The United States is the world’s largest exporter of armaments, accounting for more than 38 percent of international weapons sales between 2017 and 2021. The Pentagon is also the US military-industrial complex’s single largest buyer, with its $801 billion in military spending dwarfing that of all of Washington’s major adversaries combined.
PRC Could Starve US Military-Industrial Complex of Ability to Build Weapons With One Move: Report
Tag: Cobalt
Congress and Pentagon seek to shore up strategic mineral stockpile dominated by China
Congress has repeatedly authorized multimillion-dollar sell-offs of the U.S. strategic minerals stockpile over the past several decades, but Washington’s increased anxiety over Chinese domination of resources critical to the defense industrial base has prompted lawmakers to reverse course and shore up the reserve.
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The stockpile was valued at nearly $42 billion in today’s dollars at its peak during the beginning of the Cold War in 1952. That value has plummeted to $888 million as of last year following decades of congressionally authorized sell-offs to private sector customers. Lawmakers anticipate the stockpile will become insolvent by FY25.
“A lot of what happened is Congress just getting greedy and finding politically convenient ways to fund programs that they weren’t willing to raise revenue for,” said Moulton.
Congress and Pentagon seek to shore up strategic mineral stockpile dominated by China
Blame China for their greed?! 🙄
NATO is the means of continuing colonial aggressions against African countries.
NATO and Africa: A Relationship of Colonial Violence and Structural White Supremacy
NATO is the means of continuing colonial aggressions against African countries.
Considering the public media attention and concern about possible expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is worth reminding people about NATO’s bloody history in Africa. NATO was founded in 1949 after WWII at a time when African countries were still under the yoke of colonialism. In fact most of the original founders of NATO had been Africa’s principal colonizers such as UK, France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and the USA as lead NATO organizer and dominant partner. The organization was established as a collective defense against the Soviet Union with the requirement (Article 5) that any attack on one was considered an attack on all and therefore requiring a collective response.
NATO is the means of continuing colonial aggressions against African countries.
Backed by AFRICOM, Corporations Plunder DR Congo for “Climate-Friendly” Materials and Blame China
Mineral riches bring great power rivalry and resource wars to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United States was and is at the center of violence and exploitation, even as it accuses China of wrongdoing in the region.
Backed by AFRICOM, Corporations Plunder DR Congo for “Climate-Friendly” Materials and Blame China
Related:
Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among the billionaires paying a total of $15 million to fund a search for metals used in electric vehicles
[2020] The Big Green Lie
[2013] U.S. Geopolitics: Afghanistan and the Containment of China
U.S. Geopolitics: Afghanistan and the Containment of China
China’s fear is replicating the fall of the Soviet Union. When its borderlands, Central Asia and Transcaucasus, were lost, the Russian core shattered into three states: Byelorussia, Ukraine, and Russia. Should China loses its borderlands, Tibet and Xinjiang, the Chinese core may similarly shatter.
Gates, Bezos-backed Firm Searching for Cobalt in Canada
Apple, Google, Tesla AND Microsoft are sued for ‘aiding and abetting’ child mining in Congo
However the lawsuit describes a supply chain whereby the mining companies which own and operate the African work sites sell the cobalt to European third parties.
The third parties then sell it on to the tech giants in the US, it is alleged.
Among the children’s injuries is one boy who had his legs crushed while working in Huayou Cobalt, a mine which the lawsuit claims sells cobalt to Apple and Microsoft.