Trump 2.0 official thread

[enroger]

Time for the corporate elites to start hitting the books…

View attachment 150936

They should read "Xi is the one" and learn how to bend over

 

[siegecrossbow]

CIA during the Cold War: "We'll topple whichever governments and assassinate whichever country leaders we don't like!"

CIA today:

View attachment 150937

Yes, and all the unemployed factory workers will enroll the the PLA as a result.

 

[Barefoot]

I have a confession to make:

About two years ago i figured it was all going to shit vis a vis China, so i thought of two things i ought to do.

1) finish my solar-power project; extra panels, spare inverter, battery bank etc (for the record i used EcoWorthy, as they make small enough panels that i can carry them out onto my roof by myself)

2) collect twenty years of hobby supplies (i love Temu)!

I'm just about set, but the thing is i live in the UK and prices have actually come down (God damn it, i thought the UK would simply follow the US "Trump 2.0" lead like they do when it comes to war and committing genocide)!

So what i'm saying is, dont take no financial advice from me, i think i did the equivelant of SELLING in the dip (i had put "buying" - see, i cant even get the joke right)

***this is probably why i want things to get much worse and a global conflict to break out, so i dont look so stupid*** [i'm kidding, obviously, or at least i hope i'm kidding]


Maybe i should set up a USA registered ebay account - postage to the USA from UK cant be that bad?

 

[Sinnavuuty]

Guys, it's okay. Things are going to be fine for the U.S.

A few videos dropped today with the latest Bessent interview and conference.

1:50 - 5:50

According to Bessent's wisdom:


1. U.S. retailers "I assume" pre-ordered a lot of goods, so they will continue to have a lot of stock


[never mind that any orders arriving now are at astronomical tariff rates]


2. There is a lot of elasticity in the U.S. supply chains. So if retailers can't get goods from China, they can just get the same goods from somewhere else.


3. China is going to have to come to the negotiating table soon - it sells 5 times as much to the U.S. as the U.S. sells to it, so it needs the American market back.


4. In trade wars, it's always the surplus country [China] that loses most.

Did he say again that negotiations with the countries are being an absolute success?

He has been saying this for more than two weeks.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

There is an interesting phenomenon that has been well documented where western youth in general, and American in particular, are irrationally self confident. Where they would consistently score the highest in the world on surveys about how well they felt they did in tests despite the fact they score near the bottom when it comes to actual test results.

In many ways, the modern American economy is built upon the foundation of that irrationally strong sense of self confidence and invincibility in Americans. The financial markets lives and dies on investor confidence, that is how share prices can climb so ludicrously high in American stock markets so easily and so consistently, which in turn underpins high wages, real estate value, basically everything that the modern American way of life is built on despite America making less and less tangible, physical goods.

Physical good scarcity and even the outright lack thereof is one of the system shocks that could bring down the house of cards the entire US economy has become with vast amounts of paper only wealth.

People have collectively been willing to wilfully suspending their scepticism to accept that all those growing zeros on their portfolios and house prices are real and realisable just as soon as they decide to cash out, because they can’t even imagine it could be otherwise. Empty shelves is one of those things where people don’t need to imagine, it’s right in front of their eyes, unavoidable and inescapable. And it’s the kind of thing that starts to make people seriously question, probably for the first time in their lives for many, just how much value the paper and plastic in their wallets actually hold.

Once that sentiment become widespread, it can rapidly become a self feeding loop where people rush to cash out their paper wealth to convert into physical goods, emptying shelves even more and driving up prices and the growing sense of panic.

This will be a massive psychological correction, long overdue.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Did he say again that negotiations with the countries are being an absolute success?

He has been saying this for more than two weeks.

Winning is far more important than silly things like reality.

 

[Surpluswarrior]

Did he say again that negotiations with the countries are being an absolute success?

He has been saying this for more than two weeks.

In the clips in the video I posted, I didn't see him say it today. But there may be a longer version of those interviews out there.

The Press Conference question about the Amazon goods tariff labeling was also surreal - As others indicated, the WH spokeswoman basically accused Jeff Bezos of 'working for the CCP' because he was mulling tariff transparency.

 

[In4ser]

The problem with the US strategy lays with its execution and lack of a defined goal. I will play devil advocate and say that the US actually had good leverage in the consumer and financial markets, but too many conflicting goals, lack of time, lack of a coherent plan of action and most importantly lack of any preparations, effectively kills any chance of achieving any of their stated objectives.



The problem with internet companies, I think was more an underestimation of just how large of a sector it turned out to be, as well as a the amount of control that needed to happen.

If you think about it there was actually a lot more than just Baidu, there was Tencent, Alibaba and some other smaller companies, but the others ended up focused on a section of the sector, Tencent with games, Alibaba with e-com, leaving only Baidu on the search engine side.

You also have to think back to those days, the coding was pretty bad at the beginning leading higher labour needs, the hardware was extremely expensive, therefore It was capital and labour intensive to build an internet companies. Having built up a few was already a pretty great run. Its just that they ended settling for different sections within the IT software space.

There was also an another factor to Baidu’s global competitiveness and that has nothing to do with whether it could actually compete. It has more to do with the negative views the US has fostered in the rest of the world has and the actual censorship that happens on Baidu, we might dismiss it but it’s one of those things that the west tends to twist their panties about, while they do their own censorship.

I’d actually try Baidu if they natively supported English searches and I think there is a market it in the global south. However despite this and how bad Google has become, Baidu doesn’t even try something as simple as that.

 

[Dante80]

From reuters, trying to circumvent the paywall.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

China creates list of US-made goods exempt from 125% tariffs, sources say

• China quietly notifies firms of tariff exemption list​
• Goods included on so-called whitelist remain unclear​
• Select pharmaceuticals, microchips, aircraft engines had previously been exempted​
• China surveys firms to assess tariff war impact​

SHANGHAI, April 30 (Reuters) - China has created a list of U.S.-made products that would be exempted from its 125% tariffs and is quietly notifying companies about the policy, two people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to ease the impact of its trade war with Washington.
China has already

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

tariff exemptions on select products including select pharmaceuticals, microchips and aircraft engines and was asking firms to identify critical goods they need levy-free, Reuters reported on Friday. However, the existence of a so-called 'whitelist' had not been previously reported.
The quiet approach allows Beijing, which has repeatedly said it is willing to

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

unless the U.S. lifts its 145% tariffs, to maintain its public messaging while privately taking practical steps to provide concessions.
It was not immediately clear how many and which products have been included on the list, which authorities have not shared publicly, the two sources said, declining to be named as the information was not public.
Companies instead are being privately contacted by authorities and notified of the existence of a list of product classifications that would be exempted from the tariffs, according to one of the sources who works at a drug company selling U.S.-made medicines in China.
The company was contacted by the Shanghai Pudong government on Monday about the list, the source said, adding the firm had previously lobbied for tariff exemptions as it relies on U.S. technologies for some of its products.
"We still have many technologies we need from the U.S.," the person said.
Another source said some companies have been asked to privately contact authorities to inquire if their own imported products qualify for the exemption.
The list of exempted products also appears to be growing: China has waived tariffs on

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

from the U.S., Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Major ethane processors had

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

from Beijing because the U.S. is the only supplier.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he thought a trade

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

with China was on the horizon. "But it's going to be a fair deal," he said.
China's commerce and customs ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

GAUGING IMPACT​

Two other sources said China is also surveying companies to gauge the impact of the tariff war.
In a recent meeting, authorities in Eastern China asked a foreign business lobby group to "communicate all critical situations caused by tariff tensions to evaluate specific cases," a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The person declined to name the city where the authorities held the meeting as the gathering was not public.
Government officials in Xiamen, a city in southeastern Fujian province that is home to a major port and a manufacturing base for electronics, also sent out a survey on Sunday to companies to assess tariff impacts, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The survey was sent to textiles firms and semiconductor companies and included questions on products they trade with the U.S., and the estimated impact of the U.S. and Chinese tariffs on their business, the source said.

 

[plawolf]

From reuters, trying to circumvent the paywall.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Chinese MSS.

Step 1: create rumours of a ‘whitelist’ and leak it to western MSM.

Step 2: wait until the WH hears about it and threatens to ban the export of everything on the list.

Step 3: Chinese FM officially deny the existence of such a list, prompting the WH to double down on the ban threat with demands for ‘transparency’ from China.

Step 4: wait some more to get Trump even more invested in this, hopefully making boasts and promises.

Step 5: leak the made up list, which will just happen to be a full list of every company that financially supports Trump and/or that Trump and family have a vested interest in.

Step 6: Lols ensue.