China’s foreign trade hit a record high in total value in 2024 as the world’s second-largest economy further consolidated its top position globally in goods trade.
The nation’s total goods imports and exports in yuan reached 43.85 trillion yuan (about 6.1 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, up 5 percent year on year, according to data released Monday by the General Administration of Customs (GAC).
Exports grew 7.1 percent year on year to 25.45 trillion yuan last year, while imports expanded 2.3 percent from one year earlier to 18.39 trillion yuan, the data showed.
I have my doubts.
We looked at the situation just under a year ago, and there hasn’t been any shortage of “China is doomed” videos (many from China Observer) depicting the effects of of deep recessions in many of China’s export sectors since then. Video after video shows closed factories, shuttered storefronts, and people complaining about a lack of jobs.
This one, from a year ago, talks about a drastic decline in Chinese exports:
Here’s a video on how Microsoft is just the latest western company to pull out of China entirely:
Or this video from early December, showing how supply chain companies in Guangzhou are failing from lack of business and vast rows of shops are now closed:
Nor have things improved this year. This video, from two months ago, of a businessman complaining that no one is buying industrial machinery because exports are way down:
Or this video of Shanghai from five days ago, talking about a 90% decline in foreign investment in China and how lots of shops in Shanghai are closing down.
Or another video from five days ago, of Yiwu International Trade City already reeling from Trump’s sanctions:
Somebody, somewhere is lying about the strength of China’s economy and the health of their export sector. Remember, there were already plenty signs of a slowing economy in China before Trump took office. Is China Observer overselling economic difficulties in China? Probably some. Gloom and doom is their stock in trade. You never get any “Everything in China is honky dory!” videos from them (with good reason). But I don’t think they’re making things up from whole cloth.
Everyone know China’s communist rulers manipulate economic figures to their advantage. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that they’re falsifying their export statistics to make things look better than they are. I rather strongly suspect that their hand in the trade war poker game they’re having with Trump is much weaker than they let on.
Well, it looks like the Austin City Council is about to use a budget deficit as an excuse to cut APD’s budget (as well as those of the EMS and Fire Department) again.
CRITICAL
APD, AFD, and EMS is loosing funding. The city will not tell you this, the mainstream media will. It report it.
This coming Tuesday EMS will be shutting down ambulances to keep from calling in medics for overtime.
APD, AFD, and EMS is loosing funding. The city will not tell you this, the mainstream media will. It report it.
This coming Tuesday EMS will be shutting down ambulances to keep from calling in medics for overtime.
How many ambulances will be placed out of servuce? They will make that determination by past call volume. This is the result of a 3 million dollar budget deficit and the city demanding a budget cut from every department. This will cut about 2.1 million from ems and 911.
We already have enough problems with time to answer 911 calls and time to get help to people
EMS will also be pulling administrative staff and putting them in single responder vehicles. These are squads that will dispatch the the critical calls. They can not transport.
They are doing this just to make their response times seem faster and to stop the clock so to speak.
IT DOSENT STOP THERE!
AFD is losing $7 million from their budget and APD will loose somewhere around $4.1 million.
Defeunded APD again.
So police, fire and EMS, the three things the overwhelming majority of citizens agree are essential government services, are getting cut. Why?
Because left wing Democrat Party activists can’t rake enough graft off those departments.
And what are the things the Austin City Council is (probably) declining to cut? Well, let’s look at some of the items Austin was bragging about for the 24-25 budget cycle:
$3.6 million for the “I Belong Austin” tenant stabilization and eviction assistance program.
$2.7 million in one-time funding, as well as $440,000 in ongoing funding, across several City departments to support Austin Civilian Conservation Corps programming.
$2.2 million in planned capital spending for projects that stabilize, preserve and enhance the African American Cultural Heritage District, Red River Cultural District, 5th Street Mexican Heritage Corridor, and East Cesar Chavez District.
$463,000, including additional personnel, to investigate complaints of criminal illegal dumping.
Yeah, what do you want to bet that 95% of that illegal dumping comes from the drug-addicted transients the Austin City Council seems to love so much?
Six staff positions and funding to open and operate the new Colony Park District pool, the rebuilt Givens pool, and the expanded Mexican American Cultural Center.
Nearly $200,000 to implement a new website tool for accurate, culturally competent translation in many languages on the City of Austin website.
Did Google translate cease to exist?
Homelessness response and prevention
All of these should be cut before APD. Indeed, some are things city government shouldn’t be undertaking at all, and some just seem to be designed to provide graft to the homeless industrial complex.
So instead of cutting their precious graft, Austin City Council is, once again, defunding Austin police.
Brandon Herrara has a roundup of exciting changes sweeping the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, AKA ATF, AKA BATFE:
“Today we’re talking about some major shakeups that are happening at the ATF right now.”
“A lot of shit’s on the chopping block right now, and heads are rolling at the ATF.”
“The ATF under Kash Patel [Amusingly, YouTube autotranscript renders his name as “Cash Pat Mattel.” -LP] has just reversed a huge pain in the ass in the gun industry and the gun community. He’s doing great things. I hope he sticks around. We’ll get to that.”
“The zero tolerance policy is one of the most egregious ways that the Biden administration weaponized the ATF.”
“They realized they couldn’t go after the individual right to keep and bear arms (I know, crazy. It’s almost like it’s in the fucking constitution). They would go after the people who were selling and manufacturing the guns, which is where they started weaponizing audits on mom and pop FFLs.”
“The ATF had a history of doing audits on FFLs, where basically they’ll they’ll come in they’ll make sure that you’ve got all the guns on the books that you’re supposed to have. And basically, they’re just making sure that you’re not hawking guns out the back of your gun store to the fucking cartel, because only the ATF can do that.”
“But instead of using these audits to actually catch people who are committing real crimes and selling to people they’re legally not supposed to, they started going after every little minor clerical error they possibly could. People who weren’t dotting their “i”s, crossing their “T”s. Maybe you use the acronym for the state that you live in instead of the full name of the state written out. Any little thing to say that paperwork wasn’t filled out correctly, so that they could revoke your FFL.”
“So instead of going after people who were actually committing real crimes and selling to people that they weren’t supposed to, they were going after every little clerical error that they could to shut down local gun stores. Mom and pop places. Anybody who basically couldn’t afford to fight the federal government in court.”
“In the first few months, when the Biden administration rolled this out: FFL revocations, people losing their business, losing their livelihood; FFL revocation was up over 500%. They couldn’t ban the guns, so they got fucking shady about it.”
His congressional testimony covering the same ground snipped.
“But now if you have an FFL, you can breathe a small sigh of relief, because the zero tolerance policy has now been removed, which is huge.”
“Local small businesses no longer have to live in fear of the big green weenie of the federal government casting a mushroom-shaped shadow over their entire existence.”
“I am super stoked that under Kash Patel’s leadership the ATF has been making moves to reverse stupid rules.”
“I am very excited to see under Kash Patel’s leadership where the ATF is going to go on, and he’s gone. Yeah, Kash got fired.”
“Kash Patel was wearing two hats, where he was the acting director of the ATF while also being the confirmed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.”
“We do have a new acting director. Ladies and gentlemen welcome stage left, Dan Driscoll the new acting director of the ATF. Once again we have another guy who is wearing two hats. He is the current US Secretary of the Army, as well as the newly appointed acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives.”
“He was a combat veteran in Iraq, but aside from that, he was also a Republican candidate for congress, specifically in North Carolina’s 11th district, where he lost in the Republican primary. I get it. Aside from that his actual stance on gun policy and things like that, I really wish I had better news. I don’t know.”
“If you have some concerns, don’t worry, because I’m about to give you some weapons-grade copium.”
“I have reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland that the ATF is still gaining momentum in the right direction, because just recently the deputy director of the ATF has been fired. Shit-canned. Excommunicado. Fuckaty bye-bye. Marvin Richardson was the deputy director of the ATF, but he was also a long-standing ATF employee, having a career spanning 35 years. He was the deputy director since 2019, and was also the acting director from 2021 to 2022. Let’s go back to that 35 years at the ATF bit. Do the mental math. What happened in the last 35 years at the ATF? Yeah, Old Marvin was awarded medals for his involvement at the siege of Waco. Fucker had the burning women and children alive merit badge.”
“On top of that, he was largely toted as the father of the arm brace restrictions, as well as a whole host of other unconstitutional shit that the ATF has been pushing for the last 10 years or so, and he is fucking out of there. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Fuck you. I hope you have a hangail every day for the rest of your life.”
“This guy had bragged in the past about how much they’ve been able to do at the ATF to circumvent having to get laws passed by Congress.”
“He’s talking about how many extra rules they’re able to put on law-abiding citizens without using the legal system, circumventing Schoolhouse Rock and just putting in whatever he thinks should be the rules, not what the Constitution says has to happen. Fucker bragged about it.”
“Rest in piss, you won’t be missed.”
“Some big moves happening in the ATF. I don’t know how this is all going to shake out, but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far.”
“So the deputy director of the ATF got fired. That’s fucking great. We’ve now been informed on who the new one will be. Introducing your new deputy director Robert Robert Cekada.”
“Now I have been pretty optimistic of all of the changes over at the ATF since Trump took office. This is the first one, I’ll be honest with you, throws up a little bit of a yellow flag for me. I do not know much about this man’s views on the Second Amendment. However, I do know he’s a career ATF guy. Nothing in his resume that I’ve been able to find is particularly egregious, but being a lifelong Fed naturally makes the hair in the back of my neck stand up.”
“Is there anything obvious that means he will be bad. No. Am I worried he might be a speed bump to the dismantlement of the bullshit regulations of the ATF in the future? Absolutely. Only time will tell.”
“A lot of shit’s happening very quickly.”
So there’s your ATF update. Mostly good news, mostly things moving in the right direction.
It’s great to have a President keeping his campaign promises…
Democrats still want to trans your kids, censorship shellgames squashed, Google is declared a monopoly, socialists behave badly, more illegal alien depravity, some 2026 contenders jump in, pie-in-the-sky plans for high speed rail in Texas bite the dust, more Cybertruck drag-racing, and a Very Good Boy indeed.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Yes, Democrats are still all in on transing your kids. “Dad shares horrifying story of his daughter being groomed and transitioned behind his back at school.”
Just yesterday, a dad named Dustin Gonzales in the Jeffco Public School District of Colorado spoke at a school board meeting and shared a heartbreaking story that’s now all too familiar: his daughter was groomed by teachers and gender-transitioned behind his back.
Dad claims his daughter changed her gender identity secretly with a school therapist, who kept him in the dark about it.
The school didn’t ask me or inform me, they replaced me. By the time I found out, I was already labeled ‘the problem.’ My objections weren’t treated as concerns, they were treated as opposition. my voice was dismissed as ‘hateful,’ my presence undermined.
The father claims the school then got the therapist and an investigator involved, to separate the girl from her dad.
I’m here to make sure what happened to me, to my family, never happens to another parent in this district.
The father is now at risk of losing his daughter as a result of a new Colorado bill that would take kids away from parents who aren’t “affirming.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has just killed the Biden administration’s last-ditch effort to shelter the government’s Ministry of Truth, the Global Engagement Center (GEC).
In a new op-ed published by The Federalist (a target of the GEC along with yours truly), Rubio writes;
GEC was supposed to be dead already. But, as many have learned the hard way, in Washington, D.C., few things ever truly die. When Republicans in Congress sunset GEC’s funding at the end of last year, the Biden State Department simply slapped on a new name. The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office, with the same roster of employees. With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration.
Today, we are putting that to an end. Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return.
Alphabet’s Google illegally dominates two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for U.S. antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its ad products.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers.
The decision clears the way for another hearing to determine what Google must do to restore competition in those markets, such as sell off parts of its business at another trial that has yet to be scheduled. It is the second court ruling that Google holds an illegal monopoly, following a similar judgment in a case over online search.
Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their digital ad inventory. Along with ad exchanges, the technology lets news publishers and other online content providers make money by selling ads. Those funds are the “lifeblood” of the internet, Brinkema wrote.
“In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web,” Brinkema wrote.
However, antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi called the ruling “a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square.”
“A 13-year-old boy in California was allegedly sexually abused and murdered by his soccer coach and, as it turns out, the soccer coach was an illegal alien. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer with the Los Angeles County jail for Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino, a 43-year-old Salvadoran citizen living unlawfully in the United States, the agency confirmed Wednesday to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Garcia-Aquino is accused of killing 13-year-old Oscar ‘Omar’ Hernandez, a San Fernando Valley, California, resident found dead earlier in April.”
Evidently the cartels have expensive taste. “A federal grand jury has charged two men who allegedly tried to smuggle five high-caliber sniper rifles to Mexico last month, and prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of the firearms, five .50-caliber Barrett long guns and four magazines for .50-caliber bullets. Wednesday’s charges of unlawful smuggling of goods from the United States stem from the March 12 arrest of Oscar Sanchez Gonzalez and Arturo Martinez Aguilar as they allegedly attempted to drive to Mexico over the Calexico West port of entry.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Smith says people asking him to run is an indictment of the Democratic Party.
“I have no choice, because I’ve had elected officials, and I’m not going to give their names, elected officials coming up to me. I’ve had folks who are pundits come up to me. I’ve had folks that got a lot of money, billionaires and others that have talked to me about exploratory committees and things of that nature. I’m not a politician. I’ve never had a desire to be a politician,” Smith told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Smith reiterated that because of the number of people asking him to consider a run, he has to leave the door open.
Smith usually strikes me as a moderately annoying “hot take” artist, but he has been condemning the Democrat Party about their lurch to the right on several issues, and has discussed that with the likes of Dave Rubin. Smith has no business running for President, but would be immediately be a more sane alternative than anyone else named as a Democratic front-runner.
When police raided a factory in Georgia, they found dozens of Chinese nationals being kept in near slave-like conditions, and authorities say they were pressed into service by a forced labor trafficking ring.
Last month, agents from several agencies raided Wellmade Industries in Cartersville, Georgia, 40 miles north of Atlanta, and what they found shocked them, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Federal officials said that around 60 Chinese nationals were being held in tiny rooms and forced to work long hours in the flooring manufacturing plant. The exploited workers at Wellmade are just a few of the many exploited workers the Trump administration has rooted out.
ICE Homeland Security Investigations Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Steven N. Schrank said the conditions these workers were living in was “horrific,” and noted that he and his fellow agents were investigating eight other locations for similar offenses.
Three Wellmade Industries officers were arrested, including company owner, Zhu Chen, his nephew, Jiayi Chen, and company associate Jian Jun Lu.
At the bond hearings for the suspects, assistant district attorney Austin Waldo claimed that officials of the company immediately confiscated the workers’ travel and ID documents as soon as they arrived at the plant to make it harder for them to leave.
Well, this would have made my Nvidia roundup had it dropped a day earlier, and not in a good way. “Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang boarded a private jet to Beijing shortly after the U.S. Commerce Department announced new export licensing requirements for the company’s H20 AI chips for the Chinese market. Once there, Huang met with the head of a Chinese state-backed trade body, where he reaffirmed Nvidia’s commitment to the Chinese market despite a deepening trade war.”
Baltimore student: “Hey, doesn’t Maryland law require a United States flag in every classroom?” Baltimore County Board of Education: “Hey, you’re suspended and we’re calling the cops on you.”
The East Plano Islamic Center’s planned development faces continued scrutiny from Texas officials.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate EPIC for potential religious discrimination.
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, Cornyn expressed concern that a “master-planned ‘community of thousands of Muslims’” could violate the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by discriminating against Christians, Jews, and other non-muslim minorities.
“Religious discrimination, whether explicit or implicit, is unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” wrote Cornyn. “Religious freedom is a cornerstone of our nation’s values, and I am concerned this community potentially undermines this vital protection.”
Sanity in the UK: “U.K. Supreme Court Rules Males Don’t Qualify as Women Under Anti-Discrimination Law, in Landmark Ruling.”
The United Kingdom’s supreme court ruled Wednesday that males who identify as women do not fall qualify as women under anti-discrimination law, a monumental decision that will have major consequences for British law.
The high court defined “woman” based on sex rather than gender identity, keeping it within the bounds of scientific reality rather than giving into the demands of left-wing activists. The ruling specifically addressed the question of whether transgender-identifying males who obtain a gender recognition certificate — a legal document acknowledging them as women — enjoy the same protections extended to females under Britain’s 2010 Equality Act, an anti-discrimination law that covers nine protected characteristics and applies to various sectors of British life.
“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex,” said Lord Patrick Hodge, deputy president of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, in announcing the ruling.
Bad news: A house exploded two miles from me. I actually heard it, and thought that one of my dogs had run into a wall or something. Worse news: The house belonged to Sara Felix, who I know from the Austin science fiction community, and her husband was in the house at the time. The silver linings are that he’s now out of surgery, though badly burned, and that the family hadn’t actually moved into the house, and were still living in their old house in the same general area.
When your band name stops being ironic: “New Pornographers Drummer Joe Seiders Arrested for Possession of Child Porn.” I have a few of their albums I bought 15 years ago. I considered embedding “Breakin’ the Law” for ironic effect, but it’s a lousy song. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
A foster mom in Missouri is facing multiple charges of abuse and is accused of trading a teenage girl she was guardian of for a pet monkey, authorities said.
Brenda Ruth Deutsch, 70, of Lincoln County, was charged with two counts of abuse or neglect of a child and one count of endangering the welfare of a child, according to Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood. She was taken into custody last weekend.
Deutsch has fostered more than 200 children for about 15 to 20 years, Wood told NBC News.
While it’s tempting to chalk this up to more “annals in human depravity,” given the age of the alleged perp, I have to wonder if some mental illness/senility/Alzheimers was involved.
Anderson Ronaldo Reyes Giron — a member of the “Most Wanted” list — was taken into custody on April 2 by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas Highway Patrol for charges related to deadly conduct from shooting a firearm in Travis County, as well as theft of property in Williamson County. He’s originally from Honduras, from which he came illegally, and was arrested by the Austin Police Department in August 2024 for the afore-listed charges before being let out on bail.
Thanks again, Austin.
“Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and the Texas National Guard continue to work together with the Trump Administration to secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal activity between ports of entry,” a press release from Abbott’s office stated upon announcement of Giron’s arrest.
Giron has been wanted since February 2025 when Travis County issued a warrant for his arrest following the firearm violation, and then when Williamson County similarly filed a warrant after his theft incident.
Former Texas Congresswoman Mayra Flores has officially thrown her hat into the ring to challenge the indicted Congressman Henry Cuellar (R-TX-28) and his 20-year-plus tenure representing Texas’ 28th Congressional District in Washington, D.C.
“I am deeply honored to announce my candidacy for Congress—a chance to serve the people and uphold the values that make our nation great,” Flores posted on X upon announcement of her challenge to Cuellar’s seat.
The first female Mexican-born former congresswoman, Flores comes to the drawing board with experience in Texas elections — first scoring a seat in a special election to represent the Lone Star State on the federal stage after Democratic Congressman Filemon Vela resigned in 2022, allowing her to flip the historically Democratic 34th Congressional District. Flores flipped parties from Democratic to Republican in the early 2000s, primarily citing pro-life motivations.
She also ran against Rep. Vicente Gonzalez twice (D-TX-34), losing first in the 2022 general election and second in 2024, although she notched her numbers up significantly the second time around — losing the election by a 2 percent margin.
Cuellar maintained his seat during the 2024 general election against Republican candidate Jay Furman with nearly 52 percent of the vote — a race rumored as potentially dangerous for Cuellar due to his indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that year after an FBI investigation in 2022 for alleged bribery and money laundering in coordination with his wife, Imelda Cuellar, and the country of Azerbaijan.
TX-28 favors Democrats with a rating of D-51% per The Texan’s Texas Partisan Index, although President Donald Trump made history in the district during the November election — winning Webb County’s presidential vote, the first Republican president to claim victory there in a century.
Until Flores’ announcement, the only other notable contender for Cuellar’s seat was Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, who flipped parties in December 2024.
For more on Cueller’s indictment, see here and here.
“With Attorney General Ken Paxton officially running for U.S. Senate against Sen. John Cornyn, the race to replace him is heating up. After former U.S. Attorney John Bash became the first to enter the race, State Sen. Mayes Middleton has now launched his own campaign for Texas attorney general, pitching himself as a conservative fighter ready to take the reins.” I regularly get press releases from Middleton’s office, and he seems a pretty solid conservative.
The U.S. Department of Transportation officially terminated a $63.9 million federal grant intended for the planning and development of a high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the move will save taxpayers millions while allowing Amtrak to focus on improving existing operations.
Personally, I’d kill Amtrack and hand the assets to the states to subsidize if they felt like.
Originally pitched as a private venture, the Texas Central Railway project aimed to connect two of Texas’ largest cities with a 205-mph bullet train, promising a 90-minute travel time.
The project has faced strong opposition from landowners and lawmakers since it was proposed in 2009.
As cost estimates soared from $12 billion to over $40 billion, the project became increasingly reliant on federal funding.
Duffy was blunt in his assessment: “Underwriting this project is a waste of taxpayer funds and a distraction from Amtrak’s core mission of improving its existing subpar services.”
“If the private sector believes this project is feasible, they should carry the pre-construction work forward, rather than relying on Amtrak and the American taxpayer to bail them out,” Duffy added.
State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) posted on X, “Thank you to President Trump and Secretary Duffy for standing up for taxpayers and terminating the $63.9 million grant to Amtrak for the proposed high-speed rail project between Houston and Dallas.”
Even the $10 billion version was a boondoggle that wouldn’t have made money and required taxpayer subsidies to stay afloat, and more likely never would have been completed anyway. High speed passenger rail works in Japan because they already had high urban density and an existing rail system and culture to support it. Texas has none of those things, and even if it was built it would never be profitable here (or just about anywhere else).
And just to drive the point home: The highest density high speed rail in Japan seats 1,634 passengers. Assume passengers pay $100 a ticket each way, the train is entirely full, and the Texas high speed rail train runs six times a day (all optimistic and unlikely assumptions), 365 days a year, and you get $357,846,000 a year in gross revenue, which means, even without the including the cost to run the train, it would take just under 112 years to make back the initial investment.
Despite his new position as a vice chair of the DNC, gun control weasel David Hogg wants to primary old Democrats. In this particular task I wish the little weasel the best of luck.
This is your mayor on social justice. “The mayor of South Fulton faces an eviction action at an Atlanta apartment complex, Fulton County court documents show, adding another development to what’s been a turbulent year so far for the city leader. Mayor Khalid Kamau, who has gone recently by Mayor Kobi, has had eviction proceedings initiated against him in Fulton County Magistrate Court by an apartment complex at 6200 Bakers Ferry Rd. Court documents show the complex filed to initiate eviction after alleging Kamau failed to pay rent in March.”
Snip.
Documents show the amount of past due rent was listed at $1,663.77. A late fee of $100, utilities of $39.77 and “other fees” amounting to $175 are also being sought.
Kamau has been at odds in recent weeks and under scrutiny from the South Fulton City Council over his spending and alleged “abuse” of the position.
He in turn has defended himself from what he has termed the City Council’s “overreach” after his access to city buildings was revoked and his budget frozen in February, and said he has faced resistance from the council throughout his tenure.
The move by the city council came after reports on the mayor’s trips — which spanned four continents in four months — as well as updates at City Hall that included a film studio and refurbished conference/pool table room. The City Council voted to redistribute several pieces of new electronic equipment to the city IT department and send back the film studio.
I know you’ll be shocked, shocked to learn that Kamau is a Democratic Socialist…
Your feel-good dog story of the week: A dog named Buford kept a two-year old boy safe after the latter wandered seven miles from his home. Another article states that Buford is an Anatolian Pyrenees.
I’m still between jobs. Feel free to hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.
After seeing numerous attempts die at the hands of the Straus/Bonnin/Phelan/Burrows cabal over the years, the Texas House has finally passed school choice.
In a historic move, the Texas House gave initial approval today to Senate Bill 2, a school choice proposal backed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The vote marks the first time a school choice bill has cleared the Texas House—a major shift from just last session when a similar proposal was voted down. The change comes after Abbott made the issue a defining battle in last year’s Republican primaries, endorsing challengers against GOP incumbents who had opposed school choice. Many of those incumbents were ousted, clearing the way for today’s vote.
Ahead of the floor debate, House Republicans met privately and heard from both Gov. Abbott and President Donald Trump, who called into the meeting and urged them to stay united.
“I just think it’s a really forward-thinking vote,” said Trump on the call. “There’s nothing complex about it. You’re not going to get hurt by it. It’s actually almost the opposite. People really want it.”
Snip.
The bill ultimately passed 86-63, with Phelan and State Rep. Gary Vandeaver (New Boston) being the only GOP members to vote against the measure.
Phelan still insists on being the turd in the punch bowl.
The bill now returns to the Senate, which can either concur with the House’s amendments or send the legislation to a conference committee.
Finally getting school choice passed is a direct result of slaughtering so many Dade Phelan cronies in the 2024 Republican primary (and runoff), the success of such efforts greatly aided by Abbott, Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton all campaiging to defeat anti-school choice (and pro-Paxton impeachment) reps.
It was a long time coming, but Texas voters finally got Republican representatives to vote like Republicans.
On Monday, Nvidia announced that it has started producing its Blackwell AI GPUs at TSMC’s plant in Phoenix, Arizona, while companies within the state package and test them.
TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is the world’s biggest chipmaker and announced a $100 billion investment in US chipmaking last month. It began producing chips using the 4nm process at its Arizona factory in January and has plans to make chips with the more efficient 2nm technology by the end of the decade.
Nvidia doesn’t say which Blackwell chips it has started producing at TSMC’s plant and whether it includes the latest Blackwell Ultra GB300 chip it revealed earlier this year. Blackwell chips use TSMC’s custom 4NP process, according to Nvidia’s website.
The world’s leading manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPU) and advanced chips has announced it will build new plants in Texas, amid global economic shake-ups.
Note: Plants, not fabs.
NVIDIA has announced partnerships with Foxconn and Wistron to build “supercomputer manufacturing plants” in both Dallas and Houston. These global companies are “expanding their global footprint” and their international presence for the purposes of “hardening supply chain resilience” in their partnership with NVIDIA.
“Manufacturing NVIDIA AI chips and supercomputers for American AI factories is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and drive trillions of dollars in economic security over the coming decades,” the announcement states.
The mass production of chips at these plants is expected to begin in the next 12 to 15 months. The $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure within the U.S. does not make mention of direct government subsidies or public financial incentives related to NVIDIA’s recent announcement.
I’m quoting that summary because it demonstrates that it’s easy to misunderstand things about the industry if you aren’t familiar with it. The way it’s worded make you think the “plants” are the Texas facilities they’re going to be building in 12-15 months, but the actual Nvidia press release makes clear than TSMC is doing the fabbing:
NVIDIA is working with its manufacturing partners to design and build factories that, for the first time, will produce NVIDIA AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S.
Together with leading manufacturing partners, the company has commissioned more than a million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test NVIDIA Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.
Note the more precise wording.
NVIDIA Blackwell chips have started production at TSMC’s chip plants in Phoenix, Arizona. NVIDIA is building supercomputer manufacturing plants in Texas, with Foxconn in Houston and with Wistron in Dallas. Mass production at both plants is expected to ramp up in the next 12-15 months.
The AI chip and supercomputer supply chain is complex and demands the most advanced manufacturing, packaging, assembly and test technologies. NVIDIA is partnering with Amkor and SPIL for packaging and testing operations in Arizona.
Within the next four years, NVIDIA plans to produce up to half a trillion dollars of AI infrastructure in the United States through partnerships with TSMC, Foxconn, Wistron, Amkor and SPIL. These world-leading companies are deepening their partnership with NVIDIA, growing their businesses while expanding their global footprint and hardening supply chain resilience.
Now, if that half trillion does get spent (no guarantee, since press releases aren’t legally binding; try to contain your shock), that would certainly buy a lot of cutting edge fabs. Nvidia is one of the few companies that has the financial resources to build their own cutting edge fabs (Apple is another), but I get the impression that they’re going to partner with TSMC. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they follow the Apple model, where they tell a company “Here’s X amount of money, go build a fab. You’ll give us the first 24 months of production at x-cost per chip, and after that the fab is yours free and clear.” This is one of the tools Apple used to become the dominate tech buyer, and what some call a monopsony.
As far as building their own supercomputers, that’s great for Texas and not so great for Hewett Packard Enterprise, which finished their acquisition of Cray in 2021.
The Trump administration has effectively barred Nvidia (NVDA) from selling its custom artificial intelligence processors to customers in China. The move will force the AI chip leader to write off up to $5.5 billion in inventory and purchase commitments in its fiscal first quarter. Nvidia stock fell Wednesday.
Late Tuesday, Nvidia disclosed in a regulatory filing that the U.S. government is now requiring it to get an export license to sell its H20 processor in China and other restricted countries. Nvidia said it was informed of the move on April 9, the same day NPR erroneously reported that the White House would not seek further restrictions on the chips Nvidia can sell in China.
Your tax dollars at work.
Nvidia said the U.S. government told it on Monday that the license requirement will be in effect for the indefinite future.
Wall Street analysts say Nvidia’s write-off indicates that the company believes it won’t be granted licenses to sell H20 processors in China.
The H20 was designed for the Chinese market to comply with Biden-era restrictions on selling advanced processors there. The H20 is less capable than the Blackwell series chips Nvidia sells in the U.S. and other markets.
“With Nvidia writing off associated H20 inventory, it appears the company is taking the position that it will not be granted licenses to ship product to Chinese customers (with no other geography likely to take the governed silicon given the availability of more powerful standard Hopper or Blackwell SKUs),” Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson said in a client note Wednesday. SKU stands for “stock keeping unit,” a unique identifier for products used in inventory management.
China represents a little over 10% of Nvidia’s revenue.
The Trump Administrations believes (probably correctly) that AI is a key strategic industry and that we don’t need to give China any help there.
A half trillion dollars is a lot of cheddar, even for the (as of today) company with the third largest market cap in the world…
Russia released a video showing what are probably intelligence officers overseeing FPV drone operations from what is obviously a high rise in Moscow.
This was hardly a shining moment in operational security, as the Internet quickly geolocated the office to the precise tower being used.
But wait! It gets better! It turns out that drone operations are being run from atop a school for psychics.
So now, not only can Ukraine hit the Russian drone intelligence office with their own drones the next time they hit Moscow, but ironically, the Russians will…
The Trump administration released new guidance late Friday night on its tariff on China, exempting electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops.
The guidance, posted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees collecting taxes on imports, could relieve some anxiety among consumers and tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, which manufacture many of their products in China, The Wall Street Journal reported. Around 20 electronic products — which also include memory cards and machines used to make flatscreens and tablets — will now be exempted from Trump’s massive “reciprocal” tariff on China. The exemption comes after the president increased the tariff on China in recent days in response to China’s retaliatory tariff on U.S. goods.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security adviser, wrote on X, “These products are subject to the tariff under the original IEEPA [International Emergency Economic Powers Act] on China of 20 percent.” The IEEPA tariff was the first one Trump imposed on China after taking office in January. The tariff was levied on China, along with Canada and Mexico, in an attempt to “hold” the countries “to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.”
The Trump administration has suggested that the tariff on China will encourage companies, including Big Tech companies, to manufacture their products on U.S. soil, arguing that the move would be better for the economy and national security.
“President Trump has made it clear America cannot rely on China to manufacture critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones, and laptops,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday, according to the Wall Street Journal. She added, “Companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible.”
Next came word that the pause in semiconductor tariffs will only be a month or two.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that the administration’s decision Friday night to exempt a range of electronic devices from tariffs implemented earlier this month was only a temporary reprieve, with the secretary announcing that those items would be subject to “semiconductor tariffs” that will likely come in “a month or two.”
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels* — we need to have these things made in America. We can’t be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us,” Lutnick told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
He continued, “So what [President Donald Trump’s] doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon.”
With all respect to President Trump and Secretary Lutnick, you can’t set up a new fab to manufacture semiconductors in America in two months. In fact, you’d be really hard-pressed to do it in two years. It usually takes a fab about three years to get up and running. Bosch took three years to get their 65nm fab in Dresden up and running, and Samsung broke ground on their Taylor fab in 2022 and it hasn’t entered production yet.
Setting up a semiconductor fabrication plant is much more difficult and time-consuming than setting up just about any other factory.
As I’ve mentioned before, you can’t just take an existing building and turn it into a fab, it has to be specially built from the ground up with exacting standards for cleanroom air filtering, concrete slab level uniformity, etc. You need extremely exacting air purity handling equipment, as well as a system for running de-ionized water throughout the plant. Then you need to purchase, install, bring up and qualify all the hundreds of pieces of semiconductor equipment necessary to run a modern fab. And 2-3 years is probably the lead time to get an ASML EUV stepper, if you’re going to be building a cutting edge fab. (If the goal is to reshore the semiconductor industry, then you probably need to build a lot of less-demanding fabs as well.)
I’m in favor of the Trump Administration using tariffs to bring other countries to the negotiating table to eliminate their tariffs on American goods, and for kicking China out of the global free trade order for repeatedly breaking the rules and just being general asshats. But a two-month difference in tariff implementation dates isn’t going to change the timeline for opening new semiconductor fabrication plants in America.
*Flat panel display manufacturing uses some of the same semiconductor processes to make displays. The technology is less demanding overall, but the substrate sizes are considerably larger. Because the feature size is less demanding, I imagine bring-up and qualification is somewhat quicker, but I’ve never worked on a flat panel display machine, so I have no idea how the lead time varies to obtain and install that equipment.
Ever since Kid Rock announced that he had invited Bill Maher to have dinner with President Trump, I was interested in hearing his perspective on the event, and now we have it.
“12 days ago, I had dinner with President Trump, a dinner that was set up by my friend Kid Rock, because we share a belief that there’s got to be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 miles away.”
“And let me first say that, to all the people whom treated this like it was some kind of summit meeting, you’re ridiculous! Like I was going to sign a treaty or something. I have no power. I’m a comedian.” I think Maher is underselling the importance here. Maher was one of the earliest sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Like many on the left a decade ago (and, indeed, up through now), Maher seemed to loath Trump on an almost instinctual or class level. Indeed, at lot on the left still exhibit this all-consuming loathing. Even before 2020, Maher was willing to ding the excesses of social justice, but the Flu Manchu lockdowns seemed to accelerate his red pilling, to the point that he now regularly slams the left for even more extreme social justice madness and ever-more pro-censorship policies. Like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard endorsing Trump, Maher’s dinner invitation is provides a sort of psychic permission to those ever-dwindling numbers of “sane liberals” to abandon their own TDS blinders and take a long, critical look at what social justice-infected liberalism and the Democratic Party have become.
“So okay. So meet up in person. Maybe it’ll be different. Spoiler alert: It was.”
“Before I left for the capital, I had my staff collect and print out this list of almost 60 different insulting epithets that the president has said about me. Things like stupid, dummy, low-life, dummy, sleazebag, sick, sad, stone cold crazy, really a dumb guy, fired like a dog, his show is dead. I brought this to the White House because I wanted him to sign it. Which he did, with good humor.”
“And I know as I say that millions of liberal sphincters just tightened. ‘Oh my God, Bill, are you going to say something nice about him?’ What I’m going to do is report exactly what happened. You decide what you think about it. And if that’s not enough pure Trump hate for you, I don’t give a fuck.”
“So no, I didn’t go MAGA. And to the president’s credit there was no pressure too.”
“After we left the Oval Office, he showed me the little room off the office. You know the one where Clinton used to…OK, the blowjob room. Now it’s the merch room. And and he gave me a bunch of hats, but he didn’t ask me to take a picture in one, which I appreciated.”
“My friend said to me ‘What are you going to wear to the White House?’ I said ‘I don’t know, but I’m not going to dress like Zelensky.'”
“Just for starters, he laughs. I’d never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including at himself. And it’s not fake. Believe me as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it, and I thank you for them.”
“In the Oval Office, he was showing me the portraits of presidents, and he pointed to Reagan and said, in all seriousness, ‘You know, the best thing about him: His hair.’ I said ‘Well, there was also that whole bringing down communism thing,’ waiting for the button next to the Diet Coke button to get pushed and I go through the trap door. But no, he laughed. He got it.” It’s good to hear liberals praising Reagan for ending communism, since they never did it when he was alive.
“At at one point we were walking through his amazing tour of the whole house, and I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but it must have been something with the 2020 election, because I know he used the word ‘lost,’ and I distinctly remember saying, ‘Wow I never thought I’d hear you say that.’ He didn’t get mad. He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public.” Also, I think Trump himself knows how radically more impactful the Trump47 term has been than a second term would have been. (And the 2020 election was still stolen.)
“Look, I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian, it matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists, because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent at least on this night with this guy.” I suspect that much of what Maher hates (or hated) about Trump (racist, antisemitic, Russian stooge, etc.) were lies created by relentless media campaign of systemic preference falsification.
“Bob, Kid Rock, told me the night before he said ‘If you want to get a word in edgewise, you’re going to have to cut him off, he’ll just go on.’ Not at all. I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected. People who don’t look you in the eye. People who don’t really listen, because they just want to get to their next thing. People whose response to things you say just doesn’t track. None of that with him.”
“And he mostly steered the conversation to ‘What do you think about this?’ I know, your mind is blown. So is mine. There were so many moments when I hit him with a joke, or contradicted something, and no problem.” Why, it’s almost like he’s a master of persuasion and reading a room than the distorted caricature the MSM keeps feeding us.
Trump asked him about the Iran situation and Maher says he should have kept the Obama Iran deal. I disagree. He seems to be taking Iranian declarations at face value, which is always a mistake, and I have a feeling the real driving factor behind the Iran deal and its literal pallets of American cash were to line the pockets of Obama functionaries just as they were exiting the White House. (See also: All those USAID revelations.)
“I told him I thought parts of his plan for Gaza were wacky, but that I had supported him in the idea that Gaza could be Dubai instead of Hell.”
“I told him he was wrong when he tweeted the night before that I was critical of all things Trump. Not true. Check the tapes. Moving Israel’s embassy to Jerusalem: Loved it. The border did need to be controlled. I’m glad the cops are getting their morale back. DEI had gone too far. Biological men shouldn’t be playing women’s sports. Europe should pay for their defense. And, of course, it makes sense that Arab countries should take in Arab refugees.”
There’s a good bit on how he wishes Trump’s public persona could be like the Trump he met in private. But Trump’s rhetorical shit-talking is an integral part of his persuasion/negotiating style (not to mention his tit-for-tat), as well as the whole “seriously, not literally” thing, and he wouldn’t be nearly as effective a President without it.
“So MAGA fans, don’t worry: Your boy gave me nothing. Just hats. Hats and a very generous amount of time, and a willingness to listen and accept me as a possible friend even though I’m not MAGA, which was the point of the dinner.”
“My favorite part of the whole night was we were standing in the blowjob room. And he said ‘You know, I’ve heard from a lot of people who really like that we’re having this dinner. Not all, but a lot.’ And I said. ‘Same. A lot of people told me they loved it but not all.’ And we agreed: The people who don’t even want us to talk, we don’t like you. Don’t talk? As opposed to, what, writing the same editorial for the millionth time, and making 25 hour speeches into the wind? Really? That’s what liberals have? He takes the piss out of everybody else and we can hold ours?”
“OK, that’s my report. You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured. And why he isn’t that in other settings, I don’t know, and I can’t answer. And it’s not my place to answer. I’m just telling you what I saw. And I wasn’t high.”
I think Maher is doing his level best to report honestly and faithfully what happened when he met Trump.
Yes, screaming into the wind is all liberals have, because victimhood identity politics has taken over the Democrat Party. Because Trump is anathema to that, Trump Derangement Syndrome and virtue signaling have become so central to many liberal’s self worth that many would literally rather than die than give them up. (The same thing applies to admitting all the ways they were wrong, and their critics right, when it comes to Flu Manchu.) They have to continue believing the MSM-created caricature of Trump as the racist rapist buffoon because to stop doing so would mean admitting that they were wrong, that they’ve been living a lie for going on a decade, and that they are not, in fact, infinitely smarter and nicer than rednecks with MAGA stickers on their pickup trucks.
As mentioned in yesterday’s LinkSwarm, Trump has offered temporary tariff relief for everyone…except China. China got hit with even higher tariffs. Evidently the only “trade war” that is happening right now is with China…and China is losing.
Behind the global economic chaos provoked by president Trump’s tariff tsunami, there are growing indications of a strategic purpose. It is now conceivable that plunging into, and then retreating from, a generalised trade war was actually a deliberate means to a truly geostrategic end: to thwart China’s ambition to replace the US as the dominant world superpower.
While Trump’s public statements still chiefly concern the need to impose economic measures to correct decades of unfair foreign trade, senior US officials, including Pete Hegseth, defence secretary, and Scott Bessent, treasury secretary, are increasingly taking a more strategic geopolitical line.
In late January, Hegseth told the US armed forces that America would “work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by communist China”. In Panama, he said that Beijing was investing in the region for military and economic advantages. “War with China is certainly not inevitable … But together we must [deter] China’s threats in this hemisphere.”
Bessent has linked recent US tariff tactics with a shared geostrategic pushback against China, stating that “we can probably reach a deal with our allies, and then we can approach China as a group”.
In this light, the suspension of tariff combat for 90 days with most countries, while doubling down on the levies imposed on China, leaves Beijing isolated and in the firing line.
So far, after reciprocal gestures and vowing to “fight to the end”, Beijing has focused mainly on rallying anti-US sentiment across the globe. But India and Australia declined to join forces with China. ASEAN remains caught between opposing powers. The EU, in a quandary over Russia and Ukraine, likewise continues to hedge.
China has long sought to frame the West as a feeble, fragmented anachronism. Is it conceivable that, by unleashing economic fire and fury on friends and then provisionally reining it in, Trump might succeed, where Western multilateral diplomacy failed, in forcibly forging a credible consensus of opposition to the threat of global Chinese hegemony?
One assumes that Washington understands that it cannot prevail over China alone and a substantive US pivot to the Asia Pacific to press home a contest with China is starting to emerge. Trump has already reached out to Japan and South Korea, and US officials have tackled Vietnam. The Philippines, in striking distance of any hostilities over Taiwan, support the US and talk about preparing for war.
Taiwan, South Korea, India, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines: It’s like a greatest hits of nations that have bad blood with China. It’s no wonder they’ve chosen to trade with the world’s biggest economy rather than a historical enemy with designs of territorial expansion.
The developing world now faces a binary choice, and ruthlessly exploited debt and resource dependencies are not a firm basis for loyalty. This remains the case despite decades of nugatory US investment and engagement.
Under Trump’s tariffs, it is too soon to know how far China will be able to maintain the global supply lines on which its aspirations to become the world leader of innovative consumer production depend. Nor will it be easy to develop export markets big enough to compensate for declining sales to the West and its allies. Beijing’s military influence has begun to expand, but remains localised.
Most importantly, the question of Taiwan is now implicit in US language about deterring Chinese aggression. How does Trump’s assault on China’s geostrategic ambitions affect the threat of an imminent blockade, or even a full-scale invasion? The widespread view that an invasion isn’t inevitable now gives little real assurance.
Indeed, with the US taking an active stance, the status quo based on “ambiguity” is gone. Preparations to besiege Taiwan, let alone to invade, would be spotted in time for pre-emptive action.
104% tariffs on China are not enough, I’m advocating 400%. I do business in China, they don’t play by the rules. They’ve been in the WTO for decades. They have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades. They cheat, they steal, they steal IP, I can’t litigate in their courts. They take product, technology, they steal it, they manufacture it and sell it back here …
I want Xi on an airplane to Washington to level the playing field. This is not about tariffs anymore. Nobody has taken on China yet … As someone who actually does business there, I’ve had enough. I speak for millions of Americans who have IP that have been stolen by the Chinese … the government cheats and steals and FINALLY an administration … that puts up and says “enough!” …
Xi can only stay the supreme leader if people are employed … It’s time to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall NOW!
Or check out this video from Chris Chappell of China Uncensored.
“The CCP wants to defend global trade. But they’re the ones who destroyed it in the first place.”
“The Chinese Communist Party is freaking out about US tariffs. They’ve launched a full-on propaganda blitz, calling the tariffs abuse. And blackmail. And if anyone is an expert on abuse and blackmail, it’s the CCP. The CCP is also claiming to be the defender of global trade. Yes, China is going to safeguard multilateralism and the multilateral trading system. And they totally are! I’m not being sarcastic here. They really are.”
“The CCP is going to fight for the current global trading system. It’s not because they love international cooperation, which is just propaganda BS. It’s because the CCP has spent decades manipulating global trade to their advantage. So there’s no way they’re going to let all that lying and cheating go to waste. Plus, global trade is basically the only thing keeping China’s economy afloat.”
“China is an export economy. That means their economy relies on manufacturing stuff for the rest of the world to buy. Chinese manufacturing exploded after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Because China was able to make stuff more cheaply than other countries, consumers around the world benefited from lower prices on Chinese imports. But countries also lost tons of manufacturing jobs to China. The US alone lost more than two million jobs between 1999 and 2011 as a result of Chinese imports.”
“Besides manufacturing, the other big driver of China’s recent economic growth was real estate investment. Which became a problem after China’s real estate market started to collapse in 2020. So, the CCP decided to double down on manufacturing. They pumped billions of dollars into building more factories and exporting more goods to keep China’s economy from crashing. Which did work, but now China is making way more stuff than the rest of the world can buy. That’s called overcapacity.”
“China is making way more batteries, solar panels, and electric vehicles than the rest of the world wants. And because China has so much overcapacity, it also doesn’t import much from other countries. Which means China now has a trade surplus of almost a trillion dollars. That’s more than any country’s trade surplus in the past century, even adjusted for inflation. And China doesn’t show signs of stopping. Its export volume is growing three times as fast as global trade. That’s insane.”
“So what happens when China exports more and more stuff? They have to cut prices to be able to sell it all. Which means other countries lose even more jobs to China. Entire industries shut down. There are now certain products you can only buy from China. And when those are critical things like medical supplies, that gives China massive political and economic leverage on other countries. Remember when China stopped exporting medical goods during the early days of Covid? Yeah, that, but on an even bigger scale.”
“So that’s why the Chinese Communist Party is fighting to maintain the global trading system. They dominate it. And without it, China’s economy would fail. And their political control would crumble.”
“But how did China get here? It’s not just about cheap labor. The CCP has built an entire economic system to dominate global trade. Back when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, they promised to follow rules to ensure fair trade practices. To be fair to the CCP, something I never thought I’d say, they did make a bunch of economic reforms in order to get into the WTO. But after they joined, they violated the WTO rules repeatedly. They’ve been cheating the system for decades. And largely getting away with it. You see, the WTO rules are set up to prevent government intervention that would artificially distort global trade. But in a communist system, it’s government intervention all the way down.”
He brings up the example of honey producers getting subsidies at every step of production.
“This industrial policy is incredibly effective for the CCP. It’s how the CCP jump-started its entire electric vehicle industry. And they’re now flooding the rest of the world with cheap EVs.”
“Yes, these are all things that other countries do, too. But no one does them on the same scale as the CCP. In 2019, the CCP spent almost $250 billion dollars on its industrial policy. That’s massive.”
“But it’s not just industrial policy. There are also ways China’s entire financial system distorts global trade. Like everything in China, the financial system is political. All banks in China are either state-owned or state-linked, so the CCP controls how they give out loans. Which means state-owned banks give lots of loans to state-owned enterprises, and to other companies the CCP wants to support. And if those companies can’t pay them back? The banks just keep extending the loans. Because it’s better to take the financial risk than to risk getting on the CCP’s bad side.”
“The CCP’s industrial policy and financial system is destroying the global trading system. More countries have stopped relying on the World Trade Organization to stop the CCP’s unfair trade practices. Instead, they’re putting their own tariffs on Chinese goods. Like Europe’s tariffs on China’s EVs. Or President Trump’s tariffs on China’s…everything.”
Then there’s China’s use of transshipping to other countries to get around tariffs and sanctions. “The US has had anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese honey since 2001. So Chinese exporters have tried to get around it with what’s called ‘honey laundering.'”
“So that’s how the CCP’s industrial policy, their financial system, and their export system are all designed to manipulate global trade. They’ve kept China’s economy going, while hurting other countries. Both advanced economies and developing economies are dealing with the fallout. But it’s gotten so bad, that the rest of the world has no choice but to fight back. Not just the US, but also Europe. And as a result, we may be watching the collapse of global free trade. And it’s the CCP’s fault.”
Also, Trump has the upper hand in the fight because China’s factories had already been closing left and right before he took office, due to rising labor costs and dwindling foreign customers. Here’s a China Observer video from 11 months ago speculating that 90% of Chinese factories might have to close.
And that was before Trump’s tariffs.
Trump is going to win his trade showdown with Xi because American has a much stronger economy than China, one that supports vastly higher domestic consumption, and because he holds all the cards.
