It is going to be a rough ride as America re-calibrates to a world which no longer relies on it. We took enormous amounts of benefits for granted.
I mean, but they're not feeding into the US's power. So they're like, buying into a depreciating asset. This actively signals the US is losing power to China given that it's _formerly top ally_ is making trading partnerships with one of it's nominal "enemies". Anyone who can think more than a month out, can see this will result in the US losing power in the long run.
Part of the issue is that the average age of the House is ~55 and for the senate it's above 60. So they have a lot less incentive to care about that, or about climate change.
Those in congress may still imagine a world where China’s strength is no more than an illusion.
USA will definitely turn into the new Russia if it continues to go on this path. It has already exhausted most of its cultural and moral capital, and its tech sector is already under threat in its major allies. It will continue to stay relevant for maybe a generation or two but it will turn largely irrelevant by the turn of the century, just like the British Empire or Russia today. Assuming, of course, that it doesn't correct course.
I wonder how wide spread drug abuse is among the moneyed elite and how paranoia and other related factors are affecting their decisions
It doesn't matter what they think. Trump's message resonates with the electorate much more effectively than theirs, partly because of his political brand and partly because he has a network of social media acolytes who broadcast his messaging to each segment and demographic. It's a positive feedback loop wherein anyone who dares to go off-message or criticize his decisions gets instantaneous blowback from the MAGA audience themselves, so they quickly recalibrate. At this point, Trump has built a metaphorical tower of skulls of political foes within the party (e.g. Marjorie Taylor Greene).
It will explain a lot
Ps. Yes, insane
There should have been a house-clearing of leadership up and down the party apparatus in 2016 and again in 2024 but nope. We'd rather hope those perpetual losers get their act together out of fear of the unknown.
To that end, the US provoked a war in Ukraine. Now it wants the EU to pay for its war while it is taking resources elsewhere, including from Denmark.
Venezuela basically has bipartisan support. Greenland has long been on the list, as evidenced by neocon (and current Trump enemy) John Bolton. who complains about Trump's methods but not about the objective.
The EU and Ukraine have been fooled by a long term bipartisan con and are beginning to wake up.
The only encouraging signal is that polls among Americans voters show that hardly anyone would support a takeover of Greenland or Canada. But the tech bros and other corporations have the politicians in their pocket, especially those who claim to be anti-interventionist during election campaigns.
I wonder why these alternative points of view always try very hard to deflect blame away from Russia when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine (which began in 2014).
Dollar dominance gives the US disproportionate leverage over global finance and allows it to shape the rules of the system. Absent this asymmetry, it is difficult to imagine US tariffs or financial pressure (or any kind of pressure) would carry comparable global impact.
Trump wants to tariff countries that support Denmark and Greenland. That's like all of the other NATO countries. What happens if NATO doesn't exist? No more bases to support Middle East operations and no more intelligence sharing.
It will mean more support from the Canadians and Europeans for moving trade to be denominated by Renminbi.
I don't think the Republican leadership has thought through the implications to the US with their deal with the devil.
They wouldn't go bankrupt. They will be saved and protected by government bailouts and tariffs, and the situation will become similar to say Russia car industry. Though, naturally, the situation with Russian cars has become so bad that even they are forced to massively open market to Chinese cars (and even "Russian cars" become more and more just simple rebadge of Chinese cars).
In short - if you don't compete by increasing productivity, efficiency, quality, you will be overtaken by the ones who do. The government actions may prolong your complacency time, yet ultimately such prolongation is just the time you actually lose falling more and more behind.
The pressures of a democratic society will force Western governments to extract money from their productive sectors and redirect them to their comparatively unproductive auto sectors.
Watching an increasingly aging Europe try to sustain its expensive welfare state while losing its biggest industries and facing a war citizens don't have the heart to prosecute is going to be interesting. Already French retirees make more than the average working man there.
They won't fight. They won't work. They won't provide children. To retirees, replacing local industry with Chinese manufacturing is a no-brainer: everything gets cheaper. With the resulting loss of well-paying jobs, healthcare for the elderly and wait staff will get even cheaper. A bonanza for a generation soon to disappear leaving the bits to be picked up by their most ardent fans.
Not really sure who it's going to hurt most.
The NAFTA/EU trade blocks were extraordinarily strong, this Greenland business is exactly the kind of issue which can shatter the entire block. It benefits no one to give Greenland to the US, so they won’t do it without a fight. It provides no benefit to the US to take it.
The only thing that would really be settled by the US annexing another country on a presidents whim is the formal end of the U.S. separation of powers.
if it uses its base in Greenland to annex it, the US military will be promptly evicted from every base in the world
at which point it returns to being a regional power
Do you think anyone in charge has any long term vision capability to be thinking about such foreseeable outcomes?
Simple. They see opportunities to blame the opposition for the failure of their economic policy. They've been doing it for decades with great success.
There's a significant percentage of voters who will believe, no matter what, that what's going on right now is the fault of the Democrats. Hell, Federal agents are killing people in the streets on camera and a significant percentage of the population is OK with it.
So yeah, it's bad.
What’s next, let in shitty US food?
I don’t see general public welcoming it. Most people don’t seem to even know about it. Out of those who do know, many don't seem to be happy about it.
Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do. It’s time to do opposite and double-down on sovereignty on all fronts. And food sovereignty was one of very few sectors where EU got it right. Our food is not cheap, but we got plenty locally and quality is pretty good.
Now that we’ve shredded the relationship with both areas, they signed on the dotted line.
I feel the same way about some euro leaders pointing to China as possible alternative to US. Fuck no. Sometimes it feels like some people here want to pull off the same shit that is going on in China or US and just wait for a good opportunity. E.g. legendary chat control. But many people pretend it’s all fine and dandy just because.
*Hopefully*
As an analogy, imagine you’ve accumulated enough debt and bought yourself a house, a car, and invested in enough productive unseizable assets (very important), like a farm and whatnot, to sustain yourself. what’s the point in servicing your debt? If the only consequence is no one will lend you again, you already have everything so whatever, right?
I can poke a million flaws in this logic, but I _think_ that’s the megasupersmart move the current administration is gunning for. Hell do I know how it will pan out, but I have a hunch. FAFO I guess.
*fuck around, find out (◔_◔)
There's a lot of investor capital moving to traditional industries in China, India, Brazil, Korea and Europe, simply because there's better returns to be made with more resilience to American problems.
The experiment in "is America too big to fail" is probably going to result in a "not quite" answer, but they're really giving it a go.
Spain in the 1500s, the Netherlands in the 1600s and the British empire in the 1800s are good examples of countries considered too big to fail that they eventually crashed and burned and lost their world leader statuses rather fast.
In all three cases over reliance on new debt to fund stuff, disappearance of the middle class, and abusing their dominance (military and/or economic) made them crumble as other countries steered away from dealing with them.
As an external person which is actually benefitting from Trump's shanenigans (I am paid in CHF, which are worth more and more as they are considered probably the safest currency there is) I think the current US Administration wants to thread the needle by devaluating the currency enough that debt becomes manageable and exports benefit from a weak USD while remaining the reserve currency.
However, I also believe that for this plan to work you shouldn't alienate your closest allies as they will go trade elsewhere, impose tariffs on you, or trade in Yuans just to spite you. So you are left with a weak currency that is not as important anymore and basically unchanged exports.
Being negative about Xi might have similar results, but less likely in practice.
The US is just less trustworthy at this point, at least we know china's goal better.
Note: both under the current administration
It’s hard to build an alliance when one of the partners flips their fundamental goals every 4 years.
TLDR: Developed countries will come together to cooperate on matters they agree without the US, or US-dominated forums like the UN. Whether it's a group to support Ukraine, tackle climate change, increase trade etc it'll be faster and looser. We will indeed trade a lot more with China and allow chinese EVs, but there's also lots of pressure to bring down domestic trade barriers, automatically recognize European-approved products etc. Over time this will help us decouple from the US.
I'm looking forward to a less US-reliant Canada. We used to have a more vibrant and distinctive culture in the 80s, 90s so it's nice to see people travel less to the US, consume fewer US products. Like the pandemic, it is a painful external event you have to deal with, but what else are you gonna do other than deal with it head on.
That is at least the logical conclusion based on the information the linked-to article provides.
What I am asking myself now is, why did Canada join the US in the 2024 tariffs enactment the article is talking about in the first place? What was their motivation?
The US president always said, that he deemed the existing contracts between China and the US as "unfair" for America, hence the tariffs and trade war. That is his official explanation at least. But why would Canada join that? That's what I want to know.
Any takers?
That's an astonishingly weird take-away. FWIW, Canada by almost any analysis "won" this trade negotiation. China was very eager to thaw relations. Every Chinese newspaper ran a front page of Carney visiting China. They all know this is yet another brick in the collapse of the American empire.
Maybe if you just threaten military conquest more you'll reclaim something much better people built decades ago? Now the Joe Rogan generation foolishly eat up the most profoundly stupid nonsense and repeat it like clucking chickens.
>why did Canada join the US in the 2024 tariffs enactment the article is talking about in the first place? What was their motivation?
Because we foolishly engaged with a tightly integrated economy with the sort of country that casual floats conquering friendly democracies to loot their resources, and that repeatedly elects vile, unbelievably stupid criminal pedophiles? See, "America's" automakers are actually US/Mexico/Canada automakers, so we worked with the US to defend them. Then Trump decided, in his incredibly, profoundly shortsighted foolishness (being unchecked by anyone) that he would start a trade war with neighbours.
I think the most astonishing part was seeing how willing the incredibly poorly educated American public bought the silly fentanyl lie, all so that clown could claim national security grounds. This cult of personality -- one of the most vile, unbecoming liars in human history, and basically the personification of the deadly sins -- somehow convinces millions of the most outrageously stupid thing. It's astonishing, and historians must study this to prevent it in the future. Idiocracy is not a goal.
This is, of course, exactly why Canada joined the US in 2024 tariffs against China. We had all one market to protect.
> Canada found out it doesn't have any leverage over China in this so-called trade war,
For my perspective, this seems hugely beneficial to Canada in the short-term. It might even be beneficial to Canada in the long-term if the US permanently destroys the ability to build automobiles for the unified North American market in Canada.
BUT, with a new contender (China); we could re-enact it, rebuild our diminished blue-collar manufacturing base; and hasten the rollout of EV vehicles. Which is the real objective here.
IMHO, that would be a solid win for everybody.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_A...
If this deal as reported somehow manages to doom the Canadian auto industry, then our auto industry was probably somehow doomed anyways.
Nova Scotia here, off grid, realy want to build a new bigger solar pv set up with sodium batteries, and design for whole house, shop, and car charging. Time for that is looking like now!
Strategically, I do think you want to be coming up with a plan to shield core industries like auto, shipping, energy, and some parts of manufacturing (eg “factories for factories” rather than “factories for consumer goods”) from dumping / state subsidies.
It might be OK to let the PRC subsidize your solar cells, assuming you can build wind instead if they try to squeeze you. It’s probably not wise to depend on PRC for your batteries, drones, and cars, where these are key to strategic autonomy and you don’t have an alternative.
Canada total trade with China in 2024: $119 billion
JKolios•1h ago