A couple days ago I discussed the Dutch taking over Nexperia, a Chinese owned but Dutch domiciled company making commodity semiconductors. The company became Chinese owned because it was almost bankrupt, the Chinese bought it, fixed it and kept many jobs in Europe, including the headquarters.
What I didn’t know about the story on Monday is that the Dutch were between a rock and a hard place. The Americans threatened to put Nexperia on the entity list, and thus kill it with sanctions, if it remained Chinese owned. So if the Dutch didn’t kick the Chinese out, it was doomed.
But the Chinese have put a ban on any exports to or from Nexperia (it has facilities in China.) Which means it won’t be able to manufacture anything. So it’s doomed.
Now the important part here is that Nexperia mostly sold semiconductors in Europe. And American sanctions could stop a Dutch domiciled company from selling to other European countries.
That is how supine the EU is. They haven’t put in place a way to resist American sanctions on intra-European trade. That’s hilarious pathetic and servile.
Other Chinese companies will simply produce the chips Nexperia used to, and none of the money for that will go to Europe. This is a loss for the Dutch.
It should also be noted that the Dutch have more companies in China than vice versa. So if China really wants to retaliate, well, they can.
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Europe is being ground between America and China, and ground to dust. The only way to avoid winding up third world nations (I am not being hyperbolic about this) is to get out from in between. All the GDP numbers are fake, they mean NOTHING of importance. All that matters is what you grow, dig up, refine and make. Everything else is nice to have, but ultimately if you can’t produce what you need, you are at the mercy of those who can. Germany, the industrial heart of Europe, is de-industrializing furiously. Everyone else’s industry was already gutted by Germany’s use of the Euro to inflate their costs and move production to Germany.
China has no reason to love Europe, but they’re happy to do business. They offer a better deal than America does right now. Statesmen (of whom Europe has zero) would re-orient and tell America to go take a long leap off a short pier.
And yeah, that means accepting that Russia is going to win the Ukraine war, but, y’know what? It is anyway. And yes some of the Eastern Euros will scream, but who cares, they’re all welfare recipients who couldn’t make a budget without Germany and France subsidizing them. If they want to prioritize hating Russia over saving Europe, kick them out of the EU. Most of them should never have been let in in the first place. Start with the Baltics and Poland.
This is the great power shift, a historic switch of hegemonic powers which only happens every hundred to hundred and fifty years. You can align with the new hegemon and have a chance at prosperity, or you can choose to remain with the old order and suffer serious decline. This is especially true with America, whose current policy amounts to “loot the vassals while we still have them.”
European leaders need to stop being a bunch of supine wimps, and if they won’t, the European population needs to replace them, by whatever means necessary.
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Feral Finster
Europeans like being slaves, the way a dog doesn’t fear any beating so much as he fears Master abandoning him.
Anyway, the dutch know exactly what they are doing, which is storing favors in Master’s favor bank, those favors to be called upon when it comes time to get the Americans to fight Russia for them.
Ian Welsh
Anybody who thinks America is going to fight Russia for Europe is so stupid I’m surprised they can breathe.
Mark Level
I agree with Ian. Trump will milk the Euro-coffers for war profits, but the US can’t and won’t put boots on the ground (other than a few spies and technicians), it’s too busy planning a color revolution in Venezuela, and seeing if the Trump-Witkoff family can monetize Gaza and lock all the Palestinians away somewhere in the desert to slowly starve . . .
So the conclusion is that the Slaves are not just servile but deeply stupid, well their rulers are, and the subordinates clearly are as well. The latest I hear on the war is Trump mansplained that actually the Russians have lost 1.5 million troops (absurd, even the departed idiot “Like & Subscribe” only boasted of 1 million dead Rooskies some months back), the Euro-Slugs (chihuahuas way too high on the evolutionary scale) imagine that Ukraine et al will “keep fighting” and be in Moscow in “3 years”, Zelensky promises!!
Well, if that doesn’t happen then they fantasize the Red Menace will take over all of Europe, up to France or Italy . . . I don’t see them bothering. Who wants to own countries that economically will be on a par with Ukraine?
Oh, can’t leave without sharing more Trump delusional We Rule spittle– he also said that BRICS has dissolved, that all the members have given up and left because they realize with him in the saddle, the US will be back to global rule almost immediately. I can’t make this shit up, these people are risible. Trump and Zelensky are both TV media celebs, they honestly deserve one another. Did Berlusconi make Italy a World Hegemon? I think we all know the answer to that. The US would be doing better if Chauncey Gardner were running things.
Jan Wiklund
It would be nice to have numbers, or sources, for the European deindustrialization. Not that I doubt it, but sources are always good to have.
Ian Welsh
It’s been covered multiple times on this site. Here’s the top google search result: https://internationalbanker.com/finance/germany-has-an-escalating-deindustrialisation-problem/
Feral Finster
The europeans obviously think otherwise.
Getting Americans to fight their wars for them has been european strategy since 1917. This method worked in 1917, it worked in 1941, it worked in 1949, it worked in 1999, it worked in 2012.
It did not work in 1956, and the europeans had to return to their little continent to resume skulking, simpering and plotting.
Dan Kelly
‘Trump mansplained that actually the Russians have lost 1.5 million troops (absurd, even the departed idiot “Like & Subscribe” only boasted of 1 million dead Rooskies some months back)’
I don’t like getting into numbers too much because we lose sight of the underlying humanity but I believe it’s important to remember that we have lost 100,000 to 200,000 Russian souls.
That is a lot of people that never needed to die if we had better leadership on both sides. No war needs to last this long. No war is ever really necessary. War is a racket – on all sides.
I think it’s important to remember that Russia is still run by oligarchs too. Even rabid defender of Vlad Putin and all-things-Russian Yves Smith quietly admitted this a while back.
A not insubstantial number of the Russian oligarchs remain either ‘dual citizens’ with ‘Israel’ or have strong ties to both the regime currently occupying Palestine as well as to the tightly interlocking worldwide Zionist community.
This is why Vladimir Putin will never utter the word ‘Zionism’ let alone ‘genocide.’
I sure hope the war ends soon but I know Russia has to ‘attrite’ it out until the west runs out of weapons.
Speaking of which, next up on Judge Nap:
Colonel Wilkerson will walk us through a US munitions silo where we can see the sorry state of US weaponry.
‘See that blue line over there? That’s how high the bombs should be stacked. As you can see, we are way below where we need to be. And see over there? [the Colonel points to an old dusty tarp in the corner with some indiscernable rusty metal parts protruding from the mess] That’s what’s left of the old tomahawks…’
Wilkerson actually said the other day that the tomahawk system is a good system except for the fact that it’s slow and can be shot down rather easily. He wasn’t being sarcastic.
I often think I’m being put on by these ‘experts’ put in front of me. Are they all acting?
GrimJim
Anybody who ever expects gratitude or even reciprocity from the US is dramatically ignorant and/or just plain stupid. And that’s BEFORE the Trump Regime took over.
Just as it has always been, the US will take whatever they want, then you get… whatever they might choose to leave behind, if anything. Usually after they have pissed all over it, like a wolverine.
The US has never been genuinely charitable or helpful, just like its people. Almost all “financial assistance” provided to other countries, including loans, has been returned right back to the US as purchase of military equipment, industrial equipment, or food (with the usual skim off the top for the leaders, of course).
And as has often been mentioned here, that just means the US owns you even more; you owe them money, and they still own your military, even after you paid off any loans (if ever). They can press a button and shut your military down, hard.
As to Europe remaining supine, it makes no sense. Their elite may be corrupt, but they cannot be so stupid. The US (or allies) must have plenty of blackmail material on all the Euro elites, with promises that when the guillotines are erected, they will be on the first flight to the US… but then they are fools to believe that, I suppose.
Once they lose control, there will be no use for them.
mago
Thank you Dan Kelly for your perceptive and humane comments.
Kudos to GrimJim as well, although I disagree with the assertion that USaians lack an altruistic attitude. Its leadership does, but I see some degree of humanity, at least from the street level.
Mark Level levels his usual spot on observations, although yeah, as Dan Kelly remarks, a human life merits more respect than a statistic.
May we all keep our eyes, hearts and minds open in these jangled times.
Jan Wiklund
Thank you, Ian, for the illustration.
Curt Kastens
Yes we owe a huge debt to the Russians. If 100,000 have died then we can expect that there are 500,000 missing arms and or legs. Or, that are paralyzed.
We also owe an even bigger debt to the Palestinians, who have sacrificed just about everything.
Sadly there is not enough time to repay these debts.
Unless it happens in another die mention.
Feral Finster
The european rulers are satisfied that nuclear war is survivable for them and theirs, snug as a bug in a rug in their bunkers, and besides Russia doesn’t have the stones. (I admit that they may have a point regarding Russian timidity.)
As for the peons, well, their lives are a sacrifice that the rulers are willing to make.
Purple Library Guy
Anyone who thinks they can survive a nuclear war is dreaming in technicolor. It disturbs me that there do seem to be rather too many decision makers dreaming that dream.
Forecasting Intelligence
Isn’t that Orban’s position, he cuddles up to Russia and China. But I imagine the radical right isn’t your cup of tea Ian.
Wim Roffel
There is another side to the Nexperia story. The Wingtech president Mr. Wing has a history of being fined and even imprisoned for stock manipulation. He didn’t stick to agreements with the Dutch authorities to Europeanize the company leadership. The trigger that led to the leadership takeover was a $200 million order for parts from another Wingtech company located in China. As Nexperia needed only parts for $80 million this was essentially a support operation for that other company that was in financial difficulties.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/10/16/nexperia-topman-wing-had-al-jaren-lak-aan-regels-kreeg-boetes-en-kreeg-celstraf-a4909796
https://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/chinese-baas-chipbedrijf-nexperia-wilde-kritische-westerse-directieleden-ontslaan-en-schond-afspraken-met-nederlandse-overheid~b78f1a1f/