Image is allegedly of the note Trump wrote while editing a speech while on the way back from the G20 summit.

The top Russian-Chinese agent, Donald Trump, has decided that the pace of dedollarization and the decline of American financial hegemony is going too slowly. He has therefore decided to put tariffs on everybody; from America’s largest trading partners to uninhabited islands. In the process, he is trying to create an autarkic America. Jokes aside, interpretation and analysis of this has ranged across a wide spectrum. I think we can broadly agree that the most idiotic are the “true believers”; those that actually believe Trump’s every word, and that this will somehow bring back American manufacturing and whatever other inane promises he has made.

However, there is a much more interesting debate. The first camp are those who believe Trump is acting as an inadvertent accelerationist due to his lack of understanding about how the world economy and dollar hegemony functions (and that this will subsequently ensure that countries flock to China instead). The second camp are those who believe that Trump does know what he’s doing, at least to a certain extent, and that the effective result of this period of madness will be countries kowtowing to the United States; renegotiating trade deals to be even more in favor of the US in order to get tariffs reduced. There’s even a yet more cynical camp who believes that in fact, this entire trade war is just theater for further national wealth redistributions from poor to rich; that all these monumental international trade wars are more of a sideshow. To quote the linked article: “[…] out of the mountain of tariffs that threaten to turn into a global trade war will emerge the mouse of further tax cuts.”

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I have absolutely no idea which one of these is the closest model to reality. We’re in new economic and political ground, and even if the tariffs are quickly renegotiated and/or dropped, the impacts will continue to reverberate around the world for years. I’m sure we’ll debate this for months to come here, though!

Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    51·
    1 day ago

    Indirect US-Iran negotiations have started in Oman. President Trump is willing to make concessions in order to reach a deal with Iran, per U.S. Officials

    Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, will ONLY discuss the issue of nuclear proliferation – not the ballistic missile program or Iran’s support for regional groups. These two additional demands are a no-go for Iran, and the Supreme Leader has not authorized the Foreign Ministry to even discuss them. If the Americans push on either of these two topics, the negotiations are over.

    Iranian media report that the first signs of the negotiations in Oman are ‘positive’

    The indirect talks between Iran and the United States in Oman will ‘conclude today’ and not extend into tomorrow, and there is currently no truth to a direct meeting between Witkoff and Araqchi

    Immediately following the first round of negotiations in Oman, the Iranian Rial rose sharply against the US Dollar, going from 97,000 USD per Toman to 92,900 USD per Toman

    'The indirect talks in Oman were constructive and held in a generally positive atmosphere, and they lasted approximately 2.5 hours. U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi talked briefly face-to-face in the presence of the Omani Foreign Minister after the end of the first round of negotiations. The talks will continue, and the exact timing and date will be announced in the near future.

    We will not allow any country, including the United States, to go too far and impose unrealistic demands upon us. The Qajar and Pahlavi eras are over, and this is the era of the great Islamic Iran, which holds its head high.’

    Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi: ‘While leaving the negotiations room, we encountered the U.S. Envoy, Steve Witkoff, and exchanged greetings out of courtesy, as is customary in diplomacy. Nothing content-related was said.’

    ‘Today we have come close to a ‘basis’ on which negotiations can be held – Saturday we will continue, and start the negotiation process, including the timetable’

    ‘The discussions took place in a calm and polite atmosphere, and the American side did not issue any threats’

    'Both sides want a deal in the short-term, and not fruitless negotiations that drag on for months or years, but this won’t be easy

    • Telegram
    • MarmiteLover123 [comrade/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      25·
      1 day ago

      I’m going to guess this is the Middle East Spectator telegram, because of the wording.

      Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, will ONLY discuss the issue of nuclear proliferation – not the ballistic missile program or Iran’s support for regional groups.

      This is why Iran keeps the nuclear option open in the first place, so negotiations are made around this and not the missile program or Axis of Resistance. Iran’s missile program is well beyond the point of negotiations, they have so many of these missiles that restrictions are impossible. The US and Israel are in direct conflict with various elements of the resistance at this time.

      Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi: ‘While leaving the negotiations room, we encountered the U.S. Envoy, Steve Witkoff, and exchanged greetings out of courtesy, as is customary in diplomacy. Nothing content-related was said.’

      Yeah sure, and I’m a millionaire

      The discussions took place in a calm and polite atmosphere, and the American side did not issue any threats’

      Yeah the negotiations will take place in a clam and positive atmosphere, that’s a prerequisite for having them in the first place. There’s no need for any verbalised threats to be made, because the threat is obvious to everyone. While these negotiations took place in Oman, a US aircraft carrier with F-35 stealth jets was operating off of the coast of Oman. 6 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers are in Diego Garcia, 30% of the entire fleet, bombing Yemen and leaving large holes in mountains. There’s no need to say anything there, both sides going into the negotiations understand this. At first Iran said that they would never negotiate under “maximum pressure” and that even negotiations around their nuclear program were off of the table, yet they are doing exactly that, negotiating about the nuclear program under maximum pressure.

      I’m glad negotiations are taking place of course, but Iranian media is not going to be fully open about this. At least we’re not at the stage of scapegoating Pezeshkian for everything yet, when there are valid military and diplomatic reasons for the current course of events (he is a very easy scapegoat to be fair).