Image is allegedly of the note Trump wrote while editing a speech while on the way back from the G20 summit.
The top Russian-Chinese agent, Donald Trump, has decided that the pace of dedollarization and the decline of American financial hegemony is going too slowly. He has therefore decided to put tariffs on everybody; from America's largest trading partners to uninhabited islands. In the process, he is trying to create an autarkic America. Jokes aside, interpretation and analysis of this has ranged across a wide spectrum. I think we can broadly agree that the most idiotic are the "true believers"; those that actually believe Trump's every word, and that this will somehow bring back American manufacturing and whatever other inane promises he has made.
However, there is a much more interesting debate. The first camp are those who believe Trump is acting as an inadvertent accelerationist due to his lack of understanding about how the world economy and dollar hegemony functions (and that this will subsequently ensure that countries flock to China instead). The second camp are those who believe that Trump does know what he's doing, at least to a certain extent, and that the effective result of this period of madness will be countries kowtowing to the United States; renegotiating trade deals to be even more in favor of the US in order to get tariffs reduced. There's even a yet more cynical camp who believes that in fact, this entire trade war is just theater for further national wealth redistributions from poor to rich; that all these monumental international trade wars are more of a sideshow. To quote the linked article: "[...] out of the mountain of tariffs that threaten to turn into a global trade war will emerge the mouse of further tax cuts."
I'm not embarrassed to admit that I have absolutely no idea which one of these is the closest model to reality. We're in new economic and political ground, and even if the tariffs are quickly renegotiated and/or dropped, the impacts will continue to reverberate around the world for years. I'm sure we'll debate this for months to come here, though!
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Hello all, I apologize for my absence but my attention was required elsewhere due to academia. Within this timeframe I have been very busy and had not had much time to use this website as much as I would have liked to. Due to not using the website for long I close the tab on my computer by accident rendering me unable to get my password back due to forgetting my login details, mainly my password!
I am back now so I hope I did not worry anyone too much whilst I was away. I will write a summary of events soon as things are getting really tense globally. It seems in my absence so much has occurred so bear with me!
XHS returns, mere hours later trump pauses tariff increases for 90 days
welcome back!
everyone is most interested especially to learn about how trump's tariffs will actually strengthen dollar hegemony ;)
i think we're seeing a real conflict between factions within the u.s. ruling class, with trump support primarily coming from domestic capital interests (extraction industries, but also distribution) whereas biden/harris draw much more from international finance capital. i suggest the trump faction's goal here is partly to punish finance capitalists and their control of the federal reserve. the tariffs serve as a very blunt cudgel to that end, and were undoubtedly supported at least in name by many of his economic advisors and their friends.
but no rush, i look forward to your summary!
many such cases
Vaxxed?
Kidding, welcome back XHS!
PW manager gang
Note tab on my phone gang. I'm not doing opsec because I'm not doing anything cool enough to get in trouble.
Good to have you back mate
XIAOHONGSHU'S BACK
THE LEGEND NEVER DIES
We missed you so much, please never leave again :cri:
Xiaohongshu got a sequel?
We are so back.
Freed from their long and difficult term as a political prisoner
Welcome back XHS 2.0! I always learn something from your effortposts (and travel advice for China)!
Welcome back!
For decades the nothing happeners lived in harmony, but everything changed when the tariffs attacked. Only the XiauHongShu, master of all nothings, could save us but when the world needed them most, they vanished.
A new XiauHongShu2 has returned, and I believe they can dedollarize the world.
Rarely have I enjoyed a shit post as much as I did this one lol
Glad to have you back comrade. Your analysis has been greatly missed during the recent trade war! Do you think it bodes well for China developing its domestic consumption and dedollarisation in general? Still not really sure how I read it yet.
Welcome back, comrade! Always appreciate your perspective even if I don't always agree
Same, I can feel annoyed by the disagreements but I still find myself enthusiastic to read it. Xioahongshu(2) is a good comrade.
At the end of the day, Xiaohongshu puts a ton of effort into their posts and comments from a perspective we don't always have, which has a lot of value.
They're usually just reposted michael pettis' points, the "chinese underconsumption" theory has been plenty criticized
No need to be an asshole
I didnt mean to be an asshole. I mean that is the theory no? Has xiaohongshu said that he's not inspired by him?
No one here should be expected to have wholy original takes, it's fine to just share something you've read and agree with, I do it all the time, I was just surprised that I'd never seen someone point out the similarity with pettis
On second thought, maybe it was best I forgot my log in details.
So long.
Don't do this, stay. Were much worse off without you, regardless of how much is or isn't someone else's analysis, we need you.
No you should stay, ~please~. You're an important voice for us all to learn from. And even if there are disagreements your presence here is definitely a net benefit as it adds a knowledgeable perspective. We need a plethora of good views and takes, and it's okay if there are disagreements.
Something, something the dialectic.
lol. I will for now but I’m preparing for my trip so I won’t be as active as I am normally throughout this week into the next. But I will provide updates every now and then.
I've come to a more firm disagreement with them on that too - what country's working class benefited from that shift? I think you need to make it when you're basically ready to actually press the communism button, not when you're still developing the productive forces.
Yep, pretty skeptical. I appreciate the analysis, but it doesn't mean I agree with it.
Yay! Glad you're back!
Welcome back
yay! welcome back!
Good to have you back!
welcome back, comrade!