Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Trump Era Page 2 of 18

Europe Affirms Its Vassalage In Trade Deal With the US

By

On July 28, 2025

Comments

This is a complete capitulation:

  • 15% tariffs on EU goods, 0% on US goods
  • EU to buy 750 billion dollars in LNG over the next 3 years (US LNG is more expensive than alternatives)
  • 600 billion EU investment in the US
  • 50% tariff on steel and aluminum to the US stays in place
  • A commitment to purchase huge amounts of US armaments

Japan has similarly capitulated, after previously standing firm.

Pathetic.

Ironically this leaves Canada as one of the only holdouts among America’s vassals. China, of course, has told the US to take a long flying leap off a short pier.

As I have noted before, the US has been cannibalizing its allies as it declines. This was true under Biden. Trump is only super-charging it. This cannibalization won’t change the trajectory, the US is DONE, but other countries accepting it means they will go down with the US

The EU was always in a hard place: it does export much more to the US than vice-versa. But it did have options, it just refused to take them. Cheaper energy from Russia is available, even during the war, Putin has been clear about that and it would mean much slower de-industrialization. Germany’s loss of industry has been, in particular, driven by high energy prices since the Ukraine war and the destruction of Nord Stream. German businesses which shut down in Germany have often moved to the US for the cheaper oil prices.

The way to strike back against the US was to hit America services: internet companies and break various copyright and patent laws. Hit the tax havens and take the money. (Ireland will squeal, but so what). This is where America really makes its money and it’s completely vulnerable. Meanwhile cut a deal with China, they’re the rising power.

The same is true for Japan, as it happens.

As Trump has shown, no deal is final. When politics change in Europe (and they will) this deal can be repudiated as the garbage it is. If that doesn’t happen soon, Europe’s decline will be much faster than it has to be.

What’s particularly interesting to me is the psychology of this. European elites are just so used to being vassals, and so completely without any pride (though they have plenty of vanity) that they are unable to stand up to America no matter what the humiliation. Russia was able to withstand far worse than what the US was doing, and even flourish, but Europeans can think of no way out but to capitulate. (To be sure, Russia had certain advantages the EU doesn’t have, but the reverse is true as well. The real issue is a lack of imagination and guts.)

Europe needs to get rid of its elite class, entirely, and find new leadership. Unfortunately it seems likely that they’re going to choose the idiot right, who will simply overcharge decline. After those morons fail, they may finally turn to decent leaders, but by then it will be too late to “save the garden” in most nations.

This capitulation has closed off one option: the third bloc. What could have happened is Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan and other affected nations forming a unified trade bloc of their own, and taking unified steps against America. Such a coalition would have won the ensuing trade war and could have cannibalized the US rather than the other way around.

It is a pity, but unlike many historical vassals who resent their status, our current leadership seems to enjoy being house slaves. So all of this will be done the hard and ugly way.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of this site’s articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. The site has over over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

 

Imperial Presidency Watch: Congress Loses Control Over The Purse

By

On July 15, 2025

Comments

So, the Supremes have decided, without even bothering to write an opinion, that the Department of Education can be massively reduced without Congressional approval:

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Trump administration may fire more than half of the Department of Education’s workforce — mass terminations that, in Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s words, are “the first step on the road to a total shutdown” of the entire department.

The Court’s decision in McMahon v. New York, was handed down on the Court’s “shadow docket,” a mix of emergency motions and other expedited matters that the justices often decide without full briefing or oral argument. As is often the case in shadow docket decisions, none of the Republican justices explained their decision.

This is, in my opinion, and in line with most lawyers, 100% unconstitutional.

The McMahon decision is particularly unnerving because it suggests that President Donald Trump is allowed to “impound” federal spending — unilaterally refusing to spend money or to continue federal programs that are mandated by an act of Congress. While McMahon does not explicitly authorize impoundment, it allows the Trump administration to fire so many federal workers, in so many key roles, that the practical effect is to cancel entire federal programs.

Most of the creep of imperial presidency has been Congress giving its powers away: war acts which make it so the president can go to war without Congress, for example, or giving the President tariff authority (which Trump has misused, pretending everything is “national security”) and so on. Some have been unilateral grabs, such as using “signing statements” to change the clear intend of laws.

But this is a Presidential grab that the Supremes are waving thru. Even if they later rule that some stub of the Education department must remain, it’s clearly allowing the President to over-ride spending that Congress has mandated. I am unaware of any reasonable reading of the Constitution that allows this: the President is to execute Congress’s directives and does not have the authority to say “nah, we’re just not going to do that any more.”

Especially of interest here is that the Republicans didn’t bother to explain the ruling and didn’t give it a full trial. They know it’s completely indefensible on legal grounds, and they aren’t even going to try.

Ever since Citizen’s United I have told Americans to get out if they can and if not to prepare for horrific times. Children, we are now at the start of the collapse. Before this it was mostly gradual, but this is the real thing.

I mention Citizen’s  United (which allowed unlimited cash into US elections under the proposition that money is speech) because, of course, smashing the Department of Education while it’s something that Christofacists want, so they can ban books and write fantasy textbooks and fire teachers and Professors for saying things like “gay sex might not be bad,” or “American slavery was terrible” and so on, it’s also about privatizing as much of the education system as possible.

Remember that Trump’s main act, amidst all the Kabuki, was his budget, which slashed four trillion in taxes from rich people while cutting health care for poor people to partially pay for it. Trump’s priority, as per his actions, is to make the rich, richer. (His tariffs, while real, have been TACO: Trump chickens out when rich people start screaming.)

Make the public education shit for poor people, let the middle class have vouchers for some shit “charter” school and the upper class, as always, will send their kids to elite private schools.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Benjamin Franklin

Kept it for almost 250 years, but if this stands, if Congress loses its last real power, it’s over. A Republic is something rather specific, a divided form of government. And if one of the three branches has no effective power left, it’s not a Republic, especially since the Supremes, in other orders, are gutting the Judiciary’s power. The end of nationwide injunctions is particularly instructive. And let’s not forget the President’s Gestapo force, ICE, arresting Judges who try to interfere with immigration snatches.

Nothing is over till it’s over. But no one with sense would offer good odds that the US is going to come out of this era as the sort of place anyone with sense would want to live. Say what you will about China, but it’s light authoritarianism and actually delivers prosperity. At this point everyone not in the top 1% is seeing declines in wealth in America, plus you’re losing your civil liberties (citizenship revocation is very likely), plus you’re losing your Republic.

I consider it my duty to try and give a clear picture of the world to my readers so they can make good decisions. Other than the necessity of eating and not dying of exposure, it’s why I write. So… If you can get out. Get out. If you can’t, make preparations for Hell.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of this site’s articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. The site has over over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER
And get new posts emailed to you once a day.
No Spam, just new posts and the rare admin notice. See our  privacy policy..

Trump’s Absolutely Crazed Tariff Policies: Brazil and Copper Edition

By

On July 9, 2025

Comments

So, Trump sent a letter to Brazil announcing 50% tariffs. His demands are that Brazil stop prosecuting Bolsonaro (ex-President who tried to steal the last election, and stole the one before by getting Lula locked up on bogus charges) and that they let US social media platforms operate unfettered the country. If Brazil puts tariffs on US goods, then the US will increase its tariffs by the same amount.

Here’s the thing, Brazil and the US have essentially even trade:

(light blue is exports, dark blue is imports)

The most recent services data I can find indicates that the US has a services surplus.

But more to the point, Trump wants to interfere in Brazil’s internal politics in a way that no Brazilian patriot could countenance. Nor would would Lula be wise to submit.

And Brazil’s exposure to the US market isn’t as serious as it may seem, the exports amount to a bit less than 2% of Brazil’s GDP. It can weather this storm easily. It’ll just sell more elsewhere or even just eat the loss.

What it does do is encourage Brazil to move away from trade with the US entirely, and the US’s main exports to Brazil are refined petroleum, aircraft and parts, nuclear reactor parts and electrical machinery and parts. With the partial exception of aircraft parts and nuclear parts (for US manufactured aircraft and US designed reactors) there’s nothing there Brazil can’t buy from someone else and Brazil imports the things any sane trade policy would want other countries to import: largely manufactured goods other refined petroleum.

Even with nuclear and aircraft, China is now an alternative for new planes and new plants.

So Trump doesn’t have much leverage, actually. Way less than with Europe and Canada and Mexico and Japan and even Canada, Mexico and Japan have resisted his trade war.

All Trump is doing is pushing Brazil away and into the arms of Chinese, and giving them reason to de-dollarize sooner and faster.

Insanity.

Then there’s Trump’s announced 50% tariff on copper imports. Now, on the face, this makes some sense: copper is important in industrial manufacture and having the US dependent on other countries, especially China is bad.

BUT starting at 50% just means that costs for virtually all manufacturing in the US will go up and US manufacturing will be less competitive.

Once again, the way to do tariffs is announce they will happen in X years, where X is the amount of time it will take to build new mines and refineries in the US. Or you could star them at 1% say, and raise them another percentage point every two months till they reach whatever level is necessary to get people to mine and refine in the US.

Just imposing them is the stupidest possible way to do it.

Trump’s just fundamentally incompetent at policy. He can’t do it. Policy under Trump only works if he lets someone else do it and leaves them alone, but for anything high profile he constantly wants to meddle, and he’s a boob.

Trump’s economicpolicy mix — defunding research wholesale, starting a trade war with the entire world, vastly slashing social welfare, discouraging visitors and immigration and getting rid of migrant workers is just accelerating America’s decline.

Trump is an idiot, a fool and the will likely go down as the President who sealed America end as a hegemonic great power. Among post-war Presidents only Obama and Reagan are in competition with him for last place, but because they started and managed US decline, they will avoid much of the blame.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of this site’s articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. The site has over over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

 

Trump’s Admin Claims the Epstein Files Don’t Exist, Why?

By

On July 8, 2025

Comments

How stupid do they think everyone is?

I’ll state the obvious, then make one observation.

The Obvious Epstein was an intelligence operation, probably US intelligence and Mossad working together. Every room had cameras, and everyone who partook can be blackmailed.

Observation: The great temptation with the Epstein files isn’t to release them or destroy them, the great temptation is to use them, because they represent a vast amount of power.

Anyway, British and American elites have a predilection for under-age sex and various sexual pecadillos. A taste for being spanked and buggery, in particular, are endemic in the English ruling class due to what goes on in a lot of boys boarding schools. This is so much the case that enjoying being beaten used to be called “the English vice”. We pretend it was just a Victorian thing, but it continues.

Being part of the ruling class traditionally comes with the ability to ignore conventional mores, but members of that class didn’t (and still don’t seem to) fully understand what the changes is surveillance technology mean. Every time some idiot is outed because they filmed their own sexual perversions I laugh, but, simply put, if one must be depraved, keep it in house, don’t film it, you moron, and don’t trust anyone. (This isn’t exactly advice, but a powerful person being blackmailed is even worse than a powerful person with a private vice.)

Trump’s has so far been able to push his program thru, but his approval ratings are underwater and important goals, like the end of birthright citizens immunity to revocation of citizenship are still to come. Trump needs leverage. I suspect he’s decided to use the leverage on hand.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of this site’s articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. The site has over over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

A Few Words On The “Big Beautiful Bill”

By

On July 3, 2025

Comments

Obviously this is a pile of steaming garbage. Four trillion of tax cuts, paid for by cutting Medicaid (11.8 million people will lose health care according to the CBO) and perhaps 8 million people will lose food benefits under SNAP. Green energy subsidies are cut (no, shut up, there are tons of dirty energy subsidies) and there’s a huge budget increase for ICE (including more prison camps), America’s Gestapo.

And, of course, there’s all sorts of nasty in the details, like cuts to Planned Parenthood (which does far more than abortions).

A lot of Americans are going to be hurt by this. I’d go so far as to say it might be the worst American federal budget I’ve seen in my life, though Obama and the Fed’s giveaways to the rich were worse.

Oh, and politicians like Josh Hawley who pretend to care about ordinary people? Yeah, fake. He voted for the bill.

I reiterate that things in the US are going to get worse and worse for years, with only a small chance of a reversal (based on a Mamdani style left populism). Get out if you can, take steps to prepare and protect yourself if you can’t.

Update: worse than I realized. Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn in Republicans are wiped out in the mid-terms, and Republicans know that Democrats won’t reverse their cuts, so people will have no choice and the duopoly will continue:

Because of a statutory requirement to automatically impose budget cuts when legislation increases the deficit, the Big Beautiful Bill would require automatic sequestration cuts across the board, something that has been confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) but has been largely absent from the debate over the bill. Medicare is one of the programs that will face the axe, and the damage sums to $490 billion over the next ten years, starting in the next fiscal year that begins in October. While many of the safety-net cuts in the bill are delayed to help Republicans with their re-election campaigns, the Medicare cuts must begin next year.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

Losing Our Asian Allies – And Fast

By

On June 25, 2025

Comments

Ian in his last post mentioned that our Asian allies are slipping away from us. While we pretend to strategically re-orient the Japanese are engaging in massive rearmament begun by Abe and being continued by the current government. Japan has lost confidence in the American security umbrella because of the deceit we’ve displayed in foreign relations. The Koreans? I lived in Korea. They’re simply apoplectic. Some are even at the point where they are willing to consider a loose confederation with the north, an entente of sorts so the South has the protection of the North’s nuclear umbrella and the North gains goods and services from the South.

This is simply unheard of. When I talked to one of my former students who now works in the foreign ministry and he told me this I was gobsmacked.

Ian’s correct. For 400 years the balance of payments from the rest of the world went to the Littoral seapower states. For the last 50 years the balance of payments has been reversed.  All that gold is going back home. In one generation the United States has squandered all the goodwill and wealth it received during WWI and WWII. China in the last 50 years has lifted more people out of poverty than the rest of the world did during all of recorded history. Chew on that stat for a moment.

I will be visiting China and South Korea to do a 20 year retrospective tour and a 30 year retrospective tour on the former and the latter. I don’t know what to expect, but I remember China 20 years ago and being blown away.

The USA is in deep strategic shit. For 200+ years our power has been based on our complete hegemony of this hemisphere. For 75 of the last 100 years our main strategic goal has been the prevention of one power or an alliance of powers attaining hegemonic power over the Eurasian landmass. In the last six years we’ve abandoned that VITAL national interest for what? We’ve driven Russia into the arms of China. India lost all confidence in us. Now East Asia has.

If a single power or coalition of powers dominate the Eurasian landmass our two oceans will not protect us.

It appears I might have been wrong about the Israeli-Iran pissing contest being the opening act of WWIII. Good. What it really feels like is the first Balkan War in 1912. The calculus is being made in Beijing. And Tokyo. And Seoul. And Taipei. We lack the ability to protect our allies conventionally. And no one wants nukes.

I don’t have any smart quip to conclude with except a Spanish expletive, “la puebla es jodida.”

You get the idea.

The US Continues to Accelerate Its Decline (+Iran)

By

On June 18, 2025

Comments

I wavered between writing another Iran war update and this article, so I’ll say a few things about the Iranian war. There’s evidence that Israeli intelligence networks in Iran and elsewhere are being compromised fast. It appears that:

 

That India, a Hindu/Brahmin supremacist state which is increasingly treating its minorities the way Israel used to treat Palestinians before it went full genocidal, is allied this deeply with Israel is not a surprise. That they were willing to flush their intelligence network down the drain for Israel shows that they’re as stupid as the US.

This will, of course, lead to Indian tech and guest workers being unwelcome, and a massive crash in foreign earnings sent back to India.

Meanwhile, the US is sending vast numbers of planes and supplies to the Middle East. Only B-2 bombers can deliver munitions powerful enough to actually crack Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment. Trump is screaming “unconditional surrender,” the propaganda operation is in full echo of the Iraq war, and it certainly looks like the US is going to enter the war, though Trump is so fickle that nothing is certain until it happens.

Still, my guess is that TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) rankles with Trump, and since he’s too gutless to stand firm on tariffs, he’ll start a war.

Likewise, as Bush Jr. understood, war-time Presidents are popular. Trump’s polls are atrocious, and he will expect a rally around effect from being a war President to repair them and save him in the mid-terms.

Now, to the larger picture. A US war against Iran, combined with Ukraine and all the munitions sent to Israel, means that the US will not be able to directly fight China or Russia for years.

The non-secret weakness of the US military is how little munitions they are able to produce, a weakness which extends throughout NATO. Western militaries are expeditionary forces, even the American one, intended for fighting non-peer adversaries who are expected to collapse quickly. This means that production of war materials is low.

For example, the US produces the following quantities of air defense missiles every year:

  • Patriot: 500-550, expected to go up to 650 by 2027 (the rate of increase is itself pathetic.)
  • SM-6 (Aegis naval AD): 125-150 a year
  • SM-3 (Aegis again): 20-50  a year
  • Stinger (man-pad AD, important in Ukraine): 600-700 a year.
  • AIM-120 AMRAAM (middle-range A-A): 800-1,000
  • Sidewinder (short-range A-A): 1600-1800 a year
  • THAAD (Air ground for intercepting short- to medium-range ballistic systems; Israel uses these, Ukraine doesn’t): 50-100/year

Numbers for offensive missiles are similar:

  • Tomahawk missiles (sea-launched vs. ground targets): 68-100/year
  • JASSM missiles (long-range precision cruise missile): 200-300/year
  • Javelin anti-tank (man-portable): 1,200-1,500/year
  • MGM-400 ATACMS (ground-to-ground, launched from HIMARS and MLRS launchers): 50-100/year
  • Hellfire (short-range air-to-ground, laser-guided, launched from helicopters): 500-1000/year

Exact numbers are hard to determine for obvious reasons. Stockpiles of most of these missiles (but not all) have been drawn down vastly throughout the Ukraine and Israeli-everyone wars. If Iran is attacked, multiple years’ worth of production will be used up.

This means that China will have complete dominance in the their part of the Pacific, definitely around Taiwan and the first island chain, for years. Indeed, by the time the US re-stockpiles, China will be so far ahead in numbers of missiles that it will be hopeless, and that’s before we get to the fact that China can replenish stocks much faster than the US.

All of this goes without even discussing drones, where China’s lead is astronomical.

Empires do not go gentle into that good night. What the US is doing and enabling is monstrous.

But it is also accelerating American decline.

That is in foreign affairs. Domestically, Trump is systematically destroying the basis of American advancement in tech and science. The idea that private enterprise, which does not do basic research, can make up the difference is ludicrous to anyone who knows how science and tech works. Indeed, the current AI boom is based on university research from the 80s (Granted, it’s from research in Canada (!), a country the US has decided to turn from an ally into an opponent.)

Trump is also dismantling the social welfare system, turning the US into a police state (and not the sort-of-good kind, yes, they exist, China is one of them), massively increasing inequality and basically destroying any remaining social solidarity between Americans.

I can’t think of a more destructive US President except maybe Reagan (but that was long term). Even Herbert Hoover looks good. (He didn’t cause the stock market crash, he just responded badly.) Trump is just so actively malign. He’s not a Russian agent, but the cold war KGB couldn’t have put someone in place who was more damaging, even in their wildest dreams.

So, all of this is awful. But the US’s days are numbered, truly. Unless you are very old, or die an early death, you will see the end of the American Empire and even of American hegemony over the Americas.

***

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to donate or subscribe. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

The L.A. Riots/Protests & the Paradox of Protest

By

On June 9, 2025

Comments

The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

So, there were protests in L.A. over Trump’s immigrant removal strategy, some turned violent, and Trump is calling in the National Guard and talking about using the military.

It’s worth pointing out that Trump has deported less undocumented immigrants than Biden did over comparable periods. But this isn’t about deportation, as such.

What it is about is Gestapo tactics: Sending people to torture prisons without due process; wearing masks and refusing to show badges or warrants; giving ICE the right to create its own warrants without judicial oversight (clearly unconstitutional), and; seizing people who are showing up for meetings at immigration facilities or immigrant courts.

It’s not what Trump is doing, it’s how he’s doing it —- in the cruelest, most lawless, and unconstitutional way possible.

The message is, “We can do whatever we want, and you can’t stop us.”

Thus, the protests, and, thus, Trump escalating immediately to the National Guard (i.e., military force –that’s what the Guard is. Military.)

Protestors are caught in the paradox of protest in a fascist state: If you don’t protest the powers that be, they assume they’ve gotten away with it and will escalate. If you do protest, they use that as an excuse to escalate.

(Forget the whole violence / non-violence thing. That’s just another excuse.)

The US isn’t a meaningful democracy, and even oligarchic elites who aren’t Trump-aligned are under assault right now, as in the case with Harvard.

The choice is to bend the knee or fight. But ordinary people, especially immigrants, unlike Harvard-aligned elites, don’t have much to fight with. All they can do is put their bodies on the line.

At which point, those bodies will be assaulted, locked up, and otherwise abused, because cruelty with impunity is how the fascist right shows its power. Again, “We can do anything we want to you, and you can’t stop us. No one can.” It’s a toned down version of what Israel does to Palestinians.

There are three ways to go.

  1. Keep throwing bodies into the grinder and pray that the legal system still works with a stacked Supreme Court.
  2. Give in. Hide, stop protesting, and go with the legal attempt.
  3. Move to real violence, which this is not.

The police and National Guard have huge, easily-exploited weaknesses if anyone does decide to get serious, and there are plenty of people in immigrant and immigrant-adjacent communities who have the necessary experience and skills to exploit those weaknesses.

Of course, if real violence is used, Trump and his allies will escalate even more. At the extreme end, part of the country turns into “no go” zones, and the monopoly of force is broken. This is more than possible: the US is huge, their military is overrated, and their police are weak and have been trained to be cowards.

Trump’s trying to bring Americans to bridle. Some are already there, the natural fascists, the people who would have signed up with Hitler as soon as they realized he was serious and stood a chance.

But others? Others need to feel the whip.

So, will Americans kneel, then fall to their bellies? Will the legal system and the constitution work? Or will this escalate until the US is a failed state?

***

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of my articles, you might wish to donate or subscribe. I’ve written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

Page 2 of 18

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén