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Bulletins and News Discussion from April 7th to April 13th, 2025 - Juche With Trumpian Characteristics

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!

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1.6K comments

  • It has been a tense week around the globe and uncertainty of the future is what is the most frightening part of this trade war. Some small businesses in China are adding “America fee” for American tourists so if you want to buy a product with an identification they will add a surcharge which I find amusing and you should too. Each hour the unpredictable nature of this situation creates spikes of anxiety across China and many of us are scared that this can escalate to a kinetic war. I have even heard of some rumors of a draft being implemented but these were not verifiable yet, I don’t think kinetic war is something we see anytime soon but this is a start.

    Will China sell treasuries? They have already started doing so… but to think they will “dump” them (sell them all) is out of the question, although I have seen that suggested here in a post or two, unless this is a jest then I would say that mutual economic destruction would be the result- yes economies want to move away from the US globalized order, but the move takes time hence the opportunity for BRICS to flourish and deeper trade partnerships with other nations. Reacting poorly to the decisions of the US in this current time will only impact more people, not just Americans. The reciprocal tariffs is a way of mitigating the consequences and in turn a show of solidarity with the Chinese people and other nations who may be too scared to war with the US. Partnerships like that of Korea, Japan and China only reinforce the Chinese ability to mitigate conflicts and show it is able to play the part of a good global superpower and this is what globally people want, they don’t want an empire which will attack them as its doing now. They just want support.

    Rumors: Now for the scary part. Rumors that an all out war will begin are just rumors, but at the same time we have to take into consideration that wars have started over less. Trade wars are essentially hurting economies and the people living in those countries. As America approaches recession, unemployment goes up, people lose jobs, homes, and they die. The Chinese infrastructure is a lot kinder so there are safety nets implemented which prevents people from feeling a full impact, although they will still be affected no doubt. I feel for other countries as well who do not have adequate safeguards in place, in the US however the worker always feels the brunt of the force, the working class will always pay to fix the issues of the country which will possibly lead to some sort of nation wide unrest which is when Trump will enact the insurrection act and install martial law, it is funny that the liberals who were so adamant China was the harbinger of oppression and martial law of certain populations within China (lies) are now starting to understand to some degree that they themselves are living in such a regime. But we should still not trust the liberals as they always side with the fascists in the end, they may cry about it now until their face of the party tells them “sending Americans to El Salvador is good actually” and then they will keep quiet like they did on Palestine. Anything that infringes on their optics and reality of living within a Marvel movie takes them out of their artificial reality, the only reason the liberals complain now is because the cost of empire rises, but when the leash is tugged they will obey. So while the US may start to usher in martial law, they have already boasted their incentive of increasing their military budget to one trillion dollars. This is meaningless and more posturing, the US is in decline and knows it. This is a rat trapped in a corner move and one that increases stock prices of death capital (manufacturers of war products) and nothing more.

  • Shot:

    Chaser:

    If this is true, it’s the single dumbest policy in an administration that only sets dumb policy. But considering the tariffs on steel I can only imagine we’re going back to building boats out of wood or gang-pressing private vessels to start carrying cargo its not designed to to bear the burden.

    Literally set to destroy domestic and international trade, it’s amazing how they set only dumb policy.

    ::: spoiler i dunno how to x cancel or anything Link here: https://x.com/typesfast/status/1909362292367802840

  • Another day another comment

    I think yesterday perfectly encapsulate why I think we will increasingly see capital leave the us, in a single day the SP500 moved down 5% then up 3% and settling slightly negative. That kind of volatility is more reminiscent of Bitcoin and not something that 'should happen' to stuff like these indexes of 'real economies' yet here we are, and the reason seems to be that institutional investors, basically big investment firms and banks, are completely not moving they are neither selling nor buying at the moment and most movement is coming from retail investors, your gamestop guys, your maga people, those wallstreetbets redditors etc.

    So where is the institutional money going to?

    For the most part into private companies and they've been doing so for quite a while now in 1996 there were 8000 public traded companies now that numbers is 4000, meanwhile private companies went from 1900 to 11200. This trend is sure to speed up now, especially since after this crash taking a public company private is now cheaper as well so there's no better time than now. This will have several knock on effects the first and foremost one is that as companies leave the public stock market what buying an index of S&P or the Nasdaq gets you less, basically the us stock market will speed up its 'shrinkflation', keep in mind this is something that has been happening since the 2000s but now it'll speed up.

    Other knock on effects are decreased confidence in the US as a place to invest in, if I am a german investment banker I rely on data that is under some scrutiny and oversight, so I am much less inclined to want to invest into anything in the US, yes I could get the next google but I could also get the next WeWork. Which means the steady flow of foreign capital into the US will slow and might even end because Trump is keeping up the hostility. Meanwhile US capital will invest in foreign markets if it can which means that where before capital flowed into the US we will now see capital start to flow out of the US over years/decades.

    This matters because if Trump is serious about his 'we will bring back manufacturing' then he already lost. Building factories requires a ton of capital, capital that doesn't want to invest right now because of how risky and uncertain things are right now, and which will in the future leave the US, foreign capital is quickly drying up both from hostilities and less confidence so they are out as well which really only leaves them with one way of building manufacturing.

    Public spending to build factories, now I don't think it needs to be said but that is never ever going to happen.

    So uh yes. I think Trump did sign the eventual death warrant call me the anti-xiaohongshu or whatever

  • This will be my last post in the foreseeable time since I'll delete the account after I've posted this so I better make it count. Partly because things suck and partly because I decided to do more praxis instead of stewing online.

    There's no reason to beat the dead horse that's tariffs and Trump so just a quick update, they had numbers and the numbers were really good like low inflation much lower than anticipated while Fed says 3% inflation for the year and that they don't see the need to do anything about it, meanwhile Bonds keep going up as people flee the US Dollar into gold, yen and swiss franc and other currencies like I said. US 10YR Bonds are going even higher as stock markets crap themselves as capital is fleeing the USA because shits fucked.

    So I'll focus on my original hatred the germans. There's a new poll AfD is now highest polling but honestly who cares at this point, elections are still far away and there's honestly not much of a difference between CDU and AfD, it's like Pepsi and Coke, could be that they got boosted by all this fear and uncertainty could be a bigger incoming trend it's too early to tell but then again CDU is determined to go all in on what the AfD wants.

    Anyways coalition time this is the new cabinet

    Economy: CDU They just put a pretty incompetent guy in here who's micro fixation is getting rid of the VAT

    Finance: SPD

    Interior: Alexander Dobrindt CSU This guy is a massive piece of shit, racist, fascist you name it and a huge Zionist and someone that is in the pocket of car lobbies that talked about there being a 'Anti-Deportation-Industry' in germany, calling climate activists like Last Generation and XR, climate RAF something which considering he is bavarian and how criminal the police and state is there in its repression is really fucking bad.

    Labour: SPD

    Defence: SPD <- Guy under Scholz who is quite popular keeps his position

    Infrastructure: CDU

    Health: CDU

    Ecology: CDU

    Foreign: CDU

    Family: CDU

    Digital: CDU

    Justice: SPD

    Education: CSU <- Again these are like absolute freaks

    Agricultural: CSU

    Foreign Aid/Development: SPD

    What did interest me about their new coalition, what they have in their 'Koalitionsvertrag', their coalition contract. So what they are going to focus on, it's a 146 page document that I've read. Well mostly the first couple of pages about how germany is under attack I skimmed because I don't care for the lamentations of the germans how things are totally unfair.

    Economy

    There is a ton of stuff here and most of it is really vague but the things they do mention over and over again are words like 'pragmatism, flexibility and de-regulation'. In short companies should be much less regulated and free to do whatever with a specific point being german car manufacturers who don't have to worry too much about CO2 emissions from their cars. They offset this by going 'Now you can get subsidies for EV vehicles going up to 100k' so germans will buy the newest electric Porsche or whatever.

    One small thing they want to accomplish is bring down energy cost by 5 cent per kWh so that combined with less regulations might mean that they will ease sanctions on Russia to get that gas back and get cheap energy again.

    Green Policies

    This of course means when it comes to green policies they do a big talk about how they are comitted to goals and things, but they do not mention actual policies and my take on this is that they'll do fuck all regarding emissions and we might even see more rollbacks on those pesky laws that make polluting harmful because the overall message to me is 'All Hail the Economy' and they'll sacrifice the environment at its altar. Climate protections will get optimised aka they will get removed

    National Security

    Yeah guess what massive more surveillance and shit because of other countries waging 'hybrid warfare against the german state'. Now I know what you are thinking bombing Nordstream but no Germany has been in a sort of mania about Russia secretly bombing germany so that plus the 'antisemitism' will get used for a massive expansion of the surveillance state designating and deporting people for political activism which we already saw with Pro-Palestine EU-Citizens getting deported without any courts. And considering that there's even conspiracy theories that green activists are actually working for Putin there will be a massive political repression.

    Social Policy

    They'll reform the Bürgergeld aka former Hartz IV aka benefits will get slashed again. Oh also consumer protection is also gone.

    Asylum Policy

    I don't know what to tell you shit's fucked it'll be extremely fucked and will go against EU rights and law, International rights and laws, it'll be fucking bad.

    This is mostly it there's other stuff but most is really vague and they've got some of the best german word people out there to write up gems like

    Die klimapolitischen Sektorleitlinien werden wir flexibilisieren

    Which I mean words have no meaning.

    One thing that is notably absent is anything concerning combatting the rise of right-wing extremism, fascism, nazism. AfD is quite clearly a nazi party and they are permitted because well Germany is a nazi country but I think it should be repeated again that in this coalition that ran on 'we are going to stop the AfD'. They didn't put a single thing against the AfD.

    Cheers notceps

  • germans upon hearing they will be abolishing debt ceiling for military

    (i legit suspect its some kind of fiscal freaks movement from cdu to afd)

  • ‘Ignorant, disrespectful’: China slams Vance for ‘peasants’ slur as tariff war intensifies | South China Morning Post

    China has strongly criticised US Vice-President J.D. Vance for characterising the Chinese as “peasants” amid the escalating trade war, calling his remarks “ignorant and disrespectful”.

    “China’s position on China-US economic and trade relations has been made very clear,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

    “It is surprising and pathetic to hear such ignorant and disrespectful words from this vice-president.”

    Lin was responding to a media query on comments made by Vance in an interview with Fox News last Thursday, a day after US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on most trading partners – including an extra 34 per cent on Chinese imports.

    Defending the levies, Vance said: “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.

    “That is not a recipe for economic prosperity, that’s not a recipe for lower prices, and that’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.”

  • Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli [sic] Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram | Drop Site News

    A sweeping crackdown on posts on Instagram and Facebook that are critical of Israel [sic]—or even vaguely supportive of Palestinians—was directly orchestrated by the government of Israel [sic], according to internal Meta data obtained by Drop Site News. The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel [sic] since October 7, 2023. Israel [sic] is the biggest originator of takedown requests globally by far, and Meta has followed suit—widening the net of posts it automatically removes, and creating what can be called the largest mass censorship operation in modern history.

  • So. What's the difference between an activist that keeps a blog and does media for activism vs a pro-democracy journalist?

    I ask because I know for a fact the west regularly arrests activists, most of which definitely have a media presence online promoting their interests, and yet they're all left out of the data on "imprisoned journalists".

    And yet, in countries adversarial to the west. Activists with only so much as an online blog to their activism are labelled as imprisoned journalists and counted into the data.

    CPJ for example claims the US has no imprisoned journalists and yet China has 50: https://cpj.org/special-reports/in-record-year-china-israel-and-myanmar-are-worlds-leading-jailers-of-journalists/

    The one that has a death sentence in China (for espionage) only has a pro-democracy blog, and that makes them a journalist? Why not an activist and left out of the data?

    Is this journalist vs activist wordplay difference an unrecognised tool of massaging the west's data and inflating its enemies? Maybe even a well hidden shibboleth?

    Maybe this is not so much news but related to news (journalists). But I feel like there's something to this.

  • Sheinbaum is making state owned chocolate (Hexbear Post )

    Related to this topic, María Luisa Albores, director of Food for Well-being, reported that the chocolate will be available in three formats: table chocolate, bar chocolate, and powder chocolate.

    “In the case of a cocoa processing plant, a chocolate factory, we aim to produce at least the three formats we are promoting: table chocolate, bar chocolate, candy chocolate, and powder chocolate, primarily designed for preparing milk-based beverages,” she explained.

    Link

    Another article that goes more into the policy

  • Trump - Netanyahu interview now. I'll try provide a transcript.

    Netanyahu has just said that Israel will "eliminate" all tarrifs and eliminate the trade deficit to get the American tarrifs off of Israel.

    The trade deficit is the key. The only way to get the United States to remove the tarrifs as it currently stands, is to eliminate your trade deficit.

    Trump has also said that they are in direct talks with Iran over a nuclear deal. No pause on tarrifs, and said that Japan would have to import American goods (with a focus on American cars) to reduce tarrifs.

    Trump is now talking about how China has to open up it's economy to US companies and goods.

    Trump has just said that Ansarallah/the Houthis locally produce "highly sophisticated" weapons and missiles in Yemen. And admitted that they shoot down the 17 MQ-9 Reaper drones, saying that they shoot down "flying objects".

    US military budget is going to be $1 trillion dollars, the biggest in history.

    The USA had a direct meeting with Iran on Saturday, April 5 next Saturday, on a nuclear deal.

    The EU was formed to "harm the US on trade", according to Trump. Says the EU must import American cars and agricultural products, and mainly energy, for fair and reciprocal trade, talking about eliminating the trade deficit there.

    Trump is now talking about "clean coal". Trump is now talking about lowering the price of eggs and groceries, a "beautiful and old fashioned" word.

    Trump is now saying that the Hamas abused and slapped the hostages in the 3.5 feet high pipe tunnels, no signs of love or affection, according to talks he had with the hostages.

    Says that EU rules and regulations are designed to prevent the imports of US cars, calls it non monetary barriers to prevent trade. Also says that artificially lowering the value of currency makes trade unfair, with regards to selling tractors as an example.

    The US wants to "reset the table" on trade. Talks about eliminating the trade deficit globally, in the context of China. Says it's the only chance the US has to perform this reset. Calls NAFTA the worst trade deal in the history of the United States, and re-industrialising the United States. Says that the US was the wealthiest it's ever been between 1870-1913.

    Trump says that Gaza is an incredible piece of real estate, and talks about his ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza, and turning it into an American protectorate. Netanyahu is saying that they must give people a choice to leave Gaza, in this context.

    Says that there are no tarrifs on Russia because there is no business being done with Russia, and says that the bombing campaigns are horrible in Ukraine.

    Virtually every country wants to negotiate with the United States over tarrifs, according to Trump, saying that they are offering things the US would never even bother asking for, talking about eliminating the $36 trillion dollar debt.

    If talks aren't successful with Iran, Iran will be in great danger, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. October 7th was a horrible day, one of the worst days in the history of history of the world. Of 59 hostages, only 24 were alive, according to Trump.

    Trump says that they have $7 trillion dollars of commitments for companies for re-industrialising the USA. Says that companies will get their own power plants with record quick approval for this.

    On Turkey in Syria: says he can solve any problem Israel has with this by negotiating with Erdogan, congratulates Turkey in taking over Syria via proxy.

  • Teen kills parents in attempt to gain funds to assassinate Trump. The teen was linked to the Order of Nine Angels, a neo-nazi/pedophile group originating in the UK. (Huge CW for looking up this group or any related groups for violence, pedophilia, animal cruelty, suicide)

    Anyone have any thoughts on ONA or related groups like 764 and terrorgram? They feel very parapolitical to me in a strategy of tension kind of way. They've been linked to multiple terror attacks across Europe and the Americas, oftentimes carried out by people as young as 14. Right wing accelerationism seems to be on an upswing since COVID.

  • macron attempting to occupy another superposition, after allowing antichrist to fly over his country and ignoring ceasefire violations in lebanon which he signed up for

  • During a pro-Palestine demonstration at the National Assembly in Cape Town, activist and leader of Cape Town Intifada Uzair Mohamed was unlawfully detained by authorities, in a pattern that resembles similiar crackdowns in the US and Europe. Following immediate outrage of an illegal arrest, the charges were shifted to wearing a mask (which isn't illegal).

    The Western Cape province is also headed by the pro-Western, liberal Diet Apartheid Democratic Alliance party and some of the most fanatical pro-piSSraeli entities such as the SAJBD draw large amount of support in Cape Town. A few days after the arrest, several Members of Parliament of both the Democratic Alliance and Patriotic Alliance also had made a trip to the Nazi state on the opposite end of the African continent.

    The illegal arrest of Uzair Mohamed and attempts to suppress pro-Palestinian activism is largely only unique to Cape Town and are at most, infrequent in other major cities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria or Durban. - SAJFP, Salaamedia

  • Looks like we have our first F-16 shot down by Russia in Ukraine now. Both Russian and Ukrainian sources (including Ukrainian President Zelenskyy) have confirmed that an F-16 was lost in combat.

    Zelenskyy's statement

    Xcancel mirror

    Today, Captain Pavlo Ivanov was tragically killed during an F-16 combat mission. The guy was only 26. My condolences to his family and to all of Pavlo’s brothers-in-arms.

    As I've already discussed, the early model F-16s Ukraine got are roughly equivalent to their MiG-29s in capability, only being superior in electronic countermeasures (ECM) and native support for American munitions. These early 4th generation aircraft aren't a match for Russian 4.5 generation fighters in a straight fight.

    The Ukrainian F-16s have also been relying exclusively on this ECM (provided by the external AN/ALQ-131 external pod) and terrain masking (flying low close to the ground) to suppress Russian Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD), and flying with no anti radiation missiles for suppressing these defences. While a successful tactic up until now, it's highly risky. If the ECM fails or is bypassed, the pilot has no way to suppress any GBAD firing at them. If you look at the Russian air campaign in Ukraine, the escort fighters or strike fighters carrying out the strikes themselves (in Su-35s and Su-34s) are always carrying at least one Kh-31P anti radiation missile. In the US Navy air campaign against Yemen, the EA-18G Growlers are flying escort missions with at least two AGM-88E anti radiation missiles, along with highly advanced ECM that is much more sophisticated than the AN/ALQ-131.

    I'm not a fighter pilot, but if I was and you told me I had to fly a strike mission in a block 20 F-16 for Ukraine in Sumy, where our high level friendly Ukrainian GBAD (in an S-300V battery) has been destroyed, and I'm going up against the best of the best Russian GBAD and combat air patrols in S-400 GBAD and Su-35 fighter jets, and I'll have to fly a nap of the earth/terrain masking flight path to the launch point for my bombs, with only an ECM pod and no anti radiation missiles to suppress the Russian GBAD, and that there would be no allied Ukrainian aircraft higher up with anti radiation missiles to act as an escort, and all I have to try fend off the Russian Su-35s is the crappy radar on the block 20 F-16, along with 2 AIM-120 and AIM-9 air to air missiles, I would not fly the mission.

  • Seems as if I spoke too soon. US airstrikes do continue on Yemen for the 27th night in a row, targeting the capital, Sana'a. The Yemeni people will not even get to have one night of peace. We truly live in a rotten world sometimes.

    Lots more airstrikes on Sana'a, including targeting the Nuqum mountain again.

    Farmland in Sana'a Governorate targeted.

    Reports from other sources of huge explosions in Saada Governorate.

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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1565 comments