Ian Welsh

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

Category: Trump Era Page 1 of 17

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

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On July 9, 2025

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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.

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

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On July 8, 2025

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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.

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A Few Words On The “Big Beautiful Bill”

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On July 3, 2025

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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.

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Losing Our Asian Allies – And Fast

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On June 25, 2025

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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)

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On June 18, 2025

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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.

***

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

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On June 9, 2025

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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?

***

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“Art of the Cave”: Trump Walks Back China Tariffs For 90 Days

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On May 12, 2025

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Well, maybe. Who the hell knows what he’ll do. Anyway, tariffs are back to 30% on China and 10% on America.

This is exactly what China demanded, for tariffs to go back to what they were before April 2nd.

There will still be a two month trade burp. Ships weren’t leaving China for the US at all, literally zero. Lot of freight companies are about to make a mint, though. So expect some shortages, but nothing worse than Covid, and hopefully lasting less time.

The fundamental problem remains, however, which is that there’s no certainty around any of this, so business people can’t make long term plans, including plans to build or relocate manufacturing. Trump and the US can’t be trusted to stay steady on policy, so avoiding making big plans involving the US makes sense.

The Great Power picture is clearer, however. The US tried to impose its will on China and failed. China wouldn’t negotiate till its pre-conditions were met. The world has two great powers, with the EU bidding to become the third (I think they’ll fail, but that’s what the rearmament is about.)

And, in economic terms, China is by far the pre-eminent great power. It isn’t even close. The era of American hegemony is officially over. The US tried to impose its will on the world and failed.

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Turns Out You Can’t Make A Deal With Trump (University and Law Firm Edition)

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On May 7, 2025

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The NYTimes writes:

Columbia University, for example, agreed to concessions that included imposing new oversight over its Middle Eastern studies department and creating a security force empowered to make arrests. But that was not enough to restore the more than $400 million in grants that the Trump administration had canceled, or to prevent the administration from making even more demands.

Law firms like Paul Weiss, which thought they had escaped punishment by agreeing to do pro bono work for uncontroversial causes, discovered that Mr. Trump saw their agreements as a blank check for them to do his bidding.
As my colleagues have reported, the law firms discovered that they had agreed to deals that “did little to insulate them from his whims.” One expert at Yale Law School said the “administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.”

As I wrote April 11th:

Trump operates on two simple rules:

  • For me to win, someone else has to lose; and,
  • If someone capitulates to my demands, I can still get more.

If you give in to Trump, he will be back.

…

Trump’s been going after both Big Law and the Ivies, and so far most, though not all, have given in. Four major “white shoe” law firms have offered 340 million in pro bono work for Trump’s causes and promised not to oppose him.

All of them are idiots. Trump is a bully and a blackmailer. You can never “pay off” a blackmailer. They will always come back to the well for more.

And these are some of the most important, powerful and “smart” people in America. They’re morons. Much as I despise Harvard, they at least had the balls to stand and fight. It’s not out of any great principles or anything, they’re still pro-genocide scum, they just aren’t willing to give up their power.

Everyone’s getting this now. Finally. Domestically and externally. Even Japan is threatening Trump with selling Treasuries and standing with China in demanding an end to all tariffs before further negotiations.

On April 17th, I wrote:

I think the odds of significant elite opposition are high. They don’t want to, but Trump has backed them into a corner. It’s fight or exit the elites.

This is going to be a nasty fight. Trump’s weaponization of the immigration system and presidential orders, especially dubious presidential control over spending means he has powerful weapons, including the threat of deporting citizens to prison camps for life.

The fight is developing and the New York Times is the mouthpiece for elite opposition. Trump’s polls are shit, he’s failed to get a peace between Ukraine and Russia and the full tariff effects will start smashing Americans into the dirt in about a month.

Meanwhile Trump’s allies, like the tech bro faction, are not doing well. Tesla is doomed and most of the rest are betting vast sums on AI, which loses money with every single query, even from paying customers and where hallucination rates are increasing, not decreasing. Meanwhile China is working on new types of semiconductors and will soon be independent of Western semiconductor tech, just as ASML’s CEO warned.

Trump is a living embodiment of the “Peter Principle” that people rise to their level of incompetence. He’s going to be more unpopular than any President since Hoover and he’s taking US hegemony, and likely even prosperity, with him.

This blog has always been free to read, but it isn’t free to produce. If you’d like to support my writing, I’d appreciate it. You can donate or subscribe by clicking on this link.

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