention that economic sanctions against the US would cripple the country completely, because Trump would just immediately default on the country’s debt (as he loves to do) and, oh yeah, the entire NYSE would crater to 0 in about 5 minutes flat.
the scenario in which China just stops selling to the US would probably collapse China’s economy too. Think about it. Why is the national debt so high? How is it that high and yet “most prosperous nation in the world”? International investment. There’s a lot of money invested from China and other countries. Their investments are only good so long as the American economy is good. International investors can leverage American debt to them as sort of capital asset to thereby invest in other things…
It’s a giant domino effect. When China pulls out, the American economy will likely collapse… but, then all the money people had invested and had leveraged also collapse… and so then those international investors can’t pay their debts because they have nothing to leverage it with and thus also collapse… and so on and so forth… the ripple is wide.
But while america has been investing in making itself dependent on foreign resources, China has been investing in making other countries dependent on theirs. I think that, if it were about the math of overall risk, China has less risk from the us. There are wartime measures that can boost an economy, but they require that economy to actually have the resources necessary to function.
While the US may be one of their biggest single customer (representing about 16% of China’s exports), they’re far from China’s only customer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_China
The EU is almost the same size of market as the US, and the southeast Asian countries as a group are a larger customer than either of those.
Cutting off the US won’t cripple China. Plus the Chinese government is very willing to play the long game if they can foresee an eventual positive outcome for themselves.
Which would suck for American citizens but dictators usually don’t really care about those. I don’t think this administration sees US public as an obstacle anymore. They survived ICE raids and Epstein backlash. Everyone just stands their ground, there were 0 resignations. They built up their gestapo real fast, National Guard fell in line and the military has no problems fallowing illegal orders. They still take it easy because they don’t really have to go full fascist dictator right now but they know nothing will stop them when they have to do it.
Okay, let’s be clear: there were MANY resignations, but resignations are not always effective
I’m talking about his core team. Even Hegseth and Waltz are still there. Press secretaries usually don’t last long but Leavitt is still there. Kennedy is still there. I might be missing somebody but nobody from his core team resigned. During his previous term he had 4 press secretaries and 4 Chiefs of Staff. This time no one moves despite massive fuckups and controversies.
If China stopped selling to the US, it would devastate their economy as much as ours. It’s Mutually Assured Economic Destruction.
Trouble is, China and Russia are quite happy to have spheres of influence that don’t overlap with the US’. The only issues are places like Taiwan, where the US still has some kind of residual genetic memory that letting China take it over would be bad - though as the US regime manifests its destiny ever harder I expect they’ll realise that makes no sense in their own worldview.
It really doesn’t leave many big players interested in a rules-based international order. My understanding is that African nations by and large don’t give a shit about Ukraine.
The problem for anyone still interested in it is that they’re torn between trying to keep whatever scrap of interest the US has in upholding national sovereignty in Ukraine and making any meaningful progress on what happens when Trump finally abandons it for good, or annexes Greenland.
Trying to keep Trump onside makes short-term sense, but in the long term European citizens need to be prepared for worse standards of living as the cost of defence and goods increases because we need to become independent of the US. If you fail to articulate the necessity of that independence, there’ll be more backlash against the sacrifice. Far-right parties will be the beneficiaries of that backlash, who will happily put their respective countries under the boot of whichever fascist autocrat they prefer.
100% agree. EU is totally failing on messaging ever since Trump won his first term. They still pretend everything will be fine and they can maintain the status quo indefinitely. I see two options here:
EU wakes the fuck up and realized they can only survive together, stands up to Trump and unites around a common cause (both politicians and citizens). Trade war will hit us hard but we can save our freedom
EU continues to fall apart while every country only cares about their own short term interest, each country falls under the influence of USA, China or Russia and becomes a puppet state
Right now we’re heading straight for option 2.