By launching his tariff policy, President Trump is simply following the
path blazed by his predecessors (starting with Obama), who had no qualms
about using this tool to defend the United States' competitiveness. It's
clear that he acts through seemingly impulsive gestures, often aimed at
directly or indirectly profiting from the market through insider
trading. Rather than possessing privileged information, he creates it,
thereby reaping immense profits and speculating. However, it is a fact
that the country has a total debt of 110 billion dollars, the result of
significant trade deficits accumulated since roughly 1976, due to high
imports of oil and consumer goods, as well as the effect of a radical
and savage decentralization of production that expelled the majority of
manufacturing activities from the country due to the need to dismantle
the centers of concentration and therefore of workers' power and to
defuse social protest and class struggle, in the search for a different
and more equitable distribution of wealth. and rapid and immediate
profits, thus triggered a strong process of financialization and
privatization of the US economy which, while it created the basis for
technological development, irremediably transformed the social
composition of the country[J. D. VANCE, American Elegy, Garzanti, Milan,
2020]. This process of de-industrialization has made the country
unrecognizable, pushing to the right the political axis that was
characterized by the presence of a central role of trade unions and
left-wing elements of society.
This strategy has been adopted by all Western bloc countries, which have
decentralized production and outsourced production chains, moving
manufacturing activities to poor and developing countries, where labor
costs were lower and traditions of worker organization and struggle were
absent or less deeply rooted. With the decline of public intervention,
the deterioration of infrastructure has also been particularly
pronounced, so much so that it is estimated that more than 200
infrastructure points need to be renovated, and the country's logistics
are in increasingly degraded condition. It is true that interventions in
the high-tech sector have increased, but without realizing that these
businesses are not separate entities but require skilled workers, raw
materials, and a complex production system to support them.
All this has meant that by 2022, the US economy's largest trade deficits
are now with China, Mexico, Vietnam, Canada, Germany, Japan, and
Ireland, and the largest trade surpluses are with the Netherlands, Hong
Kong, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Canada is
the US's largest trading partner, accounting for 15 percent of total
trade, followed by Mexico (14 percent) and China (13 percent). This data
explains why the first tariffs were directed at these two countries.
Today, the United States is losing control of the seas, as evidenced by
the fact that it launches fewer ships than China, South Korea, and
Japan. More decisively than his predecessors, Trump is addressing the
empire's financial crisis by extorting, above all, his vassal subjects,
and he does so with the same contempt with which the sovereign treats
his servants, as evidenced by the "negotiation" over duties with Ursula
Von der Stupid, not coincidentally held between rounds of golf at the
emperor's private club.
Nor is the payment of the tribute limited to the fee set by the emperor,
because among the obligations imposed is the contribution to arming the
army, shouldering the costs of producing weapons and equipping the
troops, in addition to committing to providing a contribution in men for
the war. In this sector too, private interests prevail, as evidenced by
the fact that even rearmament is managed by entrusting decisions to
companies that decide on the timing and methods of acquiring new weapons
systems. We reach the paradox that the most advanced nation abandons the
hypersonic missile project like the Russian Oreshnik in 2024 due to a
Boeing decision.
Sanctions and their effects. The empire, though moribund and in crisis,
needs to defend its positions and therefore wages a conflict at its
borders aimed at containing the emergence of a multipolar world that
replaces imperial domination with the simultaneous presence of multiple
actors. Today, there is talk of a rebirth of imperial spaces, reflecting
the historical, ethnic, economic, geographical, and cultural interests
that have characterized the planet and the lives of its peoples.
But the empire operates with a double standard and allows itself what it
does not allow others. This is demonstrated by what is happening in the
Middle East, where Israel, supported by a powerful, multinational lobby,
is allowed to appropriate the living space of other peoples, carrying
out before everyone's eyes one of the most ferocious genocides in
history. At the same time, Russia's defense of its own living space is
sanctioned as aggression, demanding that it allow Russia to work with
impunity for its dissolution as a state, promoting its fragmentation
into a mosaic of entities,
so as to allow Britain to shatter the formation of a strong and cohesive
political entity at the continental level.
Thus, faced with Russia's defensive action, the empire and its allies
have adopted the instrument of sanctions-18 packages so far-which were
intended to economically crush the Russian economy, causing its crisis.
Except that the sanctions are being imposed in a world significantly
changed from the one the empire had imagined, and furthermore, they are
being enacted at a particular stage in the development of the Russian
economy, which we will examine.
Over the course of 25 years of relations and negotiations, Russia,
together with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, has built the
BRICS, thus creating an area of trade and exchange relations between
emerging economies that have gradually adjusted their economic and
commercial activities, seeking to abandon dollar-denominated
transactions and favoring the regulation of their economic relations
through the use of national currencies. Not only that, but the
sanctions, by closing the Western European energy market from Russia,
have caused the country to reorient its energy and raw materials exports
toward China and India, increasing trade with the rest of the world.
By forcing Russia into triangulation to sell oil and gas, a growing
plethora of countries became involved in the processing and marketing of
energy and raw materials, reaping enormous profits and, in return,
providing solidarity and political and economic support to the primary
supplier: Russia. This also explains the enormous support that Russia's
intervention in Ukraine received among most states, with the result that
today Russia is far from isolated in international relations.
A driving force for the growth of the Russian economy
Accidental investments in Russia in the first two decades of the century
led to the growth and development of a market for goods and services.
New needs and new demands for goods expanded the country's domestic
market, initially satisfied by foreign investment and the establishment
of branches of Western companies in Russia, which supplied the local
market with the goods required by emerging demand.
The imposition of sanctions led to the withdrawal of investments by
these companies and the sale of their operations to local entities,
which took over existing production activities, developing them and
increasing investments in response to the growing demand for goods and
services triggered by Western investments. This created a virtuous cycle
that, combined with the effects of the partial conversion of part of
Russian industry to a war economy and the achievement of full
employment, allowed for an increase in per capita income, which in turn
stimulated demand, producing an unexpected but understandable growth in
the country's GDP.
Add to this the increased economic availability resulting from the
bonuses paid to volunteers (approximately EUR50,000), thanks to which
families who send at least one member to the front become owners of a
small investment portfolio, as well as recipients of benefits and favors
deriving from belonging to a family that sent members to the front, and
you have a clear picture of the overall stimulus that the war is
providing to the Russian economy. Proof of these considerations is the
agreement signed between the Russian government and North Korea for the
supply of 50,000 workers, primarily specialized in construction, and the
agreement signed with India for the supply of one million skilled
workers to strengthen and meet the emerging labor needs due to the rapid
growth of the Russian economy.
Thus, the singular paradox is realized: the sanctions that were supposed
to undermine the Russian economy have ended up creating the conditions
for its development, thanks to its developed indigenous potential, as
well as being able to exploit the country's vast supply of low-cost
energy, as well as, of course, Russia's practically unlimited abundance
of raw materials.
The only flaw in what is happening for Russia is that the new economic
relations it has established are necessarily pushing it to favor a
symbiotic relationship with China, which dominates it in terms of
economic power, population, development capacity, and soon, military
capabilities. But it is quite clear that what is happening is anything
but an advantage for the interests of the empire, which, not
coincidentally, seems to have set itself the far-from-achievable goal of
separating Russia from China.
In this scenario of developing geopolitical relations between the
various players, the Europeans are the ones who look like idiots, having
been sacrificed on the altar of self-interest by the United States. The
United States, with the complicity of Great Britain, severed the vital
artery that guaranteed the continent low-cost energy, boosting its
manufacturing activities with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Sanctions
against Russia, as well as those against China, are accelerating their
independent growth, even in the most advanced fields such as semiconductors.
The Editorial Staff
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/09/04/tra-dazi-e-sanzioni/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
path blazed by his predecessors (starting with Obama), who had no qualms
about using this tool to defend the United States' competitiveness. It's
clear that he acts through seemingly impulsive gestures, often aimed at
directly or indirectly profiting from the market through insider
trading. Rather than possessing privileged information, he creates it,
thereby reaping immense profits and speculating. However, it is a fact
that the country has a total debt of 110 billion dollars, the result of
significant trade deficits accumulated since roughly 1976, due to high
imports of oil and consumer goods, as well as the effect of a radical
and savage decentralization of production that expelled the majority of
manufacturing activities from the country due to the need to dismantle
the centers of concentration and therefore of workers' power and to
defuse social protest and class struggle, in the search for a different
and more equitable distribution of wealth. and rapid and immediate
profits, thus triggered a strong process of financialization and
privatization of the US economy which, while it created the basis for
technological development, irremediably transformed the social
composition of the country[J. D. VANCE, American Elegy, Garzanti, Milan,
2020]. This process of de-industrialization has made the country
unrecognizable, pushing to the right the political axis that was
characterized by the presence of a central role of trade unions and
left-wing elements of society.
This strategy has been adopted by all Western bloc countries, which have
decentralized production and outsourced production chains, moving
manufacturing activities to poor and developing countries, where labor
costs were lower and traditions of worker organization and struggle were
absent or less deeply rooted. With the decline of public intervention,
the deterioration of infrastructure has also been particularly
pronounced, so much so that it is estimated that more than 200
infrastructure points need to be renovated, and the country's logistics
are in increasingly degraded condition. It is true that interventions in
the high-tech sector have increased, but without realizing that these
businesses are not separate entities but require skilled workers, raw
materials, and a complex production system to support them.
All this has meant that by 2022, the US economy's largest trade deficits
are now with China, Mexico, Vietnam, Canada, Germany, Japan, and
Ireland, and the largest trade surpluses are with the Netherlands, Hong
Kong, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Canada is
the US's largest trading partner, accounting for 15 percent of total
trade, followed by Mexico (14 percent) and China (13 percent). This data
explains why the first tariffs were directed at these two countries.
Today, the United States is losing control of the seas, as evidenced by
the fact that it launches fewer ships than China, South Korea, and
Japan. More decisively than his predecessors, Trump is addressing the
empire's financial crisis by extorting, above all, his vassal subjects,
and he does so with the same contempt with which the sovereign treats
his servants, as evidenced by the "negotiation" over duties with Ursula
Von der Stupid, not coincidentally held between rounds of golf at the
emperor's private club.
Nor is the payment of the tribute limited to the fee set by the emperor,
because among the obligations imposed is the contribution to arming the
army, shouldering the costs of producing weapons and equipping the
troops, in addition to committing to providing a contribution in men for
the war. In this sector too, private interests prevail, as evidenced by
the fact that even rearmament is managed by entrusting decisions to
companies that decide on the timing and methods of acquiring new weapons
systems. We reach the paradox that the most advanced nation abandons the
hypersonic missile project like the Russian Oreshnik in 2024 due to a
Boeing decision.
Sanctions and their effects. The empire, though moribund and in crisis,
needs to defend its positions and therefore wages a conflict at its
borders aimed at containing the emergence of a multipolar world that
replaces imperial domination with the simultaneous presence of multiple
actors. Today, there is talk of a rebirth of imperial spaces, reflecting
the historical, ethnic, economic, geographical, and cultural interests
that have characterized the planet and the lives of its peoples.
But the empire operates with a double standard and allows itself what it
does not allow others. This is demonstrated by what is happening in the
Middle East, where Israel, supported by a powerful, multinational lobby,
is allowed to appropriate the living space of other peoples, carrying
out before everyone's eyes one of the most ferocious genocides in
history. At the same time, Russia's defense of its own living space is
sanctioned as aggression, demanding that it allow Russia to work with
impunity for its dissolution as a state, promoting its fragmentation
into a mosaic of entities,
so as to allow Britain to shatter the formation of a strong and cohesive
political entity at the continental level.
Thus, faced with Russia's defensive action, the empire and its allies
have adopted the instrument of sanctions-18 packages so far-which were
intended to economically crush the Russian economy, causing its crisis.
Except that the sanctions are being imposed in a world significantly
changed from the one the empire had imagined, and furthermore, they are
being enacted at a particular stage in the development of the Russian
economy, which we will examine.
Over the course of 25 years of relations and negotiations, Russia,
together with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, has built the
BRICS, thus creating an area of trade and exchange relations between
emerging economies that have gradually adjusted their economic and
commercial activities, seeking to abandon dollar-denominated
transactions and favoring the regulation of their economic relations
through the use of national currencies. Not only that, but the
sanctions, by closing the Western European energy market from Russia,
have caused the country to reorient its energy and raw materials exports
toward China and India, increasing trade with the rest of the world.
By forcing Russia into triangulation to sell oil and gas, a growing
plethora of countries became involved in the processing and marketing of
energy and raw materials, reaping enormous profits and, in return,
providing solidarity and political and economic support to the primary
supplier: Russia. This also explains the enormous support that Russia's
intervention in Ukraine received among most states, with the result that
today Russia is far from isolated in international relations.
A driving force for the growth of the Russian economy
Accidental investments in Russia in the first two decades of the century
led to the growth and development of a market for goods and services.
New needs and new demands for goods expanded the country's domestic
market, initially satisfied by foreign investment and the establishment
of branches of Western companies in Russia, which supplied the local
market with the goods required by emerging demand.
The imposition of sanctions led to the withdrawal of investments by
these companies and the sale of their operations to local entities,
which took over existing production activities, developing them and
increasing investments in response to the growing demand for goods and
services triggered by Western investments. This created a virtuous cycle
that, combined with the effects of the partial conversion of part of
Russian industry to a war economy and the achievement of full
employment, allowed for an increase in per capita income, which in turn
stimulated demand, producing an unexpected but understandable growth in
the country's GDP.
Add to this the increased economic availability resulting from the
bonuses paid to volunteers (approximately EUR50,000), thanks to which
families who send at least one member to the front become owners of a
small investment portfolio, as well as recipients of benefits and favors
deriving from belonging to a family that sent members to the front, and
you have a clear picture of the overall stimulus that the war is
providing to the Russian economy. Proof of these considerations is the
agreement signed between the Russian government and North Korea for the
supply of 50,000 workers, primarily specialized in construction, and the
agreement signed with India for the supply of one million skilled
workers to strengthen and meet the emerging labor needs due to the rapid
growth of the Russian economy.
Thus, the singular paradox is realized: the sanctions that were supposed
to undermine the Russian economy have ended up creating the conditions
for its development, thanks to its developed indigenous potential, as
well as being able to exploit the country's vast supply of low-cost
energy, as well as, of course, Russia's practically unlimited abundance
of raw materials.
The only flaw in what is happening for Russia is that the new economic
relations it has established are necessarily pushing it to favor a
symbiotic relationship with China, which dominates it in terms of
economic power, population, development capacity, and soon, military
capabilities. But it is quite clear that what is happening is anything
but an advantage for the interests of the empire, which, not
coincidentally, seems to have set itself the far-from-achievable goal of
separating Russia from China.
In this scenario of developing geopolitical relations between the
various players, the Europeans are the ones who look like idiots, having
been sacrificed on the altar of self-interest by the United States. The
United States, with the complicity of Great Britain, severed the vital
artery that guaranteed the continent low-cost energy, boosting its
manufacturing activities with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Sanctions
against Russia, as well as those against China, are accelerating their
independent growth, even in the most advanced fields such as semiconductors.
The Editorial Staff
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/09/04/tra-dazi-e-sanzioni/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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