Trump 2.0 official thread

[horse]

You still haven’t shifted your mindset – the real issue is that the U.S.-designed economic circulatory system (the rule-based order) has already collapsed. It’s proven irreparable.

This means America can no longer distribute benefits ("share the cake") to allies – instead, it now demands allies to act as blood supplies for itself. The dollar’s hegemony is unsustainable, and a debt default is imminent this year.

U.S. consumption capacity – currently around $4 trillion annually – will rapidly decline, potentially halving. Whether China participates in this U.S.-centric economic cycle or not, America’s collapse is inevitable. Without China’s role, U.S. self-rescue becomes impossible.

Even if all U.S. allies become blood slaves, it would only prolong America’s survival by a few years. China’s strategy is to build a new economic cycle outside U.S. dominance. Unlike America’s zero-sum approach, China would allow the U.S. to join this new system once it admits its failures – not seeking America’s destruction.

America’s core goal isn’t to destroy China, but to force China back into being its primary blood supply. Without China’s compliance (as a non-tech, deindustrialized vassal), other "blood slaves" can’t save the U.S. system. Only if China willingly resumes its old role – suppressing high-tech development and accepting incomplete industrialization – could the obsolete order temporarily revive.

Strategic Contrast:
U.S. demand: Return to pre-2010 asymmetry (China as low-end manufacturer, U.S. controlling tech/finance)
China’s reality: Now leads in 37 of 44 critical industrial sectors (MIT 2023 tech dominance index)
Historical parallel: Similar to Britain’s 19th-century "Imperial Preference" system collapse – clinging to extractive models accelerates terminal decline.


Do you finally understand? China isn’t afraid of the TPP or America’s so-called "global containment" strategy. Here’s why: both America and the rest of the world need to survive. When the entire economic pie shrinks and America can no longer hand out benefits, all alliances and partnerships will disintegrate.

The U.S. cannot sustain its alliances once it loses the capacity to share spoils. China’s confidence stems from this inevitability – no coalition built on coercion or desperation lasts when the underlying system (the U.S.-led economic order) is already in free fall.

Key Context:
TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership): Originally a U.S.-led trade bloc to isolate China, now irrelevant as China joined the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TPP) in 2023.
Alliance fragility: Similar to the collapse of the British Sterling Area in the 1970s – when London could no longer subsidize its Commonwealth partners, the system unraveled.
China’s calculus: Focuses on building parallel systems (e.g., BRICS+, digital yuan) rather than fighting over a dying order.

What an excellent post.

Thanks for sharing! Nailed it!

 

[sanctionsevader]

You still haven’t shifted your mindset – the real issue is that the U.S.-designed economic circulatory system (the rule-based order) has already collapsed. It’s proven irreparable.

This means America can no longer distribute benefits ("share the cake") to allies – instead, it now demands allies to act as blood supplies for itself. The dollar’s hegemony is unsustainable, and a debt default is imminent this year.

U.S. consumption capacity – currently around $4 trillion annually – will rapidly decline, potentially halving. Whether China participates in this U.S.-centric economic cycle or not, America’s collapse is inevitable. Without China’s role, U.S. self-rescue becomes impossible.

Even if all U.S. allies become blood slaves, it would only prolong America’s survival by a few years. China’s strategy is to build a new economic cycle outside U.S. dominance. Unlike America’s zero-sum approach, China would allow the U.S. to join this new system once it admits its failures – not seeking America’s destruction.

America’s core goal isn’t to destroy China, but to force China back into being its primary blood supply. Without China’s compliance (as a non-tech, deindustrialized vassal), other "blood slaves" can’t save the U.S. system. Only if China willingly resumes its old role – suppressing high-tech development and accepting incomplete industrialization – could the obsolete order temporarily revive.

Strategic Contrast:
U.S. demand: Return to pre-2010 asymmetry (China as low-end manufacturer, U.S. controlling tech/finance)
China’s reality: Now leads in 37 of 44 critical industrial sectors (MIT 2023 tech dominance index)
Historical parallel: Similar to Britain’s 19th-century "Imperial Preference" system collapse – clinging to extractive models accelerates terminal decline.


Do you finally understand? China isn’t afraid of the TPP or America’s so-called "global containment" strategy. Here’s why: both America and the rest of the world need to survive. When the entire economic pie shrinks and America can no longer hand out benefits, all alliances and partnerships will disintegrate.

The U.S. cannot sustain its alliances once it loses the capacity to share spoils. China’s confidence stems from this inevitability – no coalition built on coercion or desperation lasts when the underlying system (the U.S.-led economic order) is already in free fall.

Key Context:
TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership): Originally a U.S.-led trade bloc to isolate China, now irrelevant as China joined the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TPP) in 2023.
Alliance fragility: Similar to the collapse of the British Sterling Area in the 1970s – when London could no longer subsidize its Commonwealth partners, the system unraveled.
China’s calculus: Focuses on building parallel systems (e.g., BRICS+, digital yuan) rather than fighting over a dying order.

You totally misread me lol, TPP was a failure and another TPP (this time we're extra mean and serious) will be another failure, though the bloodbags might play along longer this time.

 

[plawolf]

So if we presume the recent dumping of treasuries is a Chinese move then would that mean they saw an opportunity to reduce holdings? Or was it a move targeted regardless of potential losses?

The consensus is that it was the Japanese doing the dumping.

China’s US treasury holders are a card they are keeping in reserve, they are not holding onto because they can’t offload it. China has already significantly reduced its U.S. treasury holdings from its peak, but has held its current levels steady for quite some time, so this is likely their calculated minimum holdings needed to keep the card viable. Essentially I think China has written the value of those treasuries off already and is holding them as an economic strategic weapon, not a store of value. If and when the times comes to using it, it’s not expecting to get any of that money back.

This is why it’s unlikely to be the Chinese who did the sell off, as if they did use that economic nuclear bomb, the effects would have exponentially more devastating. Also, Trump backing down against everyone else on tariffs is not in China’s interest, so it would be incredibly odd and foolish for China to distract America as it was busy making the biggest economic mistake of its life so far.

What happened was the fact that it was the Japanese doing the selling that spooked the market into an overreaction. The prevailing thinking was that even if China dumped its treasuries, the impact would be somewhat mitigated by the Japanese jumping on the proverbial grenade and buying as much as they can. But if the Japanese are already tapping out and being forced to sell their treasuries to stay alive, who is going to hold the bag if the Chinese unleash their bond super weapon?

 

[SteelBird]

Chinese commercial department news conference live show.

 

[PopularScience]

Trump begging for a call

 

[Ringsword]

I'm not really sure if I should be worried for the American people or be angry that we're all going to lose a lot because of these imbeciles...

Countries whose people have become this divorced from reality usually end up starting bloody wars, economic depressions, or genocides.

View attachment 149766

I am very,very sure that Zhongnanhai's "lights are on " as Xi and his Politburo/Standing Commitee etc are in war mode and nobody is going golfing or fooling around-this is an existential war and any foolish/stupid decision will have negative/catastrophic consequences for China/Chinese for years.I would not expect any less from my leaders-anything else is treason.

 

[horse]

I don't expect the U.S. to simply concede. They'll mollify their proposed terms, but ultimately I still expect them to attempt to form a separate anti-China trade bloc.

I remember something from Trump 1.0.

There was an idea out there, that people believed with the tariffs of Trump 1.0 there would be a bifurcation of the world supply chain between one for America and one for China.

Remember that? I forgot all about it.

Did that bifurcation of supply chains happen? Not really.

The reason for that not happening, could be complex. I got no idea about that, just some random suspicions.

To make a long story short, if Trump 1.0 tariffs could not create an alternative supply chain, aka an anti-China trading block, then there is no reason to expect Trump 2.0 tariffs to create an alternative supply chain when these new tariffs has raised the cost for everything.

I am pretty sure that most of these Trump 2.0 initiatives will dissolve into irrelevance, except for the people paying the tariff.

For others, outside of America, life goes on.

 

[gpt]

Trade decoupling won't fundamentally hurt China
U.S. threats to isolate China through allies/tariffs are empty – global reliance on Chinese manufacturing is irreversible
America wants war? Then let it come. China's industrial dominance provides unshakable confidence.

For China, decoupling is a strategic shift driven by its 'dual circulation' model. It will continue to export but wants to build resilient, autonomous supply chains and ramp up domestic demand and innovation so it’s not overly reliant on the US and other consumer markets for its growth. It's about reducing vulnerability to external political pressures and shocks.

There's a camp of economists who believes China can never be a peer of the US because it can't transition to a consumption based model, without fully understanding what that consumption model entails. China is not going to be a golden credit card spender (term coined by investor Howard Marks about a kind of spending habit where one assumes they have no credit limit and the bill never comes), it's not in the culture of the Chinese.

Essentially, China is trying to transform from a pure factory to a tech powerhouse, which ensures its industrial base isn't at the mercy of geopolitical volatility. This industrial base will eventually be largely consumed by the Chinese people as much as the rest of the world.

 

[Captainquirk]

Trump wants other countries to lower their tariffs and buy more U.S. products. That’s pretty much what’s going to happen with majority of the countries coming to negotiate. Win. US lost nothing.

Trump wants to make “bespoke” deals with each country. Let’s just wait and see.

 

[Cygnus]

Bond yield led to WH yield, to be expected tbh.

Correct me if I am wrong. Bond yield were higher in January and nothing happened. I suspected the whole thing was an engineered crash so Trump can cash in on the euphoria he created. The focus was on NASDAQ stocks specifically NVIDIA.