New Trump tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China set to start Tuesday

“President Donald Trump moved forward Saturday with his plans for tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, ending a guessing game about how aggressively he would move to penalize America’s three largest trading partners.
The tariffs — as Trump has promised since after his election win — will be 25% duties on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China over issues of fentanyl and illegal migration.”

“tariffs on crucial energy imports from Canada will be lower, with 10% duties on those products. The carveout was an acknowledgment of US and Canadian energy interdependence.

Trump said the drug and migration issues constituted a national emergency and moved forward on the duties using authority in the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).”

“”Tariffs are simply taxes,” wrote Sen. Rand Paul, who is a vocal Trump advocate on other fronts. “Taxing trade will mean less trade and higher prices.”

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce added its own blistering statement that called Trump’s move “profoundly disturbing” and added that it “will have immediate and direct consequences on Canadian and American livelihoods.””

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/new-trump-tariffs-on-mexico-canada-and-china-set-to-start-tuesday-221835200.html

What Russia Doesn’t Want You to Know About Your History

Eastern European countries were brought and kept in the Warsaw pact by force. These countries wanted to join NATO because they were afraid Russia would invade them.

Before many of them joined NATO, Russia was already violently intervening in its neighbors.

Poland threatened to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself, and got involved in U.S. politics to push for it joining NATO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWK_euAwrMk

Trump’s two-by-four foreign policy gets early wins

Coercion may work against smaller countries on issues that don’t hurt them too much, but that doesn’t mean it will work against stronger countries. Trump’s first term trade war with China was a failure.

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/28/trump-foreign-policy-deportations

China’s DeepSeek AI is hitting Nvidia where it hurts

“DeepSeek also claims to have needed only about 2,000 specialized chips from Nvidia to train V3, compared to the 16,000 or more required to train leading models, according to the New York Times. These unverified claims are leading developers and investors to question the compute-intensive approach favored by the world’s leading AI companies. And if true, it means that DeepSeek engineers had to get creative in the face of trade restrictions meant to ensure US domination of AI.”

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/27/24352801/deepseek-ai-chatbot-chatgpt-ios-app-store

U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Police Brutality in Brazil

“In 2023, the Military Police in Brazil recorded having killed 6,296 people (approximately 17 people per day)—eight times the U.S. police lethality rate—yet evidence points to the actual number being much higher. The overwhelming majority of the victims are black, poor, young, male, uneducated, and living in the urban peripheries.”

“As Brazil’s militarized policing has continued to expand, so have the gangs’ control and influence. Brazilian authorities seized 72.3 tons of cocaine in 2023. Gangs have bought, threatened, and manipulated elections, politicians, and members of the judiciary. Last year, 3,238 people were found to be enslaved by gangs, and gangs have control of entire cities and the prison system. They have major stakes in real estate, mining, petroleum, casinos, and cryptocurrency, valued at billions of dollars. There have been hundreds of cases of police working directly for organized crime, including as contract killers, creating an incentive against eliminating criminality.”

“Most of the weapons used by Brazilian police come from U.S. suppliers. This includes the Colt M4 carbine, the Mossberg 590A1 shotgun, the Browning M2 machine gun, various sniper rifles, night vision systems, armored vehicles, and helicopters—all American-made.
The gangs also use American weapons, sold to intermediaries without strong checks by U.S. manufacturers (and very often provided by police officers involved with gangs and militias). These U.S. weapons were once legally sold by the U.S. government to the Brazilian police.”

“The U.S. State Department, along with the FBI, has provided various training programs and exercises with the Brazilian military police. One of these programs, promoted by both the Trump and Biden administrations, the “Rapid Response to Active Shooters Course,” began in 2019 and is meant to “quickly and effectively respond to attacks involving shooters in public spaces.” In the overwhelming majority of police killings in Brazil, officers and their precincts insist that they “were met with gunfire,” despite many prominent cases showing that the police shot first.”

“Today’s Military Police is a remnant of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which was also supported by the U.S. State Department, the FBI, and the CIA during the Cold War. Then, the Military Police was used as a political hammer to bludgeon political opponents, union leaders, and any Communist threats. The U.S. government produced local anti-Communist propaganda while funding and arming the state’s death squads. U.S. agencies also trained the Military Police to use some of the most extreme tactics still in use today.

A democratic Brazil has done little to reform the Military Police’s ruthless and repressive practices, with continued U.S. backing. Last year, the U.S. State Department gave $11.7 million to the Brazilian security state, returning to Bush-era numbers despite little progress made. The overwhelming majority of U.S. security assistance went to Brazilian law enforcement, financially rewarding ineffective policing.”

https://reason.com/2024/12/02/u-s-taxpayers-are-funding-police-brutality-in-brazil/

China Goes Tit for Tat Over U.S. Chip Bans

“China banned the export of gallium, germanium, antimony, and industrial diamonds to the U.S., in response to U.S. trade and investment restrictions on Chinese technology companies. Though tit-for-tat tariffs occasionally lead to bilateral trade agreements, protectionism is more frequently a response in kind. China’s rare materials ban is the latest such response in the ongoing U.S.–China semiconductor trade war.”

“The technological trade war reduces the productive and military capacity of both countries, not just China. Technonationalism harms American and Chinese consumers, hinders economic growth, reduces cross-cultural cooperation, and makes aggression more attractive.”

https://reason.com/2024/12/04/china-goes-tit-for-tat-over-u-s-chip-bans/

Sunk Cost: The US. Navy’s Shipbuilding Crisis

The U.S. is facing ship-building delay after ship-building delay, and they need these ships soon for China’s expected invasion of Taiwan.

The industry has a conflict of interest between their obligations to the Navy and their shareholders.

Congressmen care more about announcing orders for their reelections rather than making sure they are carried through efficiently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msGcQT_WJMo

Colombia backs down on accepting deportees on military planes after Trump’s tariffs threats

“President Donald Trump on Sunday announced retaliatory tariffs on Colombia after its president blocked US military deportation flights from landing, the first instance of Trump using economic pressure to force other nations to fall in line with his mass deportation plans since he took office last week.
Hours after Trump’s announcement, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he ordered the commerce ministry to raise tariffs on US imports by 25%.”

“Earlier in the day, Petro announced he had blocked two US military flights carrying migrants heading toward the country and called on the United States to establish better protocols in its treatment of migrants. Petro also left the door open to receiving repatriated migrants traveling on civilian planes.

Following Petro’s initial announcement, Trump criticized him on social media while announcing a slate of new sanctions and policies targeting Colombia, including “emergency 25% tariffs” on all imports from the country that will be raised to 50% in a week, a “travel ban” for Colombian citizens, and a revocation of visas for Colombian officials in the US along with “all allies and supporters.”

“These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.”

“The US Embassy in Colombia suspended visa processing in retaliation for Colombia’s refusal to accept repatriation flights, a State Department official told CNN on Sunday evening. The suspension applies to immigrant and non-immigrant visas, which typically number in the thousands each day.”

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Sunday statement that Colombian officials had approved two military flights carrying migrants to Colombia and then revoked the authorization once they were en route”

“Petro disputed that he had given authorization, writing on X after the secretary of state’s statement, “I will never allow Colombians to be brought in handcuffs on flights. Marco, if officials from the Foreign Ministry allowed this, it would never be under my direction.””

“The US began using military aircraft to return recent border crossers back to their countries of origin last week.”

“The Department of Defense “has helped administrations before, but not at this level. So it’s a force multiplier, and it’s sending a strong signal to the world. Our border’s closed,” Homan told ABC News.”

“Mexico also appeared to turn around a military flight heading for the country last week.

Brazil joined Colombia on Sunday in condemning the Trump administration’s handling of repatriated migrants on deportation flights, denouncing the treatment of Brazilian nationals who arrived in the country Friday as “degrading.”

Brazilian authorities said they found 88 handcuffed deportees on a US flight headed to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, that landed in Manaus due to a “technical error.” Brazilian officials did not authorize the plane to continue on due to “the use of handcuffs and chains, the poor condition of the aircraft, with a faulty air conditioning system, among other problems,” and the migrants were transported to Manaus on a Brazilian Air Force flight.”

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/26/politics/colombia-tariffs-trump-deportation-flights/index.html