The centrality of the United States in the world financial system allows it to use that power to cut countries and people off from basic financial services. The United States has long used this power to cut off rogue states, but Trump is abusing this power and the power of the US domestic market, which could lead to a rebellion and weaken America’s power to use these tools when it more needs it.
Trump ran on China being a major threat, but his aggressive actions toward non-China countries, has strengthened China’s relationships with these countries and made China stronger compared to the US.
Trump throws around power to try to get short term gains, not realizing that long term no one trusts him or the US and this ultimately weakens US power.
There’s a good chance that the Chinese company ByteDance still controls the TikTok algorithm, so Trump’s deal does not solve the national security concerns, yet it makes some of Trump’s friends a lot of money.
“While the US can draw a certain degree of confidence in its capabilities from the success of the mission, there’s a risk of reading too much into that success, especially when it comes to weapons made by American rivals in the hands of other militaries.
Some of the failures of the Venezuelan-operated foreign air defenses, for example, have been attributed to issues like inactivity, incompetence, and a dearth of functional cohesion between different systems.
Wins in Venezuela during Operation Absolute Resolve or in operations against Iranian-operated Russian-made air defenses may not translate the same in fight with Russia or China.”
“Prime Minister Mark Carney is opening the door to more imports of electric vehicles from China with expectations the olive branch will lead to “considerable” Chinese investment in Canada’s auto sector “within three years” — risking potential blowback from Washington.
The move comes as Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping chart a new era in Canada-China relations and diversify trade ties in response to U.S. President Donald Trump.”
The US saves a lot of money on military spending because our greatest rivals would have to go through our allies and partners to seriously get to us. Without those allies and partners, those rivals could more easily reach out and touch the US, which would require greater military spending.
Early on, there was a real disagreement between specialists on the origin on Covid, with some supporting natural origins and some supporting a lab leak. But that debate is now essentially over. With more data carefully examined, the evidence best supports natural origins.
The virus was initially repeatedly found in a specific animal market, and even a specific stall that appeared to be the source. For a lab leak to be the source, the person or people who leaked the virus would have to have repeatedly visited that market every time they leaked it and nowhere else so that it looked like that market was the source.
While Venezuela has a lot of oil, they don’t produce that much, and it will take a decade to really ramp up their production. The US doesn’t need Venezuelan oil and it’s probably not worth the risk of destabilizing the country just for oil. Cutting off China and Cuba from Venezuelan oil may have more value, but, China can get oil from elsewhere.