Tariffs, Economic War, and the Emerging Post-American Order

Tariffs, Economic War, and the Emerging Post-American Order

My commentary: The tariffs imposed under the Trump administration are not genuinely aimed at revitalizing American industry. Rather, they function as a tool to destabilize China’s economic growth and position the U.S. to provoke a potential military confrontation. These punitive measures are designed to persist unless nations acquiesce to the administration’s demands, effectively coercing them into aligning with its confrontational economic agenda against China. 

Disclosure: Van Jackson used to work for Center for American Century (CNAS). 

CNAS’ supporters

Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School

Since the election of Donald Trump, a growing body of research has examined the role of digital technologies in new right wing movements (Lewis 2018; Hawley 2017; Neiwert 2017; Nagle 2017). This article will explore a distinct, but related, subject: new right wing tendencies within the tech industry itself. Our point of entry will be an improbable document: a German language dissertation submitted by an American to the faculty of social sciences at J. W. Goethe University of Frankfurt in 2002. Entitled Aggression in the Life-World, the dissertation aims to describe the role that aggression plays in social integration, or the set of processes that lead individuals in a given society to feel bound to one another. To that end, it offers a “systematic” reinterpretation of Theodor Adorno’s Jargon of Authenticity (1973). It is of interest primarily because of its author: Alexander C. Karp.

Moira Weigel — Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School

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Trump’s Crypto Heist: A Taxpayer-Funded Scam? #Agenda47

Trump’s Strategic Crypto Scam isn’t just about money

I’ve been working on a piece that is quite chilling. It’s an analysis of an essay by a strategic thinker who supports the Network State idea and has stark observations about what’s unfolding in Washington today.

Trump’s Crypto Heist: A Taxpayer-Funded Scam?

Related:

Implications of Cryptocurrency

Libertarian City Dream in Honduras Becomes $11 Billion Nightmare + More

Techno Feudalism

Trump’s “Freedom Cities,” also known as Network States, would blow your mind if you thought 15-minute cities were dystopian. 👇🏻

Working paper: Freedom Cities-Magatte Wade-Próspera Africa-Atlas Network

DOGE’s Ties to the Military-Industrial Complex

DOGE’s Ties to the Military-Industrial Complex

Defense contractors: General Atomics, General Dynamics, Honeywell

n.b.: Phil Cox, was formerly with Americans For Prosperity and the Republican Governors Association. Both are affiliated with the Atlas Network through the Koch brothers.

Related:

Palantir and Anduril join forces with tech groups to bid for Pentagon contracts

Consortium likely to include Elon Musk’s SpaceX in move to grab a bigger slice of $850bn US defence budget

Donald Trump’s cabinet picks signal tougher stance on China

Donald Trump’s cabinet picks signal tougher stance on China

Alexander Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff in the first Trump administration, said the selections showed that Trump wanted “to surround himself with strategic thinkers who understand the challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China”. 

But Gray said Waltz would be an “honest broker”, mediating debates in the inter-agency process rather than trying to impose his own positions instead of the president’s.

Related:

Marathon Initiative:

Alexander Gray is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative. Gray previously served at the White House for four years, most recently as Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council. He had earlier served as Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base at the National Economic Council and as the first-ever Director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific Security at the National Security Council.

Front Organizations

Hong Kong ‘Protests’

*Xinjiang*

Marathon Initiative (Colby & Pottinger)

Mike Gallagher says that the Pentagon Has Two Years to Prevent World War III

Source

Pentagon Has Two Years to Prevent World War III

By China Hawk Mike Gallagher, Palantir

Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027. Whether he launches an invasion may depend on President Trump’s defense secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s nominee, will have to confront the collapse of deterrence in Europe and the Middle East, resource constraints on Capitol Hill, recruitment challenges, and a deteriorating balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. The only way to promote peace is to go to war on day one—not with China, Russia or Iran but with the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Gallagher wants a wartime economy while leaving the financing to the private sector. It won’t work. 👇👇👇

Related:

US Seeks “Super Weapons” to Reign as Sole Superpower

In reality, Russia and China’s industrial bases are larger than America’s because of a number of factors, including factors no amount of American political will, can overcome. China in particular has a population four times greater than the US. China graduates millions more each year in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics than the US, and the physical size of its industrial base – military or otherwise – reflects this demographic disparity.

Even if the US had the political will to reform its military industrial base, stripping away profit-driven private industry and replacing it with purpose-driven state-owned enterprises, even if the US likewise transformed its education system to produce a skilled workforce rather than squeeze every penny from American students, and even if the US invested in its national infrastructure – a fundamental prerequisite for expanding its industrial base – it still faces a reality where China has already done all of this, and done so with a population larger than it and its G7 partners combined.

FYI, Gallagher is with Palantir, as well as the Hudson Institute.

Hudson Institute’s funding