https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-says-exclude-electronics-153933108.html

It seems a little in poor taste to do so, to spite your clients. It could be to underscore how much is made in China, but much of the world already knows that China makes a lot of stuff. Is it to underscore how much Western manufacturers are cheating the public?

Many social media accounts are talking about this, this video is not the only one.

Meanwhile, in Italy 8,4% of families has the freedom of live in poverty.

@NYT

Ukraine will not be mass-producing drones with no Chinese components anytime soon, because it’s still much cheaper to use them. Given China’s dominance of global manufacturing, it is hard to define any drone as truly “China-free.” Many components made outside China still contain Chinese parts or raw materials.

As demand surged, Beijing imposed export restrictions in 2023 and expanded them in 2024. While China is officially neutral in the war, experts say that Beijing has given its partner Russia preferential access to components that can still be exported.

Ukraine still buys cheaper Chinese components because the Ukrainian military needs huge numbers of drones and has a limited budget to buy them. Drone missions fail at very high rates, another reason that Ukraine tries to keep costs down.

Mr. Buyakin described the limits to “China-free” production. While his company makes carbon frames for drones, for example, the carbon itself is imported, usually from China, because that is cheaper.

Batteries that power drones are also still largely produced in China, which dominates supply chains for battery materials like lithium and rare-earth metals.

Source. https://archive.ph/ACzbB

https://archive.ph/lWpwt

Source: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2026/02/18/cf-how-chinas-economy-can-pivot-to-consumption-led-growth

“Net supply [of new debt] from AI-related issuers in the USD credit market has crossed $200 billion in 2025, more than doubling last year’s total,” Spencer Rogers and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs told clients recently. “30% of USD credit net supply this year is AI-related.” He expects that number to go higher next year.

according to Deutsche Bank, hyperscalers will spend a cumulative $4 trillion on AI data centers through 2030—more than the U.S. government’s moon-landing program in the 1960s: “10x [the] inflation-adjusted cost of Apollo programme with no guaranteed return.”

It's just so funny to me that China keeps releasing free open source options. The U.S. is going to need to militarily force others to subscribe to their AI fees or this will be a disaster. Their allies will be pressured to subsidize this. It will be sad to see, sort of, Chinese won't be the ones paying for it.

All that happened is so pointless if the U.S. doesn't get oil revenue, which doesn't exist unless it's supplied to the market. Interestingly, U.S. shale breakeven drilling prices are terrible compared to Russia and Gulf States already, before Venezuela (presuming the U.S. actually accomplishes anything meaningful there).

Twice in one year, the United States has been humbled by an adversary’s ability to weaponize its control over one of the global economy’s main arteries.

First, China wielded its dominance over rare earth minerals to secure a truce in President Donald Trump’s trade war. Then, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, taking hostage global energy markets and leading to a ceasefire in its six-week war with the United States and Israel.

Washington once enjoyed a near-monopoly over this type of economic warfare, punishing wayward nations by barring them from using the dollar or enjoying access to Silicon Valley’s most advanced technologies.

“There is virtually none of the leading-edge industries of the 21st century in which we don’t have some level of vulnerability, and it’s become one of the highest geopolitical priorities that we now face,” Rubio said in a speech last year.

This term, he piled more sanctions on Iran, expanded export controls to cover an estimated 20,000 Chinese companies, and tightened controls over advanced chipmaking equipment and jet engines to China.

But the administration has been caught unawares when other nations have weaponized their economic advantages. Last April, when China retaliated for Trump’s tariffs by banning exports of rare earth materials — critical ingredients in civilian and military products — the president called the move “a real surprise” on social media.

Likewise, the U.S. seemed to have no answer when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. With shipping carriers unwilling to brave Iranian threats, oil markets quaked, sending U.S. gas prices above $4 per gallon and hammering import-dependent economies across Asia.

“It turns out that the United States does not have all the choke points. We are in a world where the U.S. simply cannot get away with the stuff that it thought it could get away with,” said Henry Farrell, co-author of “Underground Empire,” a book about economic warfare.