this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from January 27th to February 2nd, 2025 - Tariffs in Trump's Imperium - COTW: Colombia
(hexbear.net)
Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.
Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ~~ending~~ slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]
It's still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden's, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several "allied" nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they'd do. I suspect we'll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.
I'll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump's administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It's funny how that works.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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So I "get" that Trump wants tariffs on Mexico and China for "productive" reasons (even though they'll do more harm than good), but why Canada though? Apart from a stupid ass poltical struggle between Trump and Canada and the evil Trudeauite Communists, is Canada invading the US market with cheap products or something?
Death to "israel" btw
This is not the first time Trump has used tariff against an “enemy” country. He had started a trade war with China back in 2018, with three rounds of tariffs: July 6th (25% on $34 bil), August 23rd (25% on 16 bil) and September 24th (10% on $200 bil).
By September 24th, China could no longer retaliate and both sides reached an agreement by December 1st.
So, no way Trump doesn’t know how tariff works and doesn’t know that the importer has to bear the cost.
Most likely, it was to probe the red line of an opponent nation, how much pain they could tolerate, and what would they do under such restrictions.
We know that by 2021, the US strategy had shifted to taking Europe out of the equation, which suggests that the US had anticipated an eventual full blown trade war with China would lead to increasing ties between Europe and China, and pre-emptively severed that link to position itself at an advantageous ground before the next cycle of conflict.
We don’t know what Trump (or the US establishment) is thinking, but it’s likely that the tariffs against Mexico, Canada and BRICS are just to probe how they would act under such pressure, and the US adjusts its strategy accordingly.
I commented this on another post - my hypothesis is that he simply thinks tariffs are a form of direct taxation (eg income tax or capital gains) that is applied to a country, as that’s his lived experience of taxation. This is why he keeps on threatening “100% tariffs”, which would make sense as the ultimate form of punitive direct taxation. It also explains why he wants an “External Revenue Service”, as from his perspective - all these tariffs are going to need the tax man to harass the countries, much like the IRS does to him
everything else could be theater but this being repeatedly asserted clinches him just fundamentally not grasping it
I agree it’s almost impossible to read the situation here.
The empire can't maintain the subtle leash any more so the relationship between the US and its tributes is being reconfigured. It can also use the pressure to extract concessions from those states, like Canada making its arctic seas into international waters or the US being allowed to gain access to Northern Mexico.
does Trump think Canada pays the tariffs?
or it could be that he wants to show he could do things and hogs will clap regardless of the effects. "shock and awe" "America stronk" macho bs.
i've seen articles about why Trump wants to do such tariffs because he has some big-brain plans, but it is just as likely that he has none.
I think he just wants to make a show of dominance and this is the only thing he understands how to do
Trump is finally taking on the maple cartel
The only thing I can think of is that he wants influence the 2025 federal elections. Maybe trigger a vote of no confidence.
It's almost guaranteed that since Trudeau resigned, so triggering elections for his party and he prorogated the commons until the new head of the liberal party is chosen (so March), that the other parties will immediately vote for a no-confidence.