Fyi, UK, NL, FR, ES etc all went with you on your “right of passage” sail throughs, against the chinese.

They’re all marque destinations for Chinese exports. Why on earth would China prevent them from sailing in to pick up merch? Sail Through isn’t a consequence of NATO, its a consequence of a multi-trillion dollar trade network.

Guess which countries also put sanctions on china? Your NATO partners.

The sanctions are a joke. Russian gas and Chinese tech have been flooding markets in gray markets across the South Pacific and the Middle East. Germans are buying gas through Turkyie at a middleman’s markup. Indonesia and Malyasia are restamping Chinese manufactured goods and passing them under the radar of sanctions officials. And NATO leadership knows it. They turn a blind eye, because the Business First ideology of capitalism means fattening the wallets of a few industry insiders is far more important than imposing any kind of uniform foreign policy.

Guess where the machines most chips are made with… Are being made? (NL says hi.)

You’ve missed so many steps in the supply chain, its difficult to know where to start. But if you want to believe the Netherlands is the heart of the global electronics manufacturing industry, that’s none of my business.

If this continues for a few more months it will mean the end of US hegemony.

The US has been sloughing off its hegemony since Bush invaded Iraq. But the game was already functionally over when the UK was forced out of Hong Kong. The Americans have been scrambling to keep control of the Philippines, as liberals panic at even Chinese-adjacent businesses in Singapore gaining global popular appeal. They’ve lost control of the Suez thanks to their proxy war defeats in Yemen of all places. And South Africa has been outside the western sphere of influence since Apartheid ended.

What’s scarier than any Trump Tariff is the possibility of the Americans losing control of the Panama Canal, in their own backyard.

In the end we will make peace with Russia, simply because we must.

We’ll see. Trump’s itchy trigger finger blew up the peace deal with Iran and cost the US any kind of stability across the Persian Gulf. We’re alienated from the Turks, we’re pissing of Ukraine, and we’ve lost control of a large swath of Central Africa, all because American ethno-nationalism remains the lodestone of our foreign policy. I don’t know if we can bring ourselves to make peace with anyone. All we can do is walk away from our crumbling edifice of empire.