Trump wants to "deal" his way with Putin to peace in Ukraine by extracting rare earth minerals and other resources from Ukraine. Trump doesn't realise that Putin will never "deal" with Trump because Russia knows what it means when the carpet baggers (oligarchs) come in to rape the country of its assets and wealth. That all happened to Russia when the Soviet system collapsed and opportunists financed by Soros and the WEF goons reigned supreme in the 1990's until Putin took the reins and restored a sense of dignity to Russia. Putin does not trust Trump and nor should he.
Russia was always amenable to selling its raw materials at a fair price. This goes back to Novgorod being a trade outpost for Hansa in the 13th century. Ukraine is not that mineral rich - most of it is coal and iron, and it is in the Donbass - so already part of the updated Russian Federation.
For rare earths, US will need agreements from mining deep inside Russia. And even then, one could even mine for rare earths in the US and Canada. If one wanted. The "only" problem is that such mining is dirty. Hence, China does it because it doesn't have to fear environmental concerns. The US so far has been reticent about allowing it in its own back yard.
Even if Russia were to capitulate, Trump and his neocons will simply demand more.
If Russia doesn't capitulate, Trump’s neocon wormtongues will tell him he doesn't look tough and whisper fantasies of plunder and minerals into his ear. You also can bet that von den Leyden made her deal, subject to the understanding that the US would fight Russia on their behalf.
Which is no different/identical to all other presidents most or all of us saw sitting in the office. At least. With the exclusion of Biden Avatar. He was dumb beyond measurable.
Biden's best days were long past, and to be frank, his best days never were very good.
Even Biden partisans admitted as much, assuring us that it doesn't really matter, because Biden's (unelected) advisors were running the show.
It doesn't matter. None of it matters.
It doesn't matter whether the president gives the orders because he is stupid, tricked, blackmailed, bribed, or a true believer. It doesn't even matter if he man is so senile he doesn't know what he is signing, or even if the autopen does the signing while he drools like a Basset Hound, only with less sense than the dog,
The only thing that matters is whether the orders given in the president's name are carried out, because the missiles fly, just the same.
In China’s case, the best strategic response to Trump’s secondary tariff would arguably be to cease all trade with the United States until it (the tariff) on Beijing had been lifted.
The ignominy that von der Leyen has just heaped upon the EU, the lack of self-respect and pusillanimity with which she has tainted all EU member states, resembles too closely China’s own past humiliation at the hands of these same has-been empires, and would almost certainly encourage Trump to increase the pressure on Beijing in all future dealings between the two countries. It would also put paid to any prospect of a powerful RIC alliance successfully claiming to defend the interests of the global south and/or BRICS+
Will China adopt such a strategy? I certainly do not Know. But one thing of which I am fairly certain is that China will, in the next few years, be drawn into a war with NATO in Central Asia, and probably the Arctic. And China’s success in such a conflict would be greatly enhanced if those ‘Stans’ which are members/partners of BRICS either remained neutral or sided with China, the former being more likely. In short, the geopolitical gain to be had from severing all trade with the US in response to secondary tariffs could well be worth the pain it suffers during the interim. It might also be the case that Xi who hesitates is lost.
“The ignominy that von der Leyen has just heaped upon the EU…”
That’s certainly what Trump wants, but simply declaring it done does not make it so. The fact is that there's no EU deal. In order for there to be a deal, the EU parliament has to vote on it, then EVERY parliament from every country in the EU has to vote for it. Right now, all he's got is an agreement with von der Leyen — who is hanging on to her political life by a thread. The EU "deal" will just quietly die. But by then MAGA will have convinced themselves it happened, and that's what counts in Trump’s mind.
You make a persuasive argument. But, in the war of competing narratives, first impressions count, bigly. Thus far, the impression doing the rounds in the social media, and some of the MSM globally, is that Trump has cleaned Europe’s clock, revealing the EU, per se, and many of its member states, to be cowardly blowhards. However, those blowhards have been here before, expressing deep dissatisfaction within their ranks. Nothing has ever come of it.
As for the European Parliament, it seldom musters an attendance of fifty people, even for important discussions, and voting against the Council puts at risk some of the best paid sinecures on earth. You’ve got to be a schmuck to take that risk. The only scenario I can see that results in the demise of the EU would be if the Council takes the member states to war.
That said, I sincerely hope your argument proves correct. There certainly are grounds - which you so clearly state - for you to be proven right.
That's more or less true. That's why they accepted the 15% tariff. If US doesn't muster a sufficiently bellicose response, the tariff agreement will probably be rescinded.
Trumpty Dumpty always chickens out. This was never more true than this faux deadline he's announced. The Epstein scandal and pressure from Netanyahu have the orange man spooked, and is exposing the fault line in his flagging/wavering support and "Cabinet of Clowns". Nevertheless, he's still dangerous and I wouldn't put it past the Ukrainians (with US support) to perpetrate some audacious atrocity somewhere in Russia.
Excellent comment. The only ares where I have a criticism came towards the end where you said that Trump was being manipulated.
My problem with it is the same problem that I have with some of the other commentators who make similar comments that excuse Trump. They say such things as: maybe he didn't know, he's getting bad advice, when and what did he know, etc.
Trump has no excuse for not knowing anything. It is also odd that he never takes any initiative to correct his ignorance when it comes to any of these situations where the defense of ignorance or manipulation is offered by commentators such as yourself and them.
Trump is a manipulator himself. The policy of using strategic ambiguity is itself a manipulation. He certainly used manipulation when he pretended to be taking 60 day pause before attacking Iran as long as talks were ongoing.
Manipulation is the U.S. weapon and it uses it all the time across all of its modalities.
The Russians aren't manipulators. They play it straight when it comes to diplomacy and have been naive enough to believe the U.S. did also. That's how Putin got himself into this mess. He trusted the West and got screwed.
Yep, MishTalk (Michael Shedlock) said as much. I think Mish is reliable on the state of economy and labor market. But his foreign affairs expertise is poor. My guess is that EU agreed to 15% tariffs in exchange for US military involvement in Ukraine. Or maybe tariff-inforced secondary sanctions? We'll see in a few days?
Russia benefits from the weather…and in the fall of 2022 it looked like a hurricane hitting Louisiana and our LNG infrastructure might bail them out by jacking up natural gas prices for a few more months producing windfall profits for Gazprom. Luckily for Ukraine the hurricane turned towards Florida which has no fossil fuel infrastructure.
Mongols, Polish, Ottomans sometime, French in Austerlitz, Eylau, Borodino, French-English-Ottoman in Crimea in 1853, Japanese in 1905, Germans in 1917, Finland 1940.
The rule is not to not attack Russia, the rule is to not go toward Moscow.
You can beat Russia but not invade it nor occupy it.
I did hear rumor that China and India are in secret talks. The so-called border land dispute really means very little to both. They can settle that Indo-China partition for good, while India still supports Tibetan Independence and China still builds its huge hydro-electric station. Or even better, more compromises on more fronts (but not likely). Most likely India and China will maintain a mixed friend-enemy relationship for a while. If the two indeed reach a total detente, I would agree that this time history makes decades in a few months.
China will not submit. It doesn't have to submit because it holds the upper hand. U.S. trade with China has fallen to an inconsequential level.
China will never forget its 100 years of humiliation. India shouldn't forget its suffering and subjugation under British rule. There should be nothing the U.S. can offer India that would bring India back into the Western orbit.
It is only a rumor. If Xi holds complete power, this likely will not happen. Modi also needs to have stronger domestic support for him to dare this, but it seems Modi has some domestic support issue (he might have bent too much to Hindu fundamentalists, to the likes of secular Hindus.)
- Blame whomever you like, Trump is just a rank liar. He promised to end the "endless wars" and instead is driving us straight into a nuclear train wreck. Enough Americans see it that any political capital Trump had, is gone. The dems are worse, but Americans dont like being deceived. Trump is going to pay a big price in the midterm elections. Many of us are sick to our stomachs thinking about 3.5 yr more of this nonsense. This means the next 18 months are the most critical.
- This economic attack on Russia shows the western media narrative of Russia's ailing economy is just another lie.
- The need to attack Russia's economy, employ terror operations, create border sore spots and distractions, and use information ops to attack neutral or friendly nations all show the enormous US investments in the military have been a waste. The US is militarily impotent, good only at wasting the lives of stooges (looking at you Poland and Turkey).
- The minute economic bullying blows back on the US economy, Trump will be done. Diesel above $4.50/gal, gas at $5+/gal, cost push inflation will create widespread discontent. The media is using Trump's vanity to push him along the current path. They will eventually turn on him and then consume him.
- The neocons have shown themselves to be rational actors using a 5D battle space approach. I think Russia, China, India, Iran need to get past their historical issues and come together to deal with the bully, in the same battle space. At a bare minimum, supply chains can be snarled. The pain is coming anyway, one way or another.
This post really captures the high-stakes chess game between the US, Russia, China, and India. Trump’s tariff moves are a big gamble trying to split BRICS and squeeze Russia economically, while Putin’s betting on China and India sticking with him or at least not fully giving in.
It's complicated. For China it is also about not being geopolitically surrounded from all sides. Otherwise, they'll sell Russia down the River. But what if Russia then cuts a deal with the US too? Then, the US doesn't need to honor their previous deal with China...
For India, they had been receiving Russian oil and gas, for which they pay very little, since Rupees are not convertible. Am not sure USA is prepared to have a zero tariff policy vs India, plus supply them with oil and gas on the same conditions as Russia, plus give away free militrary material. Plus keep shtum vs respect to internal Indian policy (MSM in the US hate Modi almost as much as Bibi). And, allowing India to transship Chinese goods to the US. It's a tall bill for the US - don't think they can go so far.
The US will sooner bite its own ass bloody than give anything to India, or anyone else for free; military equipment especially. Look at Europe; the US blew up the Nord Stream, not in order to then supply gas "on the same conditions" but in order to charge extortionate price for it, breaking the back of German economy. And the MIC is not in the business of "giving away free military material". Are you living in some alternate reality?
Natural gas hasn’t been expensive since 2022. Ukraine blew up Nord Stream and it almost helped Russia win the war because a hurricane could have hit Louisiana which is where our LNG export infrastructure is. Fortunately for Ukraine the hurricane hit Florida which isn’t an energy state and so LNG prices quickly declined.
LNG is 4 way more expensive than the natural gas that was flowing from Russia. The irony is that the Europeans are buying more expensive Russian LNG because its cheaper than U.S. LNG.
Ukraine didn't blow up Nordstream. They don't have the training or equipment.
Russia doesn’t have much LNG infrastructure and Gazprom has been losing billions after making windfall profits in 2022. Ukraine did blow it up and it almost helped Russia win the war.
First of all if the Climate Change terrorists want to cheer the fact that the U.S. is the biggesprocesdt producer and shipper of LNG to Europe then they are showing how ignorant they are of how LNG is produced.
The production of LNG is an energy intensive process. The compressing, refrigeration, shipping etc. is an energy intensive process and don't forget that what is done at the shippers end has to be reversed at the receiver's end.
LNG production isn't carbon neutral.
Secondly, Russia is the second largest exporter of LNG to Europe after the U.S. And Russia isn't making windfall profits. There is no workable definition of the phrase.
If Russia is making windfall profits then so is the U.S. The U.S. is making a killing off of a natural gas shortage that it created when it blew up the Nordstream Pipelines.
The U.S. stopped the Europeans from investigating the blowing up the pipelines. And the U.S. Charges more to Europe for the same natural gas that is used in other countries.
We already did that! Remember 2022 and high energy prices for a few months?? Diesel stayed high for a little longer because we were exporting diesel to the EU because they foolishly use diesel for passenger vehicles. Energy prices have been declining since late 2022.
"Exporting diesel" is not the same thing as being a net producer of the oil that goes into diesel. We import, if memory serves, 4mbpd of heavy oil from Canada and Saudi that is required to make diesel, becomes our shale oil is too light. We export a lot of our light oil that cannot be used for diesel or automotive purposes. Anyway, the diesel that we do export isn't produced from "our" oil, we just import the oil like I said, refine it, and then export the products. You have a fairly superficial understanding of this stuff, like European leaders, which is why they keep doing stupid things.
I assume you're just pulling my leg, but if you're serious ... shale has peaked in the US and will decline substantially over the next 10 years, if not sooner.
So why is Trump so exuberant about increasing LNG exports?? Do you think he wants to make energy more expensive for Americans by exporting our natural gas??
The acceleration of this time line from 50 days to 10-12 days has baffled me somewhat.
These secondary sanctions could quite possibly cause global economic turmoil, and in any case seem (like the other sanctions) likely to hurt the West more than its targets. That would make this a threat impossible to follow through on. So like others, I assumed the 50 day limit was a simple kicking-of-the-can by Trump to delay the need to act immediately, hoping that time might allow some yet-unknown success strategy to present itself.
But now that he has pulled up the deadline to early August, I wonder if someone thinks he has found a way this can be made to work to Western advantage. (I can't imagine what that would be, but just saying...)
I hear you, but it seems to be that he's going to look bad anyway when either the sanctions turn out to be the economic disaster we all know they will be, or the Rest Of The World goes "ho-hum" and continues business as usual.
Trump wants to "deal" his way with Putin to peace in Ukraine by extracting rare earth minerals and other resources from Ukraine. Trump doesn't realise that Putin will never "deal" with Trump because Russia knows what it means when the carpet baggers (oligarchs) come in to rape the country of its assets and wealth. That all happened to Russia when the Soviet system collapsed and opportunists financed by Soros and the WEF goons reigned supreme in the 1990's until Putin took the reins and restored a sense of dignity to Russia. Putin does not trust Trump and nor should he.
Trump does not care about any of that.
You could have just listened to me from the beginning…I know a lot more than Substack experts!! 😆
Russia was always amenable to selling its raw materials at a fair price. This goes back to Novgorod being a trade outpost for Hansa in the 13th century. Ukraine is not that mineral rich - most of it is coal and iron, and it is in the Donbass - so already part of the updated Russian Federation.
For rare earths, US will need agreements from mining deep inside Russia. And even then, one could even mine for rare earths in the US and Canada. If one wanted. The "only" problem is that such mining is dirty. Hence, China does it because it doesn't have to fear environmental concerns. The US so far has been reticent about allowing it in its own back yard.
Even if Russia were to capitulate, Trump and his neocons will simply demand more.
If Russia doesn't capitulate, Trump’s neocon wormtongues will tell him he doesn't look tough and whisper fantasies of plunder and minerals into his ear. You also can bet that von den Leyden made her deal, subject to the understanding that the US would fight Russia on their behalf.
Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
> Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
Which is no different/identical to all other presidents most or all of us saw sitting in the office. At least. With the exclusion of Biden Avatar. He was dumb beyond measurable.
Biden's best days were long past, and to be frank, his best days never were very good.
Even Biden partisans admitted as much, assuring us that it doesn't really matter, because Biden's (unelected) advisors were running the show.
It doesn't matter. None of it matters.
It doesn't matter whether the president gives the orders because he is stupid, tricked, blackmailed, bribed, or a true believer. It doesn't even matter if he man is so senile he doesn't know what he is signing, or even if the autopen does the signing while he drools like a Basset Hound, only with less sense than the dog,
The only thing that matters is whether the orders given in the president's name are carried out, because the missiles fly, just the same.
Man, you will soon be drinking Costco vodka! Lighten up!
In China’s case, the best strategic response to Trump’s secondary tariff would arguably be to cease all trade with the United States until it (the tariff) on Beijing had been lifted.
The ignominy that von der Leyen has just heaped upon the EU, the lack of self-respect and pusillanimity with which she has tainted all EU member states, resembles too closely China’s own past humiliation at the hands of these same has-been empires, and would almost certainly encourage Trump to increase the pressure on Beijing in all future dealings between the two countries. It would also put paid to any prospect of a powerful RIC alliance successfully claiming to defend the interests of the global south and/or BRICS+
Will China adopt such a strategy? I certainly do not Know. But one thing of which I am fairly certain is that China will, in the next few years, be drawn into a war with NATO in Central Asia, and probably the Arctic. And China’s success in such a conflict would be greatly enhanced if those ‘Stans’ which are members/partners of BRICS either remained neutral or sided with China, the former being more likely. In short, the geopolitical gain to be had from severing all trade with the US in response to secondary tariffs could well be worth the pain it suffers during the interim. It might also be the case that Xi who hesitates is lost.
“The ignominy that von der Leyen has just heaped upon the EU…”
That’s certainly what Trump wants, but simply declaring it done does not make it so. The fact is that there's no EU deal. In order for there to be a deal, the EU parliament has to vote on it, then EVERY parliament from every country in the EU has to vote for it. Right now, all he's got is an agreement with von der Leyen — who is hanging on to her political life by a thread. The EU "deal" will just quietly die. But by then MAGA will have convinced themselves it happened, and that's what counts in Trump’s mind.
You make a persuasive argument. But, in the war of competing narratives, first impressions count, bigly. Thus far, the impression doing the rounds in the social media, and some of the MSM globally, is that Trump has cleaned Europe’s clock, revealing the EU, per se, and many of its member states, to be cowardly blowhards. However, those blowhards have been here before, expressing deep dissatisfaction within their ranks. Nothing has ever come of it.
As for the European Parliament, it seldom musters an attendance of fifty people, even for important discussions, and voting against the Council puts at risk some of the best paid sinecures on earth. You’ve got to be a schmuck to take that risk. The only scenario I can see that results in the demise of the EU would be if the Council takes the member states to war.
That said, I sincerely hope your argument proves correct. There certainly are grounds - which you so clearly state - for you to be proven right.
The european rulers' sole concern is getting the United States to fight Russia on their behalf.
That's more or less true. That's why they accepted the 15% tariff. If US doesn't muster a sufficiently bellicose response, the tariff agreement will probably be rescinded.
Trumpty Dumpty always chickens out. This was never more true than this faux deadline he's announced. The Epstein scandal and pressure from Netanyahu have the orange man spooked, and is exposing the fault line in his flagging/wavering support and "Cabinet of Clowns". Nevertheless, he's still dangerous and I wouldn't put it past the Ukrainians (with US support) to perpetrate some audacious atrocity somewhere in Russia.
Excellent comment. The only ares where I have a criticism came towards the end where you said that Trump was being manipulated.
My problem with it is the same problem that I have with some of the other commentators who make similar comments that excuse Trump. They say such things as: maybe he didn't know, he's getting bad advice, when and what did he know, etc.
Trump has no excuse for not knowing anything. It is also odd that he never takes any initiative to correct his ignorance when it comes to any of these situations where the defense of ignorance or manipulation is offered by commentators such as yourself and them.
Trump is a manipulator himself. The policy of using strategic ambiguity is itself a manipulation. He certainly used manipulation when he pretended to be taking 60 day pause before attacking Iran as long as talks were ongoing.
Manipulation is the U.S. weapon and it uses it all the time across all of its modalities.
The Russians aren't manipulators. They play it straight when it comes to diplomacy and have been naive enough to believe the U.S. did also. That's how Putin got himself into this mess. He trusted the West and got screwed.
Very well said Julian. Wholeheartedly agree. Thank you.
It have to be said that what signed Von der Leyen Yesterday is only a frame work and have no juridic force and obligation.
Everything depend on governments of states and council of UE governments.
Either Von der Leyen signed that in knowing it we go nowhere either this frame can lead to UE bursting.
Yep, MishTalk (Michael Shedlock) said as much. I think Mish is reliable on the state of economy and labor market. But his foreign affairs expertise is poor. My guess is that EU agreed to 15% tariffs in exchange for US military involvement in Ukraine. Or maybe tariff-inforced secondary sanctions? We'll see in a few days?
Never underestimate the Russians . Napoleon and hitler made that mistake.
Russia benefits from the weather…and in the fall of 2022 it looked like a hurricane hitting Louisiana and our LNG infrastructure might bail them out by jacking up natural gas prices for a few more months producing windfall profits for Gazprom. Luckily for Ukraine the hurricane turned towards Florida which has no fossil fuel infrastructure.
Yes, Swedish too at the 18th century.
However.
They were also beaten.
Mongols, Polish, Ottomans sometime, French in Austerlitz, Eylau, Borodino, French-English-Ottoman in Crimea in 1853, Japanese in 1905, Germans in 1917, Finland 1940.
The rule is not to not attack Russia, the rule is to not go toward Moscow.
You can beat Russia but not invade it nor occupy it.
Nothing more to say. We'll see very soon if it will be the doomsday or the dumbs's day.
Let's pray. I'm too anxious for swallow popcorn.
French and UE already went out of history two days ago. We'll see who's the next which will sit on the slide .
Lénine said it" sometimes, History make decades even centuries in few days".
This is it
I did hear rumor that China and India are in secret talks. The so-called border land dispute really means very little to both. They can settle that Indo-China partition for good, while India still supports Tibetan Independence and China still builds its huge hydro-electric station. Or even better, more compromises on more fronts (but not likely). Most likely India and China will maintain a mixed friend-enemy relationship for a while. If the two indeed reach a total detente, I would agree that this time history makes decades in a few months.
Alas, I fear the contrary. Race to abject submission between China and India.
yes. It is hard to predict which way the pendulum will swing. I am more optimistic than usual for today.
Lucky man.
China will not submit. It doesn't have to submit because it holds the upper hand. U.S. trade with China has fallen to an inconsequential level.
China will never forget its 100 years of humiliation. India shouldn't forget its suffering and subjugation under British rule. There should be nothing the U.S. can offer India that would bring India back into the Western orbit.
It's interesting. Because a compromise between India and China will create the unified MacKinder's Heartland.
Ho no, it lake of the five central Asia states.
It is only a rumor. If Xi holds complete power, this likely will not happen. Modi also needs to have stronger domestic support for him to dare this, but it seems Modi has some domestic support issue (he might have bent too much to Hindu fundamentalists, to the likes of secular Hindus.)
Modi has no domestic support issues.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/indias-modi-has-highest-approval-rating-among-world-leaders-frances-macron-lowest
In relative terms, yes. No argument there. But for ground truth, I would not trust Visual Capitalists.
Europeans like being slaves.
What is UE? EU?
United Emirates
In the meantime, I've looked up at other Darras comments, and "UE" is indeed the French way of writing EU. *smile*
United Arab Emirates is UAE.
Excellent analysis. Minor observations:
- Blame whomever you like, Trump is just a rank liar. He promised to end the "endless wars" and instead is driving us straight into a nuclear train wreck. Enough Americans see it that any political capital Trump had, is gone. The dems are worse, but Americans dont like being deceived. Trump is going to pay a big price in the midterm elections. Many of us are sick to our stomachs thinking about 3.5 yr more of this nonsense. This means the next 18 months are the most critical.
- This economic attack on Russia shows the western media narrative of Russia's ailing economy is just another lie.
- The need to attack Russia's economy, employ terror operations, create border sore spots and distractions, and use information ops to attack neutral or friendly nations all show the enormous US investments in the military have been a waste. The US is militarily impotent, good only at wasting the lives of stooges (looking at you Poland and Turkey).
- The minute economic bullying blows back on the US economy, Trump will be done. Diesel above $4.50/gal, gas at $5+/gal, cost push inflation will create widespread discontent. The media is using Trump's vanity to push him along the current path. They will eventually turn on him and then consume him.
- The neocons have shown themselves to be rational actors using a 5D battle space approach. I think Russia, China, India, Iran need to get past their historical issues and come together to deal with the bully, in the same battle space. At a bare minimum, supply chains can be snarled. The pain is coming anyway, one way or another.
May God save the world from these idiots.
This post really captures the high-stakes chess game between the US, Russia, China, and India. Trump’s tariff moves are a big gamble trying to split BRICS and squeeze Russia economically, while Putin’s betting on China and India sticking with him or at least not fully giving in.
Thanks for your great work Andrew!
We've shared the link on our daily report.
A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/
It's complicated. For China it is also about not being geopolitically surrounded from all sides. Otherwise, they'll sell Russia down the River. But what if Russia then cuts a deal with the US too? Then, the US doesn't need to honor their previous deal with China...
For India, they had been receiving Russian oil and gas, for which they pay very little, since Rupees are not convertible. Am not sure USA is prepared to have a zero tariff policy vs India, plus supply them with oil and gas on the same conditions as Russia, plus give away free militrary material. Plus keep shtum vs respect to internal Indian policy (MSM in the US hate Modi almost as much as Bibi). And, allowing India to transship Chinese goods to the US. It's a tall bill for the US - don't think they can go so far.
The US will sooner bite its own ass bloody than give anything to India, or anyone else for free; military equipment especially. Look at Europe; the US blew up the Nord Stream, not in order to then supply gas "on the same conditions" but in order to charge extortionate price for it, breaking the back of German economy. And the MIC is not in the business of "giving away free military material". Are you living in some alternate reality?
Natural gas hasn’t been expensive since 2022. Ukraine blew up Nord Stream and it almost helped Russia win the war because a hurricane could have hit Louisiana which is where our LNG export infrastructure is. Fortunately for Ukraine the hurricane hit Florida which isn’t an energy state and so LNG prices quickly declined.
LNG is 4 way more expensive than the natural gas that was flowing from Russia. The irony is that the Europeans are buying more expensive Russian LNG because its cheaper than U.S. LNG.
Ukraine didn't blow up Nordstream. They don't have the training or equipment.
Russia doesn’t have much LNG infrastructure and Gazprom has been losing billions after making windfall profits in 2022. Ukraine did blow it up and it almost helped Russia win the war.
First of all if the Climate Change terrorists want to cheer the fact that the U.S. is the biggesprocesdt producer and shipper of LNG to Europe then they are showing how ignorant they are of how LNG is produced.
The production of LNG is an energy intensive process. The compressing, refrigeration, shipping etc. is an energy intensive process and don't forget that what is done at the shippers end has to be reversed at the receiver's end.
LNG production isn't carbon neutral.
Secondly, Russia is the second largest exporter of LNG to Europe after the U.S. And Russia isn't making windfall profits. There is no workable definition of the phrase.
If Russia is making windfall profits then so is the U.S. The U.S. is making a killing off of a natural gas shortage that it created when it blew up the Nordstream Pipelines.
The U.S. stopped the Europeans from investigating the blowing up the pipelines. And the U.S. Charges more to Europe for the same natural gas that is used in other countries.
Nuland declared NS2 “dead” long before the Ukrainians blew it up.
You bet?
Sure! 5$
USA cannot supply diesel. Fracking is light oil. And anyways we are barely a net producer, we can in no way replace Russian exports.
We already did that! Remember 2022 and high energy prices for a few months?? Diesel stayed high for a little longer because we were exporting diesel to the EU because they foolishly use diesel for passenger vehicles. Energy prices have been declining since late 2022.
"Exporting diesel" is not the same thing as being a net producer of the oil that goes into diesel. We import, if memory serves, 4mbpd of heavy oil from Canada and Saudi that is required to make diesel, becomes our shale oil is too light. We export a lot of our light oil that cannot be used for diesel or automotive purposes. Anyway, the diesel that we do export isn't produced from "our" oil, we just import the oil like I said, refine it, and then export the products. You have a fairly superficial understanding of this stuff, like European leaders, which is why they keep doing stupid things.
None of that is important. What is important is America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and Putin made America energy dominant…oops! 😆
I assume you're just pulling my leg, but if you're serious ... shale has peaked in the US and will decline substantially over the next 10 years, if not sooner.
So why is Trump so exuberant about increasing LNG exports?? Do you think he wants to make energy more expensive for Americans by exporting our natural gas??
Putin didn't make the U.S. energy dominant. American shale oil production is in decline and the U.S. doesn't have the ability to increase production.
Good analysis - thank you.
Does one need a Ph.D. in political science to know that Trump's calculations are based on the wishful thinking of quick profits while
Putin's are carefully made based on an instinct for survival.
Who is likely to be more rigorous...? The Partygoer or the Warrior?
Trump is pure momentary bluster.
Putin is there for the long haul.
For survival. For the duration. For the collective.
Incompetent, greedy Trump is failing. Blatantly. Before our eyes.
He growls like a commander while drowning like a child in a bucket.
Pathetic.
The acceleration of this time line from 50 days to 10-12 days has baffled me somewhat.
These secondary sanctions could quite possibly cause global economic turmoil, and in any case seem (like the other sanctions) likely to hurt the West more than its targets. That would make this a threat impossible to follow through on. So like others, I assumed the 50 day limit was a simple kicking-of-the-can by Trump to delay the need to act immediately, hoping that time might allow some yet-unknown success strategy to present itself.
But now that he has pulled up the deadline to early August, I wonder if someone thinks he has found a way this can be made to work to Western advantage. (I can't imagine what that would be, but just saying...)
What they found out, is that Ukraine will collapse before the 50 days is out, and then Trump is gonna look bad. Trump does not like to look bad.
I hear you, but it seems to be that he's going to look bad anyway when either the sanctions turn out to be the economic disaster we all know they will be, or the Rest Of The World goes "ho-hum" and continues business as usual.
Excellent points, Andrew. I will cover in tomorrow's podcast, as you are right on target.