Is Trump going to kill the goose which is laying the Golden Eggs for the ‘Collective West’ by imposing 100% tariffs on countries which continue to trade with Russia? Unless ‘BRICS’ does an ‘Ursula’ that is what he says he will do. It is unlikely that China will follow the example of the European Kommisar, but countries like India and Brazil just *might* bend over backwards to avoid losing the US and Europe as ‘markets’ for their products. Who knows? I do not expect them to succumb to blackmail, and I even expect them to harden their present stance, because that is in the best interest of their countries long-term. But politics in ‘Western Style’ democracies is short-term, and it may be difficult for Lula and Modi to explain why dumping the Dollar and the Euro in response to this bullying was a ‘no brainer’.
Trump and von der Leijen made a show of telling the world that the two ‘Biggest Economies’ joint forces when they met at Trump’s Golf Course in Schotland. This is a difficult subject in many ways, because ‘Big’ hinges on ‘valuation’, denominated in Dollars, with the Euro and the British Pound as its slave currency. There is no denying that both ‘Blocs’ are still rich if you only look at ‘GDP’, ignore the massive debt burden at every level of society, and refuse to work on the basis of ‘Purchasing Power Parity’. If you accept ‘PPP’ as a far more realistic approach, China’s economy is larger than that of the US, with India in the number three slot, followed by Russia at four and Japan completing the top five. Still, the debt-burden is not taken into account. Moreover, the listed ‘GDP’ for the US, and several European countries, hinges on the contribution of what is listed as ‘services’. Primarily ‘Financial Services’, which are stopped dead in their tracks if global trade collapses.
It is not easy to predict how all these countries listed as being in the top of the food-chain will fare when Trump and von der Leyen pull the plug on Global Trade. Mind you, Trump *wants* Global Trade to collapse to force the US back to its roots as an industrial powerhouse. His calculus is that if that happens, the present industrial giants will come begging, or they will suffer even more than the US itself. Ursula came begging even before that happened, after her world-tour revealed that China wasn’t interested in acces to her ‘market’, on condition of dumping Russia, its ‘go to’ source for minerals and carbon energy, as well as its protective barrier against a pushy NATO. With the Russian ‘market’ becoming more important with every passing day. While the European ‘market’ looks set to disintegrate, as it will not be able to cope with the fifteen percent taxes levied by the US on its goods in a recession. A recession caused directly, and indirectly, by ‘Project Ukraine’. Even the Dutch economy is only posting a meager 0.1% growth in the second quarter, merely because of massive military spending, for which the country needs to go further into debt, while consumers hit the brakes.
The direct costs of that war in Ukraine are set to explode, because ‘Brussels’ is working from the assumption that Europe will carry the financial burden of buying weapons and ammo from the US, to hand to Ukraine, as the US itself withdraws from paying its share, while the indirect costs of all the failed sanctions, especially related to oil and gas, with an obligation to buy from the US instead, is bound to kill the remaining industry in the EU, or the welfare state, and likely both. I am aware of political parties which *want* this destruction of the welfare state to happen. On the one hand there are those who cling on to the economic dogma of what is listed as the ‘Austrian School’ of thought, who want to free ‘capital’ and reduce the size of the government. On the other hand we’ve got the ‘Green’ ideologues who want to reduce consumption and create an all powerful Super-State based on ‘equal outcomes’, to ‘save the planet’. These ideologues are not compatible with each other, obviously, but they form the backbone of this ‘conflicted’ European drive to destroy the European economy, even while both maintain they actually seek to improve it. ‘Vulture Capitalism’ meet ‘Eco-Communism’. Not a match made in Heaven.
This Hellish cocktail is unable to decide on anything you might call a ‘policy’ for obvious reasons. But they both want to control the World, since they understand full well that their model is no match for ‘Classic Capitalism’ based on Free Trade between sovereign nations in an open market. Both *need* massive forms of protection, and war, to make their dreams come true. What is ill understood in our part of the world, is that ‘Capitalism’ in its original form endeavored to grow the wealth of *Nations*, lifting all boats within a country as businesses would organically grow using available resources within a country, reinvesting the money earned *in* that country. Using your currency and the military to bully other countries into submission obviously doesn’t come anywhere *near* that concept.
To set the people of the world free from the late twentieth century *would* have been possible through diplomacy, even though military conflicts have been around for ages, and ‘kicking the habit’ would require some serious reconditioning. It is not realistic to assume that all violence would simply dissipate once we got rid of the ‘leverage’ provided by ‘World-Trade-Currencies’ and ambitious military alliances looking for ways to expand. But clearly both are part of a system which should have been deconstructed at the end of the Cold War to save us from Messianic abuse.
Trump had the possibility to make some serious changes towards that end. Or make matters *far* worse by assuming the role of ‘Emperor’, using the ‘Dollar’ and the accumulated military power to bully the world into submission. In past essays I’ve written about Trump and his alleged admiration for Ayn Rand’s ideas related to how we should leave all the ugliness behind, and start anew, as described in Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Though widely accepted as a philosophical book, it is a novel with romantic stories intertwined, and a fantastic utopia substituting an increasingly dysfunctional world, oddly echoing the power struggle between continents which feature as well in George Orwell’s epic novel ‘1984’. These fairy tales are inspiring, but they contain no blueprint for a better world which could be ‘copy/pasted’ onto the world we live in today. But the ultimate question is: Did Trump understand the book? Or rather, did he understand it like I understood it? And if he did, and he somehow considers himself to be the novel’s hero ‘John Galt’, despite all the obvious differences, could that explain decisions he has made? The very suggestion that he has been ‘chosen’ to ‘Make America Great Again’ does sound like he is flirting with the assertion.
People answering to a ‘Higher Calling’ are either whisked away, into an asylum, before they wreak havoc, or they rise to the occasion and end up being humanity’s worst nightmare. I’m allergic to Messianism. But we need people in power to change the structure that is pulling us deeper into this hole we’ve been digging. At this stage I do not know whether Trump will actually impose those tariffs on countries which continue to trade with Russia, or not. To begin with, he would have to slap 100% tariffs on Europe too, since the ‘Bloc’ is still buying oil and gas from Russia. Not only directly, but also indirectly by buying fuel in India, and other countries, which started its life as Russian oil and gas. NATO-country Turkey would be shot in the kneecaps too.
When Trump hit China with tariffs previously, he quickly retreated after China retaliated by sanctioning American products, and cutting the US off from ‘Rare Earth Minerals’, hitting car-manufacturers in the US, as well as the Military Industrial Complex and Boeing *hard*. The US and China are still in ‘talks’ to resolve their trade dispute, but since the outcome of those ‘talks’ is expected around the new deadline for Trump’s threat to hit countries refusing to stop trade with Russia, this move by Trump might be interpreted as increasing pressure on China. Non of the countries under threat of sanctions, or tariffs, which are sanctions too, are rejecting trade with the US, or Europe. Russia *never* refused to deliver oil or gas to Europe, but Europe and Canada refused to return turbines used to pump gas towards Europe, thus shooting itself in the foot. Likewise when oil companies withdrew from Russia, taking their expertise and tools with them in response to sanctions imposed by the US and Europe. All in all, the US, and Europe for sure, *need* both Russia and China to stay afloat. But somehow they prefer to sink all their ships. Hate-driven warmongers and ‘Eco-Terrorists’ are the worst. Right behind them are the people in ‘Services’, who want ‘Money for Nothing, and their Chicks for Free’.