Ian Welsh

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

Category: Trump Era Page 1 of 16

Turns Out You Can’t Make A Deal With Trump (University and Law Firm Edition)

By

On May 7, 2025

Comments


The NYTimes writes:

Columbia University, for example, agreed to concessions that included imposing new oversight over its Middle Eastern studies department and creating a security force empowered to make arrests. But that was not enough to restore the more than $400 million in grants that the Trump administration had canceled, or to prevent the administration from making even more demands.

Law firms like Paul Weiss, which thought they had escaped punishment by agreeing to do pro bono work for uncontroversial causes, discovered that Mr. Trump saw their agreements as a blank check for them to do his bidding.
As my colleagues have reported, the law firms discovered that they had agreed to deals that “did little to insulate them from his whims.” One expert at Yale Law School said the “administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.”

As I wrote April 11th:

Trump operates on two simple rules:

  • For me to win, someone else has to lose; and,
  • If someone capitulates to my demands, I can still get more.

If you give in to Trump, he will be back.

…

Trump’s been going after both Big Law and the Ivies, and so far most, though not all, have given in. Four major “white shoe” law firms have offered 340 million in pro bono work for Trump’s causes and promised not to oppose him.

All of them are idiots. Trump is a bully and a blackmailer. You can never “pay off” a blackmailer. They will always come back to the well for more.

And these are some of the most important, powerful and “smart” people in America. They’re morons. Much as I despise Harvard, they at least had the balls to stand and fight. It’s not out of any great principles or anything, they’re still pro-genocide scum, they just aren’t willing to give up their power.

Everyone’s getting this now. Finally. Domestically and externally. Even Japan is threatening Trump with selling Treasuries and standing with China in demanding an end to all tariffs before further negotiations.

On April 17th, I wrote:

I think the odds of significant elite opposition are high. They don’t want to, but Trump has backed them into a corner. It’s fight or exit the elites.

This is going to be a nasty fight. Trump’s weaponization of the immigration system and presidential orders, especially dubious presidential control over spending means he has powerful weapons, including the threat of deporting citizens to prison camps for life.

The fight is developing and the New York Times is the mouthpiece for elite opposition. Trump’s polls are shit, he’s failed to get a peace between Ukraine and Russia and the full tariff effects will start smashing Americans into the dirt in about a month.

Meanwhile Trump’s allies, like the tech bro faction, are not doing well. Tesla is doomed and most of the rest are betting vast sums on AI, which loses money with every single query, even from paying customers and where hallucination rates are increasing, not decreasing. Meanwhile China is working on new types of semiconductors and will soon be independent of Western semiconductor tech, just as ASML’s CEO warned.

Trump is a living embodiment of the “Peter Principle” that people rise to their level of incompetence. He’s going to be more unpopular than any President since Hoover and he’s taking US hegemony, and likely even prosperity, with him.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

Yes, If You’re American There Will Be Serious Shortages Starting In About A Month

By

On May 6, 2025

Comments

Effective tariffs are over 100% on most goods coming in from China. Everything from medicine to toys to machine and electrical parts will start running out soon. If your air conditioner or fridge breaks, the parts necessary to it may not be available. America doesn’t make these parts, and it’s endless. For example, magnets used in appliances.

So, yes, if stock up if you can.

No way of knowing how long this will go on for, and it’s worth noting that some factories in China have just shut down, period. You’d think they’d move production to other countries and some are trying, but since Trump has declared his retard trade war with entire world, and since he’s completely fickle (he just put a 100% tariff on films, claiming national security, which isn’t even allowed for films, but who knows) decision makers are reluctant to re-shore to other countries. Trump might have another one of his distempered starts and tariff them.

Anyway, even after the trade war ends, which I suspect it will, prices will be higher and supply for some products will be thin, but unless you’re an insider in a particular industry it’s hard to say which ones. Setting up production in the US takes time, sometimes years, and, again, because Trump is so fickle, hardly anyone is willing to invest. Ironically if Trump believably said “it’s going to be 100% on everyone forever”, that would in some ways be better than the current situation, since at least people could make decisions and invest.

Note also that even if the trade war ended tomorrow, the pipeline has been disrupted and there’s at least a two month gap to overcome.

So, rocky road ahead if you’re American. Stock up, strap in, and pray.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

Harvard Decides To Fight And America’s Elite War is ON

By

On April 17, 2025

Comments

So, Trump sent a bunch of demands to Harvard, which basically amounted to “we run this university now.” In the wake of his demand that Columbia submit to a consent decree, Harvard decided to fight and is trying to rally other universities.

This isn’t about free speech or any civil liberties values. Harvard was happily crushing Palestinian protestors. The issue is power: Trump wants to take power away from the people who run it now, and they aren’t willing to give it up.

This comes back to the simplest problem in negotiating with Trump: you can’t actually cut a deal, because he’ll always come back for more. American elites are beginning to realize that they can’t conditionally surrender: they can’t give Trump some stuff and expect to be otherwise left alone.

I think the odds of significant elite opposition are high. They don’t want to, but Trump has backed them into a corner. It’s fight or exit the elites.

This is going to be a nasty fight. Trump’s weaponization of the immigration system and presidential orders, especially dubious presidential control over spending means he has powerful weapons, including the threat of deporting citizens to prison camps for life.

But Trump has moved into “beyond a fuck-up” territory. He’s moved too fast and made too many enemies too fast, both domestically and internationally. He’s turned allies against him, and made everyone scared.

That’s not smart. The rule of purges is to do them fast, yes, but that once you’re done, you’re done. And when you make deals you need to keep them. No one feels safe, but they haven’t given up their power yet.

Worse, Trump is almost certain to lose Congress in the mid-terms. I’ve never seen a President more likely to be impeached, because he has made it “me or you”. Non-Trump aligned elites will go for his throat as soon as they can, and he’s turning a lot of elites who were pro-Trump against him with his “trade” policies.

American elites wanted to give in to Trump, but he’s forced them into a corner, and like the rats they are, they will fight when threatened with loss of their own power.

So buckle in and buckle up, sunshine. It ain’t over till it’s over, and it’s far from over yet.

 

You get what you pay for. This blog is free to read, but not to produce. If you enjoy the content, donate or subscribe.

“The Chief Justice Has Made His Ruling Now Let Him Enforce It”

By

On April 14, 2025

Comments

So, basically, the Supremes ruled 9-0 that Trump had to obey a lower court when they court said to return Abrego Garcia, whom Trump sent to prison in El-Salvador, who is not a gang member as Trump claimed.

This case is wrong in every way:

  • It’s not legal to send someone to another country’s prison;
  • The ICE agent who said the hairdresser was a gang member was kicked off the cops for dishonesty, then got a job with ICE;
  • There was no due process before the hairdresser or any of the other kidnapping victims were sent overseas, many of them are clearly not gang members;
  • ICE is making arrests wearing masks, not showing ID and grabbing people off the street into unmarked vans. Straight up Gestapo shit.

But what’s particularly offensive is that Trump is saying “I can’t get him back” at the same time as El Salvador’s President is claiming “I don’t have the power to return him.”

This is “I’m telling the sun is pink, with blue polka-dots” level bullshit. Everyone knows they’re lying. This, alone, should lead to impeachment, the sheer fucking insult of such an obvious lie. And every newspaper and news show should be leading with “President Lies.”

Next is the simple fact that legality aside, even Trump has admitted the guy is not a gang member and that they made a mistake. Anyone with even the faintest scintilla of decency would arrange for his return.

Assuming there is a “plan” here, and that’s always questionable when dealing with Trump it is obviously to put the President entirely above the law: what he’s doing is illegal, he’s lying to everyone’s face, the Supremes have ruled against him 9-0, and everyone knows he’s punishing an innocent man. His administration has said they want to start deporting citizens in the same way.

“I can do anything I want and you can’t stop me.”

The obvious next play from the judiciary would be contempt rulings and to start locking up administration members for perjury, which would cause an obvious constitutional crisis, but the US is already not a Constitutional Republic at this point. I can’t even count the number of actions Trump has taken which should lead to impeachment. Due process and the first amendment are clearly dead-letter, he’s violating separation of powers repeatedly and his unilateral shutdowns of Congressionally mandated departments and programs are 100% un-Constitutional. He doesn’t have the right to change Congress’s spending decisions that way. Oh, and he’s publicly blackmailing law firms and universities “do what I say or I’ll hurt you.” Publicly bragging about it.

His tariffs are all based on “national security” clauses allowing the President to declare tariffs, which is, again, obviously bullshit, though it’s also true that Congress is entirely complicit, since they could take that power back. (It shouldn’t be possible for one branch to delegate powers to another branch. The founders never intended for the President to be able to declare war, for example.)

But really, it’s the “sky is not blue” lying that is most offensive to me.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

– George Orwell, 1984

 

You get what you pay for. This blog is free to read, but not to produce. If you enjoy the content, donate or subscribe.

 

There Are Only Two Ways To Handle Trump’s Threats

By

On April 11, 2025

Comments

Trump operates on two simple rules:

  • For me to win, someone else has to lose; and,
  • If someone capitulates to my demands, I can still get more.

If you give in to Trump, he will be back. The latest “victim” is Colombia University. They’ve given in to Trump (and Biden) repeatedly, crushing anti-Palestinian protestors, adopting an extreme definition of anti-semitism, kicking multiple students out, executed a partial ban on wearing masks, and are to have security with arrest rights so they can crack down further on students who protest genocide.

After all that:

The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a dramatic escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution…

…The university has already accepted a series of changes demanded by the administration as a precondition for restoring $400m in federal grants and contracts the government suspended last month over allegations that the school failed to protect students from antisemitism on campus.

Needless to say, Trump hasn’t restored that 400 million.

If you give in to Trump without fighting, he assumes that there’s more left on the table. And since you’ve proven you won’t fight, he expects you won’t fight next time. He’ll keep doing this until you do fight, because that tells him how much you really have to give.

Trump’s been going after both Big Law and the Ivies, and so far most, though not all, have given in. Four major “white shoe” law firms have offered 340 million in pro bono work for Trump’s causes and promised not to oppose him.

All of them are idiots. Trump is a bully and a blackmailer. You can never “pay off” a blackmailer. They will always come back to the well for more.

You have only two choices if Trump comes after you:

  1. If Domestic, fight.
  2. If foreign, and he’s only threatening, tell him to pound sand and ignore him. If he does something, retaliate.

Trump’s not all powerful. The Supreme Court just ruled 9-0 that he has to return someone they sent to prison in El-Salvador. He’s reaching as far as he can to see how much he can get, that’s all. If you give in, “how much Trump can get” will be as much as he can take. If you fight, he’ll often just go find someone easier to take on and if he does choose to throw down, you stand a good chance of winning because he’s a bully, and at heart he’s a coward. He has no real plan, no real beliefs: there’s nothing he’s willing to go to the wall for except, perhaps, to remove people close to him who fail in their primary duty as a sycophant.

This is especially pathetic in the case of Big Law and Ivies with massive endowments. They can fight and doing so will be good for them in the long run. For law firms it shows that they have guts and no one wants a gutless lawyer. For Ivies it shows that they actually believe all that crap they spew about academic freedom.

Bear in mind that Trump’s power is a fleeting thing. He’s very likely going to lose the House and probably the Senate in 2 years and he’s done in four. There’s a small chance of him managing a coup, and a good chance he’ll try, but his antics are making him noxious not just to the citizenry but to huge chunks of powerful financial and industrial elites. Odds are he’s got his one term, and his health is bad enough that he may not even make that, though I suspect Vance would in many ways be worse.

But, again, if you give in to Trump without a fight, you’re telling there’s more he can get from you.

So fight.

 

You get what you pay for. This blog is free to read, but not to produce, and sometimes even like eating. If you enjoy the content, donate or subscribe.

America Is Trying To Form An Anti-China Trade Bloc

By

On April 10, 2025

Comments

Trump backed off on most of his tariffs after Japan sold a ton of bonds and he panicked. He replaced most of the tariffs with a blanket 10%, and kept tariffs on China and Canada (because those countries had counter-tariffed the US, supposedly.) Now the report is that what US negotiators are demanding is that in exchange for avoiding US tariffs, other countries tariff China.

It should be noted, first, that China will not back down. The way Trump is framing this is “China will come to us” and sub-voce “beg” and that’s not happening, it would be a massive loss of face for Xi and for China and China is a “face” society. So massive tariffs on both sides will continue unless the US makes the first overtures and in a face saving way. The US rates on China are 125% and the Chinese rates on America are 85%.

These are nuclear levels and are going to bring trade damn-near to a halt. China has also put export bans on a number of companies for “dual use” techs: in practice, they’ve hit Lockheed and Boeing (big military aviation companies) so hard that I’m not sure those companies will be able to build planes, the supply chain is that China-centric and there are no alternatives.

(Aside: the criminally minded will be scrambling to smuggle into the US, and fortunes will be made, as they were during Prohibition. Those who wish to reduce criminal risks can just import Chinese goods to Canada and Mexico and sell them to whomever. “I don’t know officer, I don’t ask them why they want all those machine parts. Not my business.”)

It’s hard to say how this will play out, because:

  • Lots of western countries have a hate-on for China. European and Canadian politicians, early on in Trump’s regime, had suggested “why tariff us, let’s go after China together!”
  • But… that was then, and this is now. A lot has changed in three months. No one trusts Trump to keep deals any more and China is looking mighty stable. Even if you’d really rather do business with the US, like Europe, can you expect any deal to be kept?

I’m genuinely unsure how this will play out. My personal preference would be to tell the US and Trump to pound sand: they don’t keep their deals, so you just can’t do business with them no matter what the theoretical case is. (That case is mostly that it’s hard to compete with China, their goods are so cheap, whereas the US is sclerotic so you can sell them stuff, especially if they’re in a trade war with China and can’t buy cheap: charge them 2x as much and still come in under!)

If Trump had gone for this as the start, he would have gotten it. Canada and Europe would have fallen over themselves to join in. Now? Not so sure.

There’s a lot of “Trump is a genius and there is a PLAN” going around in MAGA circles. Bullshit. If this was Trump’s actual goal, what he did made it harder to achieve rather than easier. What actually happened is that Japan jerked the bond market’s chain and Trump backed down and is trying to pivot.

It’s not a completely stupid pivot, the West isn’t competitive against Chinese manufacturing, and one way to deal with that (a bad way, but still a way) is to just cut China out of Western markets and sell over-priced goods to each other.

Years ago I said that the way geopolitics were playing out was leading to a “New Cold War” — there’s an entire category on this blog, just on that.

Crunch time has come and we’ll see if it happens, and who’s on each side. Trump’s made America’s chances of putting together a strong coalition far weaker than they should have been, but anti-China fear and a refusal to end rentierism in the West mean that we can’t, actually, compete against China, so there’s still a strong temptation to form that anti-China bloc.

If so, we’ll be the weaker side, as the USSR/Warsaw Pact was last time and we will lose the new Cold war, falling further and further behind technologically and watching as the Chinese enjoy goods we can barely even dream of, just as was true of the late Soviet Union.

Everything, and I mean everything, will be sacrificed to keep the oligarchs in power, keep making them richer and keep the flow of unearned cash pouring into every rich person’s orifices.

Update: Seems that the EU and China are in talks to end EU tariffs on electric vehicles. That sound you hear is Elon Musk puckering up to kiss his ass goodbye.

You get what you pay for. This blog is free to read, but not to produce. If you enjoy the content, donate or subscribe.

 

China Cuts The Legs Out Underneath The US LNG Industry

By

On April 9, 2025

Comments

I didn’t see this coming:

In a move that stunned traders, analysts and policymakers alike, China has just announced a complete halt on all liquefied natural gas imports from the United States. A decision made abruptly with no prior indication, no phased reduction and no explanation beyond a terse statement from Beijing…

…China was one of the fastest growing markets for American LNG, importing more than four million tons annually. Cutting that overnight is more than symbolic, it’s surgical.

Early reactions have been nothing short of panic. Energy markets were jolted, LNG prices in Europe and Asia swung wildly and US energy firms reported immediate financial hits…

…Overnight, the US was eliminated from one of the world’s most lucrative gas markets worth more than US$2.4 billion a year. Let that number sink in. More than 4.4 million tons of American LNG every single year now suddenly has nowhere to go.

Ports along the Gulf Coast are already feeling the shock. Massive LNG tankers are sitting idle with nowhere to dock, no buyers to receive them. Terminal operators are scrambling to reroute shipments, but the damage is done. Revenue streams are drying up. American energy firms are haemorrhaging cash: millions of dollars in losses each day…

…

China has begun rerouting LNG cargoes originally meant for East Asia straight into Europe’s energy-hungry markets. The message is clear: If the US wants to weaponise trade, China will weaponise its energy strategy.

Why Europe? Because it’s vulnerable and China knows it. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has been scrambling to find a replacement for Russian gas. For the past two years, the US had been the emergency supplier, shipping LNG across the Atlantic to prevent blackouts and political chaos in capitals from Berlin to Warsaw. But that relationship, built out of necessity, was never guaranteed.

And China just exposed that fragility. By stepping in with competitive LG offers at lower prices, China is capitalising on a moment of weakness. European energy firms, already strained by inflation and political pressure, are welcoming any chance to secure stable and affordable supply.

One of the major stories of the Ukraine war is how the US took advantage of the pipeline sabotage and sanctions to sell Europe natural gas. Expensive natural gas. This increased the energy cost of heavy industry and led to a lot of European, especially German factories, shuttering and moving to the US.

Win/Win. For America.

China isn’t itself an LNG exporter, but it controls a lot of the market thru long term contracts. It has an excess of what it needs, and it just signed a new contract with Australia for long term supply:

In March 2025, Australia’s energy giant Woodside Energy inked a game-changing 15-year contract with China Resources Gas, one of Beijing’s top natural gas distributors.

Under the deal, Australia will begin supplying 600,000 tons of LNG per year, starting in 2027. While the volume might not seem earth-shattering on paper, the symbolism behind the agreement is monumental…

… Australian LNG is currently 20% cheaper than US shipments largely due to proximity and lower transportation costs. It takes roughly 10 fewer days for Australian cargo to reach Chinese ports, compared to those from the US.

Australia, of course, has been rather anti-China and a big US ally, BUT cold hard cash, err, trumps that.

What’s becoming clear about this trade war is that China has gamed it out. They thought ahead, having learned lessons during the first Trump administration: they were ready. They’ve massively reduced their vulnerabilities and carefully examined America’s weaknesses, and now they’re hitting them. Hard.

This realigns American allies in Europe and Australia more towards China, it hurts the US, and it highlights the benefits of doing business with China.

 

Xi Jingping

Xi, as we discussed in our last article, has been planning for this, not just since Trump, but since he took power. He’s locked and loaded and he’s firing his guns. The more Trump doubles down, the more America will be hurt, because China needs America less than America needs China. In many cases America firms have no choice but to buy from China, there is nowhere else to get what they need, while China either has alternatives or has already written off buying from the US, as is the case with chips. To China, America is a lost cause: it can’t be relied on either as a supplier or a buyer.

If America’s effectively a write-off, well, treat it like a write-off. And that’s what China is doing.

Trump and many Americans thought that China was the vulnerable one, that China was in a weaker position than them (they made the same mistake with Canada). It isn’t. Now Europe and Japan are holding weaker hands than the US in a trade war, but here’s China actually strengthening Europe.

It is to laugh. Trump’s fundamentally incompetent, a D- player and he’s going up against Xi, who’s arguably a great statesman, and so far, Xi is ripping him a new one.

This is what actual planning and actual competence looks like: see threats in the future and get ready for them. When someone declares you their enemy, as the US has repeatedly, take them seriously.

We haven’t seen that in any Western country in at least two generations.

 

You get what you pay for. This blog is free to read, but not to produce. If you enjoy the content, donate or subscribe.

Philistines, Philistines Everywhere

By

On April 7, 2025

Comments

It seems like the highest fruits of civilization are the target:

President Trump on Friday signed an executive order that aims to eliminate seven federal agencies, including ones that focus on media, libraries, museums and ending homelessness…

…The president targeted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the parent company of Voice of America (VOA), as well as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an agency that supports libraries, archives and museums in every state.

He also dismantled the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which aims to prevent and end homelessness in the U.S… (and more) (my emphasis)

Libraries, museums, art galleries, and open universities (they all used to be, now they’re all closed) are what justify humanity: they are our glory, the pinnacle of human grace. It’s art and culture and creativity and imagination that, along with care, make humanity worth shit.

(It should go without saying that the amount of money spent on libraries, archives and museums is a rounding error on Federal expenditures.)

Care is the other thing that makes humans more than a bunch of brutal, murderous, rapist, cruel chimps. Universal health care, hospices, housing for the poor, food for the hungry: these are what redeem humans, that make us more than a waste of skin.

Art and hospitals justify humanity. Caring for animals makes us more than beasts. I have no idea why some people want to be a bunch of murderous fucking chimpanzees, where the strong rule of the weak, and everything but power and money is denigrated.

If you’ve never experienced real pain, go visit a burn ward or a psych hospital. Our bodies make us vulnerable to horror. In face of that horror, it is art, learning and caring for others that make the world more than just Hell.

The people who laugh at prisoners being raped, who think that prisons should be about hurting prisoners, who think torture is acceptable, that mass murder of civilians is acceptable, become what they hate. Rapists by proxy, torturers by proxy.

This doesn’t mean turning the other cheek. By all means we should defend ourselves from monsters. But in so doing we must not, ourselves, become monsters.

To defund libraries, museums, archives (where our history is stored) and help for the homeless is to be a beast: less than an animal, since most social animals do care for each other. Libraries and public art galleries, in particular, are a ladder up and a solace. A place where anyone can go and experience the flower of human imagination, leave this world aside for a time and enter the worlds of creation. The internet is not a substitute, we can not be sure that the free resources here will remain free, and there is something extra to the physical presence of art and writing.

Trump is a Philistine, and so are most of his supporters. The ideals of civilization, the highest expressions, are care and art.

You get what you pay for. This blog is free to read, but not to produce. If you enjoy the content, donate or subscribe.

Page 1 of 16

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén