Miscellaneous News

All forum members who are based in the US should immediately acquire firearms and form a well-regulated, left leaning militia. Firearms are a great tool to use for camping trips.

It's funny how people in the US whine so much about how Trump is going rogue.

Here's the thing, Trump is actually more honest than a lot of US politicians because he didn't hide that he was going to tariff everyone. If anything he actually acted on his promises unlike someone like Biden who's couldn't even keep his basic promises on aid just weeks after being elected.

And these people elected him in. Not only that when he wanted to do a clean up notice how the system just let him do it withoutbmuch resistance?

So you can't really complain about Trump because you and the system seem to be ok with him doing his thing. Otherwise he would have been thrown out long ago.

Just because you don't like the results doesn't mean you get to pretend you had nothing to do with Trump.

US politicians, Democrat and Republican, hate China because China shows how they have failed at their jobs in the US and how corrupt and beholden they are to special interests. Ganging up against China was already attempted by Biden and it failed. All economies of allies of the US certainly didn't get any better. So how is Trump going to be different? Is he going to threaten allies with military attack or annexation if they don't go along...?

Thomas Friedman's idea of ganging up the world to slowly raise tariffs on China is going to do what? The result is the same and Trump showed that to the world just faster for the US to find out. Biden got US allies together on the same page against China and the global south wanted to join BRICS. Like white supremacist Trump would've got the global south to shift to the US more?

What's bad for the US is where they have been given by the world this idea they're omnipotent. You know why Republicans like Trump? It's because he thinks just like them. There was that story when Trump was at the Pentagon in his first term, Trump had to be talked down by some generals because apparently Trump wanted to use nukes in a situation and he says, "We have them. Why can't we use them...?" That's the Republican mentality where they want to exercise American power to show the world and get them in-line. That's why Republicans are running around like chickens with their heads cut-off because of the blowback of what they thought they could getaway with over tariffs.



Look at all the small US businesses that are going to close because they can't access Chinese goods to sell now. They certainly aren't going to set up a factory to make them. And remember how Americans romanticized how they were a country of private independent innovators and entrepreneurs calling them the backbone of the US? You think they're going to afford to produce their dreams contracting an American factory? That's why you saw them in Shenzhen where they could have access to the latest technological components. All that gone now.

To westoids this is impossible. How can a multi trillion dollar economy still be growing at over 5% while others struggle to get 2%?

To those who are actually paying attention to China and have actually been there, it's easy to see why. There's just so much business now because products are cheap but of acceptable quality. Thanks to AI and tech advancements, things are way more efficient right now. Real estate is already recovering after the huge mess. Backwards regions that could barely get anything done are no longer an issue.

ASML posts lower-than-expected net bookings in first quarter​

Dutch semiconductor equipment firm ASML on Wednesday missed on net bookings expectations, suggesting a potential slowdown in demand for its critical chipmaking machines.

ASML reported net bookings of 3.94 billion euros ($4.47 billion) for the first quarter, versus a Reuters reported forecast of 4.89 billion euros.

Global chip stocks have been fragile over the last two weeks amid worries about how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff plans will affect the semiconductor supply chain.

Last week, the U.S. administration announced smartphones, computers and semiconductors would be temporarily exempted from his so-called “reciprocal” duties on counterparties. But on Sunday, Trump and his top trade officials created confusion with comments that there would be no tariff “exception” for the electronics industry, and that these goods were instead moving to a different “bucket.”

On Tuesday, a federal government notice announced that the U.S. Commerce Department was conducting a national security investigation into imports of semiconductor technology and related downstream products. The probe will examine whether additional trade measures, including tariffs, are “necessary to protect national security.”

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ASML reported net bookings of 3.94 billion euros ($4.47 billion) for the first quarter, versus a Reuters reported forecast of 4.89 billion euros.

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Off by almost a billion euros on bookings. I wonder what Q2 is going to look like.

“First mover” advantage​

Speaking to

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yesterday, Bessent began selling the advantage of being the "first mover"—the country that is quickest to agree to a deal with the Oval Office in order to avoid paying higher duties on its exports to the U.S.

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In other words no country is begging for a deal despite how Trump said countries were lining up to kiss his ass.

"
The Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure U.S. trading partners to limit their dealings with China, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

The idea is to extract commitments from U.S. trading partners to isolate China’s economy in exchange for reductions in trade and tariff barriers imposed by the White House. U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies.

...

One brain behind the strategy is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has taken a leading role in the trade negotiations since Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most nations—but not China—on April 9.

Bessent pitched the idea to Trump during an April 6 meeting in Mar-a-Lago, said people familiar with the discussion, saying that extracting concessions from U.S. trading partners could prevent Beijing and its firms from avoiding U.S. tariffs, export controls and other economic measures, the people said.

Bessent's head is absolutely going to roll if there are no major breakthroughs at the end of the 90 day period. The very fact that China has traded blow for blow with the US ought to give all the other nations a lot of confidence in negotiations.

The tactic is part of a larger strategy being pushed by Bessent to isolate the Chinese economy, which has gained traction among Trump officials recently. Debates over the scope and severity of U.S. tariffs are ongoing, but officials largely appear to agree with Bessent’s China plan.

It involves cutting China off from the U.S. economy with tariffs and potentially even cutting Chinese stocks out of U.S. exchanges. Bessent didn’t rule out the administration trying to delist Chinese stocks in a recent interview with Fox Business. "

GulfLander said:

This guy, is he like, anti CN?

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This guy is an academic. He does not understand how ruthless business is.

What this trade war is, on a fundamental level, is a business dispute.

You know what? Sometimes in business, it does not work out, and that is it. Take your losses and move on.

The Chinese have moved on.

There, I think the Chinese made a mistake. The Americans have not moved on, and they still actually expect a call.

Like, wft?