As I’ve been writing for a long time now, as the US abuses its power, other nations move away from it.

For example:

The Iran war has proven that you can’t rely on US weapon shipments. For another example:


Why not? Because the US doesn’t create enough interceptors and such interceptors as there are go to Israel.

Then there’s this:


Likewise the entire sanctioning of China backfired. They created their own payment system, which is spreading. They created their own semiconductor industry and now have the largest industry in the world, where before Chinese companies preferred to buy US/Taiwanese chips.

Each time the West tries to use its control of something it backfires because the West is no longer the only alternative. If Ansar Allah, ruling the poorest country in the world, can create a credible missile and drone force with only moderate help for Iran, most countries can. So why pay the US, especially when the Iran war has proven the US can’t protect you and can’t even supply you?

Meanwhile in Brazil:

A whistleblower revealed that Brazil’s far-right Bolsonaro family dynasty met with Meta to discuss US plans to interfere in Brazil’s election, to prevent Lula from winning. Lula’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were censored a few days before the first round of the presidential election.

This had a huge impact on the election, because Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, which are all owned by Meta, are the most popular apps in Brazil, and are hugely influential all across Latin America. (Jair Bolsonaro’s son Flávio was declared the winner of the first round of the vote, by a narrow margin.) Meta later admitted that Lula’s accounts had been restricted, but it claimed that this was supposedly due to a “technical error”…

So what happens if Lula wins? Well, good chance he kicks Meta out and that’s a MASSIVE market that Meta and America lose.

The core of this sort of coercive power is either “there is no alternative” or “we don’t use this power against you”. You must have one of the two, if you don’t, the power will be taken away from you the more  you use it.

 

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American and Western decline continues. It is a simple function of there now being alternatives: China is the main one, but not the only one. Also countries are learning that they can create their own industry, that it isn’t impossible. And they’ve learned that relying on another country for anything important always creates a vulnerability.

So this will continue: movement away from relying on US products, movement towards China and Russia and other alternatives and most importantly, movement towards creating domestic capacity and reducing reliance and thus vulnerability to other nations, especially ones that are seen to frequently abuse whatever leverage they have.

Trump’s China sanctions basically lost America tech giants most of the Chinese market. Continued abuse will lose the US much much more than that.