Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: End of American Empire Page 1 of 7

Trump Has Achieved Biden Levels Of Delusion And Denial

By

On November 11, 2025

Comments

I mean…

Not to mention firing BLS workers because he didn’t like the stats, which even Biden didn’t do. Given how dubious most BLS stats relating to inflation already are, that’s some impressive cope.

The fact is that prices keep going up, and if you aren’t in the golden ponzi scheme of AI, the economy sucks.

Rosenberg Research did some analysis:

If they aren’t in expansion, they’re in contraction. Also known as a recession, even if they didn’t shade it.

Some further supporting data:

 

Sure doesn’t look like those tariffs are causing manufacturing to flood back into America, does it? Data centers and power station building are both AI related, and as for hospitals: a protected oligopoly, or it was until the ACA subsidies were cut. That’s not likely to be good for the health “industry”, which would be wonderful except that people will die and suffer as a result. “Get rid of part of the shitty way we provide health care now without replacing it with something else.”

Anyway, unless you’re in a monopoly/oligopoly, and have some control, or you’re connected to the AI spigot, the economy is ass. And remember, major tech companies are engage in mass layoffs, so just working for tech companies won’t protect you: the reverse is true. Unless you’re actively working on AI, you’re first to the gallows, since their workers are where they’re starting with the replacements.

For decades I warned coders, “engineers”, that their days of being king shit of turd island, pretending their skills were super special, would eventually come to an end. The moment senior management could figure out how to replace them, it would. And unless you’re truly at the very top of your field, you’re always replaceable—mediocre isn’t as good as average, but it’s usually a LOT cheaper.

Anyway, the end days are nigh. There isn’t much left of the middle class in America, with little left for the rich to steal. The US either changes its politics radically (and Trump was always a billionaire whose policies are good for billionaires} or America continues its descent to unutterable shithole for about 80% of its population.

This site is only viable due to reader donations. If you value it and can, please subscribe or donate.

The State Of Play In Late 2025

By

On November 3, 2025

Comments

Let’s run thru the important points:

Domestically in the US the only issue that really matters is affordability. Food, housing and medicine. This will dominate the next few years, maybe even the next decade. Mamdani will win, he will be blocked from doing much of he wants by courts and the the State and federal government, and his future will depend on him making those who stop him the villains. The mid-terms and the next election will be fought in bread and butter issues.

China is going to win the AI race, as predicted. 

This is, again, because Chinese models are at least 90% cheaper to run, and mostly open source. Only a complete and utter moron would run their business using proprietary models where OpenAI or Anthropic can jack up the price any time they want or depreciate the model you actually needed. Even US startups agree, 70 to 80% of them are using Chinese open models.

American AI either bursts or causes a great depression. Or perhaps bursts and causes a depression. There isn’t any other possibility. They’re spending trillions so American business can mass replace their workers. If it works, it causes a demand depression, a great depression like the Great Depression of the 30s. Who the hell do they think will buy their products? People can barely afford food and rent, let alone fancy AI crap. When they’re homeless they aren’t going to be customers. Meanwhile the rest of the world won’t be buying US AI crap either, they’ll be buying Chinese open source AI crap.

The War of attrition is nearly won by Russia. Ukraine just doesn’t have enough men and drones, it’s that simple. Next year, absent a peace deal, the big arrow moves everyone was wondering about will happen and Ukraine will be forced into unconditional surrender.

Europe is done. They’re losing their industrial base and their tech base. The people are unhappy and turning to populist opposition, either left or right. The Eurocrats are using lawfare to make outsider parties illegal if they look likely to win. This will take some time to play out. There will be changes in government away from neoliberalism, and if they can’t be achieved peacefully there will be a lot of violence. The EUs only play here is to try and gin up a war against Russia, but if they succeed, they’ll lose the war.

China and the US are now co-equal powers but that won’t last. China is on the rise, America is gutting its own science, arts and intellectual base while immiserating its own people and keeping smart foreigners out. (Or throwing them out.) All the big spend isn’t on re-industrializing, it’s on an AI moonshot which probably won’t succeed and will burst, or which if it does succeed will cause a Great Depression.

I will remind you that rich people have limited real power. They can buy a lot of influence, but if government turns on them they are done, because they do not have private armies capable of standing up to the State’s military and paramilitary forces. If the political zeitgeist turns against them, the government can make any changes it wants. Ask various Chinese billionaires how things worked out for them when the CPC decided they were too big for their britches.

One way they lose their influence is simply by having a real, undeniable depression. They’re doing everything they can to create one. If the Fed can’t bail them out, they’re done. The Fed’s ability to print dollars is going away, they have at most one large bailout left in them. After that, they can’t, because if the dollar isn’t the unit of trade for the world, over-printing will be catastrophic. Dozens of countries have found this out, again and again. Money can’t buy what your country can’t actually do, and the US can do less and less—the rich people sold America’s ability to do things to China to get three generations of fake wealth.

We are moving towards the end-game. It will take ten to fifteen years to play out. The West will be immiserated, neo-liberalism will end, US power and Empire will collapse. There will be wars and revolutions around the globe, because the force holding the world in its post-war, post-Soviet collapse state, including such things as borders, is going away. China is not likely to engage in massive military operations thousands of miles from its border and has shown itself uninterested in what happens in other countries domestically, unless they’re countries very close to it geographically.

Covid remains a thing, more specifically long Covid. We don’t measure it much any more, since governments don’t want to know, but there are multiple data points indicating its still disabling people. (I’ll do a proper article on this at some point.)

Likewise climate change and environmental collapse are real and so are resource issues. Farmland continues to lose fertility, the food-web is collapsing, the insects and fish and bird and everything else are dying and species are going extinct. This is going to cause huge problem. 1.4 billion Chinese cannot have a Western lifestyle without catastrophic environmental issues. If this is not dealt with (and it takes more than some orbital spraying to do so), the era of Chinese supremacy is not likely to last.

China will take the complete tech lead in essentially everything and they will also become the premier space-going nation. They have actually reduced carbon emissions, a good sign, and are massively planting forests. It’s not enough, but they are the only major nation taking these issues at all seriously. They look likely to start moving industry and power generation to space over the next 20 years and if they can get space mining and refining going, that offers some hope. (This is not space colonization, and the idea is to make it self-sustaining off world minus biologicals. Dropping resources from space is easy, getting resources into space is hard.)

The major geopolitical and economic issues I have been writing about for over 20 years are coming to fruition now and will play out over the next ten years. End of Empire. End of Neoliberalism. End of dollar hegemony. End of Europe. Western economic collapse. It’s all happening, exactly on schedule.

The glimmer of hope for Westerners is that political change is also coming. Put crudely, there are three possibility: authoritarian corporatism wins thru a nasty surveillance and police state; right wing populists take charge and go nasty and mean, or left wing populists take charge and actually try to help people.

The third world will find a great deal more freedom than they’ve had for a long time. China will be the superpower, but at least for the first while seems likely to be fairly laid back about it. These countries, if they cooperate with China intelligently, will have a chance to really develop, in most cases an opportunity to make it to middle income status, since they will no longer be forbidden from the policies required to actually develop, as was the case under the IMF/World Bank “development” duopoly.

This is where we are, and where we’re going. Tighten those seatbelts and make what preparations you can. Remember that things like power and water and food will become more and more unreliable. It’s been a long time since the West and westerners had to deal with such issues, but they will be on the plate for at least thirty to fourty percent of Westerners within fifteen years in nations which do not make the turn correctly, which seems likely to be the majority.

Fundraising Note: We’re about $900 from reaching our goal. Yadda yadda. If you value this site and can donate or subscribe please do. I’ll stop bothering you with these notes soon. My most profound thanks to everyone who has given and to all subscribers.

The New Cold War Is Taking Form

By

On October 31, 2025

Comments

We’re near the end of our fundraiser, and now about $1,100 out from our fundraising target. If you read regularly and value the site and have the money to spare, please consider subscribing or donating. Over 10k people read this site every day, and it’s free, but it and Ian do take money to run. Huge thanks to all who have given so far, a number which is now slightly over 100 people.

This speech by Russian Secretary of State Glazyev is important, and underlines how the days of dollar hegemony are close to an end:

“The easiest way to stop the arms race is by ceasing the use of NATO countries’ currencies,” he stated unequivocally. “Because to the extent that we use the dollar, euro, and pound, we finance their defense expenses.”

He provided a staggering figure: “The total volume of [Western] monetary issuance last year was five trillion dollars. Of this, two and a half trillion dollars is what the Eurasian states, among others, have taken on. If we stop using these currencies… we will practically halve the financial potential of the global hybrid war.”

“In the US, their satellites have completely destroyed international law… The World Trade Organization is not functioning, the norms of the global financial system are violated, and the generally accepted norms of business ethics are ignored,” he said, endorsing the Belarusian-led “Charter of Multipolarity and Diversity” as the ethical alternative.

He announced concrete steps to build this new system, revealing that work is “already underway to create a large social network that would unite hundreds of millions, maybe billions of citizens, who are ready to adhere to traditional norms, ethics, and follow their commitments.”

But it’s not just about money. For example the Power of Siberia pipeline means more than a hundred billion cubic meters of natural gas, which once went to Europe, will now go to China. Europe gets to buy much more expensive American natural gas. African countries are kicking France and the US out, ending their base leases, at an increasing rate, and from Japan I read:

Japan must stop importing liquefied natural gas from Russia. It means developing alternative energy sources, including the restarting of nuclear power plants.

Even as the G7 countries are stepping up sanctions against Russia, Japan finds itself in the position where it is now procuring just under 10% of its LNG from Russia.

However, there is a chance that Japan will not be treated as an exception. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has said that he is “expecting” Japan to cease energy imports from Russia.

Japan’s public and private sectors need to prepare to ensure that LNG availability is not disrupted.

Japan does roughly equal trade with the West, and with BRICS, with about a 2% edge to BRICS. This is a terrible position to be in, though I’d suggest that going with the rising powers rather than the falling ones is the way to go.

The problem is that America is forcing nations to choose. Playing both sides: trading with both, may not be possible going forward. There will be two payment systems, so simple financial sanctions won’t work, but other types of market controls like tariffs and import/export controls have come roaring back into use.

Trade that can be cut off or curtailed at any point, apparently arbitrarily, can’t be counted on. When one looks at America and China’s strategy, China’s is mostly “punch back”. They rarely initiate sanctions except in cases where a country chooses to side with Taiwan. America, on the other hand, is… erratic. One can’t make plans, because one never knows when the rules of trade may change.

This is another reason why I think joining BRICS and that trade bloc is the sensible move. The old “rules based order” as Glazyev has pointed out, no longer exists in practice: the rules change at a whim and aren’t fairly enforced. While this was always true to some extent (Canadians remember how the US just ignored rulings against it on softwood lumber) it has become so common that the rule is now “whatever the US wants, and who knows what that will be tomorrow?”

America is trying to force a clean split into two blocs. But the other bloc is richer, more trustworthy and arguably stronger. And if it isn’t stronger yet, it will be in a decade, guaranteed.

This also relates to America’s actions in South America, an attempt to try and keep the America’s “American”, which is bound to fail. But as the declining power America wants to use its military force while it still has local superiority and before China and Russia can sell or give local nations enough weapons to become effectively immune to US force.

This process is the culmination of one of the major themes of my writing for almost a quarter century. The US era of sole supremacy has now ended. It can no longer force China to do what it wants, and it can’t even keep the sea lanes open, as Yemen has proved.

The old era is dead. There will be a brief period of co-equality, then America and Europe will fade into has-beens. I thought at one point we might have a new real cold war. We will, but not for very long. America isn’t going to be as strong as the old USSR, it won’t be able to hold up its end, and its current policy is to bleed its vassals, especially Europe, white. That will make them virtually worthless as vassals and will most likely lead to a revolt sometime between ten and fifteen years from now, as the European standard of living collapses under de-industrialization and without its sub-vassals selling it under-priced resources.

Centuries of Western rule of the world are coming to an end, and the Middle Kingdom is resuming its accustomed role as the most important country in the world. It’s a fascinating change-over to live thru, if not much fun if one lives among the Golden billion, who are being demoted  to the Bronze or perhaps Copper billion.

Are We A Week Away From An American Invasion of Venezuela?

By

On October 27, 2025

Comments

We’re about 4 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $9,735 from 82 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

In a week, about a quarter of the entire US Navy will be off Venezuela. Trump has made claims about Venezuela smuggling Fentanyl to America, but this is completely laughable and anyone with a room temperature IQ knows its a lie. (Though, who knows, Trump may believe it, not having a room temperature IQ.)

Anyway, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and Trump does love other people’s resources.

But I think the geopolitics are more important. The entire world outside of America’s direct vassals are throwing off the West’s shackles. Madagascar, for example, has said it is ending ALL ties to France. Yemen successfully defied America. America isn’t toothless yet. Syria and Lebanon attest to that, and Egypt and Turkey’s groveling acquiescence shows the America whip, though dulling, is still feared by some.

Still, Brazil told America to go take a hike when Trump tried to interfere in their legal system. Colombia’s President said he is willing to end all military cooperation with the US and that the only thing Colombia would miss is the helicopters. (Russia or China or even Iran can make this up, it isn’t advanced tech.)

What made America an Empire was the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine and the ability to enforce it. Every country in the Americas had to bow to the whip, except Canada and other British possessions. They fell under the whip after World War II. In Canada’s case the carrot was the auto-pact (you can manufacture some cars) and the whip was “and you will give up your aviation industry, because it is more advanced than ours and that is unacceptable.”

Oh there were rebellions and the Cubans even managed to make it stick, at great cost, but by and large if you didn’t do what America wanted a coup would happen, or your leader would wind up eating a bullet, and the wives of the opposition would be raped by dogs, as in Peru. People learned to fear the whip, and not to rebel too far. America was the monster next door, who’d kill you, torture your family and rape your women. They’d even kill priests and nuns. (No, you don’t get to pretend America isn’t responsible for its proxies.)

But the calculus is changing. Once half of Africa lived in fear of France’s regime change and “anti-terrorism”. Like the Americans, there was no evil they would not commit. And the Americans had their bases too, and everyone with sense feared the whip, especially after the USSR fell and there was no countervailing force.

But now there is. The dual alliance: China and Russia. In the old days the whip was supplemented with a simple fact of life. If you wanted any advanced technology, including cars, anti-biotics, electricity or planes, it had to come from the West.

But China can sell you all of that now. And Russia, well, their mercenaries can keep the peace. Yeah, they’re nasty, but they don’t turn on their host governments (or not so far.) And a nice Russian base is excellent inoculation against a case of American or French base. Meanwhile the Chinese have better fighters, better missiles and better drones. China or Russia can supply your military, and China will build you ports, hospitals, railroads, schools… whatever you want. When they lend you money, the interest rate is lower than anything the West offers and they don’t require IMF readjustments which destroy your economy and impoverish your people.

So all the US and the West have left is the whip. Thing is, the whip’s getting dull. America weapons are no longer the best. America can’t make its weapons with supplies from China, some of which, the rare earths, were just cut off. The US Navy is getting smaller. The Chinese navy is getting larger. The US can’t meet recruitment quotas.

America’s in terminal decline and everyone knows it. But like Britain in the 1930s, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still powerful and couldn’t fuck you up.

The smart people in Trump’s administration, I think, see that their military force is a wasting asset. The longer they wait to use it the less they have, and the more their enemies have. Russia and China could get enough gear and advisors to Venezuela to make attacking it a complete no go, in principle, and given time, they will. Same with almost every other reasonable sized country.

So if America wants to attack Venezuela it has to be soon.

Of course, even if it works, it’ll be a complete fiasco. A proxy government gets propped up, can’t suppress the opposition effectively in a huge country with jungles and mountains made by God for guerilla warfare and a peasantry and urban poor who are hostile and well organized. Either they lose (probably experiencing a colonel’s coup) or the Americans have to go in themselves. First it’ll be mercs, of course, but they won’t be enough. The oil won’t flow, because it’s easily interdicted and damaged by a competent insurgency, Venezuela will become even more of a basket case, and so on. Eventually the Americans will leave. Perhaps they’ll get a semi-stable puppet government running, but it won’t last, for the simple reason that as time goes by, siding with the US instead of China will be stupid. China and its junior partner Russia, just offer so much more.

Venezuela, the like the Gaza genocide and land grab, are among the last gasps of America empire. Empires die bloody. If we get away without a nuclear or world war, we’ll be doing well.

May America then break up into multiple states and never again be a unified nation capable of exerting its will upon the rest of the world.

Massive Cuts Incoming At NASA As America Just Gives Up

By

On October 24, 2025

Comments

So…

NASA’s civil servant workforce has varied in size over the years, peaking during the Apollo program. During the 1990s, the Clinton administration reduced the workforce by 25% over five years, a process that some claim laid the groundwork for the shuttle Columbia disaster. This budget proposes to slash NASA’s workforce by nearly 1/3 in a single year via involuntary layoffs, resulting in the agency’s smallest workforce since fiscal year 1960, before NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, and Stennis Space Center even existed.

In pretty pictures:

No. SpaceX doesn’t make up for this. China does both, massive public spending and multiple space launch companies.

What else is China doing? 

Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP or SSP), the concept of gathering solar power in space using solar power satellites (SPS) to send it back to Earth, may sound like science fiction, but it is getting closer to reality.

China plans to build a 1km-wide solar array in the geostationary orbit about 36,000km above Earth.

At this distance from atmospheric interferences such as day-night cycles and changing weather, the array will constantly gather solar energy, anticipated to surpass terrestrial photovoltaic systems by more than tenfold in efficiency.

Once collected, this energy will be transformed into microwaves and transmitted to a ground-based collector station.

Colloquially known as a powersat, this was suggested by O’Neill back in the 70s. It could have been done with tech that within reach in about a decade, but, of course, America did no such thing. The space shuttle cost way too much to launch, funding had dried up to do things better and cheaper and space was no longer a priority.

China’s following O’Neill’s playbook, weirdly enough. They’re doing what the US decided not to do. To put it bluntly, if humanity has a future in space, it will be Chinese, not American. This isn’t primarily about colonization, though some people will live in space for a time, it is about putting manufacturing, refining and mining into space so we can re-wild the Earth, and avoid the resource trap.

It’s not a sure thing, by any means, but given that Earth is limited and space is much less limited, it’s the only way out of the limited resource trap. China either succeeds (and it’s them or no one, because there is a ticking clock) or we face inevitable civilization collapse. Once that occurs, having already mined all the easily accessible resources, there is unlikely to be a second chance at a future in space, or even a particularly high tech society.

Anyway, as usual, the future happens in China, and America has given up. AI is bullshit, even if it works, American capitalists want it so they can put a third of the workforce out of work. Meanwhile China builds civilian robots, automates entire factories and ports, has flying cars and drones galore and is actually working towards a real future in space.

We’re about 3 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $9,235 from 82 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

Has China Put America Into the pre-WWII “Japan Trap?”

By

On October 20, 2025

Comments

Most modern weapon systems require rare earths to manufacture, including expendables like missiles and drones. Rare earths are less mined than they are refined, and China controls over 90% of the refining capability. Rare earths are generally found in small amounts in other ores. For example, Gallium in Aluminum. To get Gallium, you have to refine mountains of aluminum. Gallium comes from Bauxite as part of the refining process.

Fifty grams of Gallium per metric ton of refined aluminum.

China produces 98% of it.

Now Canada used to produce a lot of Gallium, as a side benefit of processing a lot of aluminum. But Canadian aluminum wasn’t as cheap as Chinese Aluminum. And this is the problem, if you want to scale you need long term contracts not just for Gallium but the Aluminum. (Do you trust any contract underwritten by the US government? If so, many bridges are available for sale to you.)

Every rare earth has similar issues.

Now cast your mind back to pre-war Asia. Japan is kicking ass, especially against the Chinese. They’ve conquered Taiwan, Korea and South Manchuria. All of this requires lots of oil, and they buy that oil from America, primarily, which was the Saudi Arabia of the day. FDR (who hated the Japanese and was a Sinophile) cut off oil exports to Japan.

Japan had only so much in the way of oil reserves. It decided to use them to go to war, grabbing as much territory as possible, while they still existed. Some of their conquests: Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and Borneo, had oil.

The situation today isn’t identical. There’s no non-China rare earth production to seize. Everyone else is pretty much happy to sell to America, they just don’t have enough to matter.

 

We’re about 3 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $7,885 from 68 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

Subscribe or donate.

But what does matter is that if China’s rare earth ban continues, America loses the ability to make large volumes of advanced weapons. Every time I look into estimates of how long it will take to get rare earths production up and running the West, the optimistic numbers are at about ten years, with a median around twenty. China itself took about twenty years, in the 80s and 90s.

China is getting stronger over time. Everyone with sense admits that. Even before the rare-earth ban it was clear that the West is growing weaker. In ten years, let alone twenty, no one will be able to pretend America can win a war against China.

So the rare earths ban means that if the US wants war against China, it has to be soon. Within a year, I’d say.

Note that this isn’t just about China. The West supplies Ukraine and Israel, for example, with weapons which have tons (literally) of rare earths in them. The ability to keep doing this is being taken away.

Heck, forget arming proxies, the West won’t be able to produce enough missiles and drones and radar and so on for its own military needs, meaning its ability to project power and keep other nations cowed and in line will go way down.

(At this point many of you are thinking “and this is bad, how?”)

So this is fairly existential for America. Its ability to bully everyone is about to be reduced significantly for ten to twenty years, by which time all its enemies will be well supplied by the Chinese and Russians with weapons more advanced than American ones.

Use it or lose it. I suspect this may be part of the reasoning (by the few parts of American government capable of reasoning) around attacking Venezuela, for example.

But the reason that America officials are freaking out about the rare earth ban is it really does matter. That America and the West let themselves get into the position is insane, people (including me) were pointing out this vulnerability twenty years ago. But if there’s one thing the West can’t do any more it’s definitely think beyond three months or “but China’s rare earths are cheaper, so we can’t do anything!!!!!”

Assuming a war can be avoided, the best outcome here (but bad for most citizens of the West because there are a lot of civilian rare earth applications) is for China to just leave the restrictions on permanently.

Oh, and as a ray of sunshine. If the US can’t supply Israel with weapons and if Russia and China won’t, well… More on that later.

China’s finally flexing its muscles. It spent the last eight years, ever since Trump’s absolutely crazed and stupid Huawei sanctions, making sure it has all the trump cards and no significant vulnerabilities.

And it had done so. Goodbye (not) Pax Americana.

 

China Seizes The Master’s Weapon As It Makes Itself The New Hegemon

By

On October 17, 2025

Comments

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes believed that ideas, hospitality, travel, knowledge and science should move freely between nations.  if a country could reasonably produce something physical it needed, it should. Trade should exist, but be kept to a minimum.

I’d like to highlight something Matt Stoller (the anti-trust guy) recently wrote:

In May of 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared its economic strategy, using the phrase “dual circulation.” Dual circulation meant fostering a domestic productive apparatus that is independent of foreign technology and finance, while making sure the rest of the world is dependent on Chinese control of key supply chains, whether it’s shipping, railroad construction, electric batteries, or solar panels. Chinese ‘grand economic strategy,’ in other words, is to operate as a giant monopoly on which the rest of the world must rely.

Matt says this isn’t about Trump, but notice it’s from 2020. It is about Trump: Trump in the first term, with his anti-Huawei sanctions. The Chinese realized they were vulnerable and the national effort became making sure they controlled all their own critical supply chains. Having seen how the US used financial sanctions and supplier boycotts, they regrettably decided to reverse the situation.

Now what one needs to understand is that after WWII American controlled most of the key supply chains outside of the Russian bloc. They had over 50% of the world’s industry. If you wanted something, you have to get it from them. Over time, this franchise expanded, first back to the Euros, as they re-built their industry, then to the Japanese, Taiwanese and South Koreans. All of these nations were firmly American vassals. Not allies, vassals with military bases in their countries.

The West, led by America and the USSR had all the advanced tech. In the 70s the USSR fell behind, they couldn’t manage the digital revolution happening, and then the USSR collapsed and the West, really America, ruled unchecked.

If you wanted any advanced tech: planes, cars, computers, weapons, etc… it had to come from America or one its vassals. The US effectively had “dual circulation”, especially since it also had full control of the international finance system and could lock anyone out at will.

This wasn’t theoretical, US sanctions on Iraq in the 90s under Billy Clinton killed at least hundreds of thousands of people. I once talked to an Iraqi oncological pediatrician from the 90s and her incandescent rage over all the children who died of cancer she couldn’t save because of American sanctions was so hot it blotted out the sun.

Once such sanctions had been rare (though there are cases back in the 50s.) The most notable is the multi-generation trade blockade of Cuba.

But from Clinton on use of these sanctions became routine, “Treasury’s Wars.” Millions died, many more were impoverished.

So, China has learned from the evil master. And it has decided that if there is such a weapon, it will have it and  use it and no one else can have it.

Everyone who rages against this is correct. No country should have this power. Not America. Not China. No one.

We’re about 2 1/2 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $7,695 from 64 people out of a readership of about 10,000. 

If you read this blog, you’re usually ahead of everyone else. You know, years in advance, much of what’s going to happen. The intelligence from this blog is better than what people pay $10,000/year for. Without donations and subscriptions, this blog isn’t viable. If you want to keep it, and you can afford to, please give. If you’re considering a large donation, consider making it matching. (ianatfdl-at-gmail-dot-com).

Subscribe or donate.

What should be the case is a trade regime where everyone makes most of what they need. Need medicine? Make it in your country. (Shut up about prices, if the supply chain is domestic then almost all that crap that MMTers go on about becomes true. Prices are irrelevant, it’s all in money you print.) To the largest degree possible, everyone makes what they need. Smaller countries will have a harder time, and trade-states like Singapore obviously can’t, but this is what a good world looks like.

This maximizes political autonomy, too. You can’t be blackmailed by other countries. Spread nukes around, and much military force goes off the table too. (And they are going to spread. The US has taught everyone that if you have nukes you’re safe, and if you don’t, you’re dinner.)

So. China is teaching the Western world the same lesson America taught China and Africa and Iraq, and Iran and Cuba. We: Europe, the Anglo countries, South Korean, Taiwan and Japan, were inside the bubble during the period when the US allowed its vassals decent lives. (Oh, they destroyed Japan’s tech and industrial lead, they gutted Britain after WWII, they forced Canada to destroy its world leading aviation industry), but overall, if you were on the inside of the “Golden billion” or, early, “the golden 500 million”, life was pretty damn good.

America used the whip, its vassals jumped to obey and everyone else was poor.

Then Americans got stupid and thought that China was like Japan, they could ship their industry there, makes lots of money and if necessary bring China to heel if it got out of hand.

Wrong. Morons. I and others warned about this for decades, how stupid it was, but no one in power listened. Probably a good thing, since it led to a billion people getting out of poverty, but it’s not going to be fun for those us living in the West.

So: the weapon is being wrested from the old hegemon’s palsied hands, and being wielded by the apprentice, the new master, the new hegemon.

Bow, insects, the new lord is here. And no, America isn’t going to get its hegemon status back, nor should anyone who isn’t American want it to.

The actual solution is Keynes solution. No one should have the weapon—the power—because every country should make, grow and dig as much of they need as possible, using trade only for what they genuinely can’t make or for luxuries they can do without in a pinch.

Subscribe or donate.

EU Leaders Determined To Win “Most Supine Slave Award”: Nexperia Edition

By

On October 15, 2025

Comments

A couple days ago I discussed the Dutch taking over Nexperia, a Chinese owned but Dutch domiciled company making commodity semiconductors. The company became Chinese owned because it was almost bankrupt, the Chinese bought it, fixed it and kept many jobs in Europe, including the headquarters.

What I didn’t know about the story on Monday is that the Dutch were between a rock and a hard place. The Americans threatened to put Nexperia on the entity list, and thus kill it with sanctions, if it remained Chinese owned. So if the Dutch didn’t kick the Chinese out, it was doomed.

But the Chinese have put a ban on any exports to or from Nexperia (it has facilities in China.) Which means it won’t be able to manufacture anything. So it’s doomed.

Now the important part here is that Nexperia mostly sold semiconductors in Europe. And American sanctions could stop a Dutch domiciled company from selling to other European countries.

That is how supine the EU is. They haven’t put in place a way to resist American sanctions on intra-European trade. That’s hilarious pathetic and servile.

Other Chinese companies will simply produce the chips Nexperia used to, and none of the money for that will go to Europe. This is a loss for the Dutch.

It should also be noted that the Dutch have more companies in China than vice versa. So if China really wants to retaliate, well, they can.

It’s our annual fundraiser. We’ve raised about $7,045 from 63 people in the last fourteen days, out of our goal of $12,500. If you’re a regular reader and can afford to support our writing, please subscribe or donate. Over 10,000 people read every day, but without those few who give the site would not survive.

Europe is being ground between America and China, and ground to dust. The only way to avoid winding up third world nations (I am not being hyperbolic about this) is to get out from in between. All the GDP numbers are fake, they mean NOTHING of importance. All that matters is what you grow, dig up, refine and make. Everything else is nice to have, but ultimately if you can’t produce what you need, you are at the mercy of those who can. Germany, the industrial heart of Europe, is de-industrializing furiously. Everyone else’s industry was already gutted by Germany’s use of the Euro to inflate their costs and move production to Germany.

China has no reason to love Europe, but they’re happy to do business. They offer a better deal than America does right now. Statesmen (of whom Europe has zero) would re-orient and tell America to go take a long leap off a short pier.

And yeah, that means accepting that Russia is going to win the Ukraine war, but, y’know what? It is anyway. And yes some of the Eastern Euros will scream, but who cares, they’re all welfare recipients who couldn’t make a budget without Germany and France subsidizing them. If they want to prioritize hating Russia over saving Europe, kick them out of the EU. Most of them should never have been let in in the first place. Start with the Baltics and Poland.

This is the great power shift, a historic switch of hegemonic powers which only happens every hundred to hundred and fifty years. You can align with the new hegemon and have a chance at prosperity, or you can choose to remain with the old order and suffer serious decline. This is especially true with America, whose current policy amounts to “loot the vassals while we still have them.”

European leaders need to stop being a bunch of supine wimps, and if they won’t, the European population needs to replace them, by whatever means necessary.

It’s Our Annual Fundraiser. If you read us a lot, please Subscribe or Donate.

Page 1 of 7

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén