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Long March Versus Tiny Hands
According to China, remarks from Donald Trump and Scott Bessent in recent days about a possible de-e
I think Xi knows that our emperor is wearing no clothes. And his bullying looks foolish. The world is stuck with China, and not everything will always go our way.
MAGA hats and “Boycott China” t-shirts are made in China.
“Trade wars are good, and easy to win!”
– Some moron that stupid people think is ‘good at business’
Biden actually put some distance between us and China.
Trump may be the guy who actually enables them to get ahead.
Prediction: the next major Trumpian flinch will be around the expiration of de minimis exemption on Chinese imports. That officially goes into effect May 2. Presumably there will be a few days to a week of pandemonium, and then blink.
Adding: Hong Kong Post has said they’ll stop accepting US-bound airmail packages on April 27, so the fun could start even sooner!
From what I’ve read more than once, duty collection at US ports of entry is all over the place. We’re so not prepared to take on China. We can’t even implement what the naked Nero has proclaimed. H, your Long Marchers vs the ‘my sprained ankle is a 10′ captures the zeitgeist perfectly. Americans no longer have a reality based concept of who we have become – spoiled, stupid and greedy. Our last act at the top of the heap is, apparently, to commit seppuku while our former friends think it can’t come soon enough. There’s a line from an old song (I can’ t give you a name) that might be prophetic for America ‘the doctor said I’d get better, but I never would be well’, at least in my lifetime.
Shine, Perishing Republic by Robinson Jeffers.
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens
and so on…his message, America is trading freedom for security.
Exports to the US are under 3% of China’s GDP.
China has the cards and Trump has a very sick economy. Trump must surrender to save himself in x or 2x DAYS. Xi has no ‘use by date’,at all.
Trump should have accepted Japan’s offer of close to no tariffs (at least on autos) and should be encouraging UK to do the 2.5% tariffs that they are already publicly discussing. Apologize to Canada and Mexico, bring in the rest of western Europe. Then he can go to China and ask Xi if he is ready to make a deal.
The real death to the US economy will come from China, when they go completely capitalist and democratic (at some point- this will happen overnight.) and from India, if/when they fix the corruption. These two societies/economies are much more merit based than US and they will easily take over the top spots from the US in the global economic order.
Enjoy being number one- because it won’t last forever.
I don’t understand why go after allies if the goal is to contain China.
Bravo H
Have not seen all the pieces woven together as well in any other publication out there.
Man…it pains me to acknowledge this as truthful but no sugar coating how feeble we’ve become in some respects. Give us pizza, Netflix, a spot on the couch and Instagram/TikTok and we’re content to lay around in ignorance / sloth with thumbs in our mouths all fat and happy (whatever that means these days).
“The US in 2025 doesn’t have any principles or discipline. We just want to be comfortable. Our pain tolerance is negligible. When someone shows us one of those hospital pain charts with the smiley face continuum and asks, “How would you rate your pain?” we automatically say “10,” even if it’s just a sprained ankle. The idea that Americans are going to fight an economic war of attrition with the descendants of the Long Marchers is wholly laughable.”
Excellent post.
On top of all the other sad and dispiriting jokes, it saddens me to see top-level diplomacy reduced down to a high school gossip game of who called whom or who hung up last in an insecure courtship.
Trump is sure good at negotiating. At least until the other party’s in the room.