My word choice betrayed what I intended to get at and I didn’t realize how significantly I misunderstood the connotation of capitulated until more folks started voicing the same perspective as XiBuck. That is why I initially balked at what I saw as a significant extension beyond what I intended to say in his response.
Capitulated probably has the wrong connotation, but I was responding to a comment I interpreted as asking what concessions the Chinese got from the US. Namely, nothing directly. All the surrounding stuff is fair enough and likely where the Chinese negotiators heads were at too but they did not even mildly press the US here. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Again, I’m not intending to make a value judgment or suggesting one course of action over another. If I intended to do that, I would have said something like “the Chinese should have punished the US”. But I never said that because I didn’t intend to make a value judgment or suggest a course of action over another, as though I’m better positioned to understand what’s going on than the people intimately involved.
I said the Chinese had an opportunity to significantly pressure the US economy and did not take it. You are arguing that they shouldn’t have taken the opportunity to pressure the US economy. We aren’t having the same conversation.
So you agree that China is more interested in maintaining business as usual than putting pressure on the US? That is what I originally said. This is why you should respond to the argument someone makes, not what you assume they are saying by imagined extension.
Alright, how about you refrain from inventing a bunch of random stuff I never said to bolster your point?
China positively could have put the screws to the US but did not. They are being incredibly amicable with America as they always are.
China had the US in a significantly compromised position and instead of pressing this, just decided to go back to business as usual without securing significant concessions as they likely could have. As anyone aware should know, being friendly to the US probably wont lead to the US later returning the favor, so the benefits of getting along don’t really exist. This is really just the US saying ‘let’s just pretend the last month where we significantly weakened our bargaining position didn’t happen’ and China says ok.
China did what many expected and pretty clearly capitulated. Probably the correct choice for their interest in fostering world trade but also majorly bailed out the US at a time where if they had any interest they could have placed considerable pressure on the US economy. Any expectation we have of a Chinese conflict with the US needs to be considerably tempered after this. They still have no interest in serving as opposition to the US and when they do, it’s like with the Russians and only after they are forced by the west.
What’s your preferred method of determining industrial strength? Russia’s PPP is higher than their relative manufacturing output by value added or cost of goods, and they only have half the industrial CO2 output of the US. I’m not arguing one way or the other, I’m not especially familiar with these stats and such so I’m just curious about the apparent discrepancy.
Alright, alright, world bank says they’re the fourth largest by PPP which is still pretty modest for the guy personally bending the world to his will in my mind lmao
Putin really ought to bend these GDP numbers to his will, but I’ll cut him some slack. He’s got a lot going on now that he’s single-handedly responsible for controlling American foreign policy too.
Wow. You’d think the guy bending the world to his vision would lead the first or maybe second largest economy (in a weird situation) but I guess Putin’s a very humble guy and decided not to break the top 10.
Conscription is a questionable gambit considering recent austerity movements—if euro’s bourgeoisie arm their unwilling working class with military weapons and teach them to fight, they can’t also put the screws to them at home. Well, not without inciting revolution anyway.
I’m inclined to agree. This seems like the first time (at least in my memory) where no one with significant influence in US gov’t fundamentally understands what has been US foreign policy since Monroe. All the idiot business guys who think the US sends money to forcibly underdeveloped countries out of the kindness of their hearts—folks simply intellectually unequipped to continue the post-Soviet international order—are the only ones at the reigns. On top of that, they got some weirdo Canadian-South African billionaire with no understanding of US consumer culture (and the US citizens’ complete aversion to any inconvenience) to come impose harsh anarcho-capitalist austerity measures at home. “There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen” seems especially apt right now.
Trump seems to like Starmer personally so none of what was said by the admin previously matters anymore. That said Trump having another about-face on Starmer could be mere moments away at any time so who knows what will really happen in the end.
Let’s not get too carried away. Israel isn’t ending the genocide, they are pausing the most explicitly violent killings to go back to more subtle forms of killing until they decide to launch more military ops on civilians again. With Miriam Adelson being in Trumps ear as well as largely responsible for his campaign funding I cannot imagine he does anything that isn’t explicitly intended to further Israeli goals. The new ambassador to Israel is a guy who thinks ‘the Jews’ need to control Israel for the Christian apocalypse to begin. I can’t see how that will be an improvement for the Palestinians.
Agreed. Based on what his ex-girlfriend said about him, it sounds like his brain had turned to jelly after repeated head trauma that he had lied about to avoid being flagged with medical issues. I think the guy is just spouting off typical America-brained nonsense but thrown into the blender of late-stage CTE.
So what’s the current understanding of Trump’s tariffs? Was it simple market manipulation and they never intended to keep tariffs on long term? Or did the Trump govt really think this was a good idea to bring back manufacturing without understanding how this would impact the US economy and are now running from the consequences?