Posted on 09/04/2025 6:39:49 AM PDT by Jumper
There are many sources to reference, but China has cut off energy imports form the US since Trump's Trade Wars.
Many in the diplomatic community could see Blinken/Biden dropped the ball on Brics but Trump also recognized the damage to USD dominated trade posed by Brics.
In June 2025, China imported zero crude oil, zero liquefied natural gas (LNG), and virtually zero coal from the United States. Both oil and coal ended completely; however, China continued to honor LNG Contracs but rerouted all the LNG at a profit to Europe.
One year eariler, China had been a major importer of US energy. Asia may become dominated by long-term Qatari and Russian gas contract, forcing US LNG exports and energy into Latin American rather Asia. China’s diversification of energy suppliers, with OPEC+ emerging as the dominant group at the expense of the United States had made them more able to counter threats by the US and Trump.
The collapse of US–China energy trade in June 2025 may be the definning moment that affects Shipping - every contract, tanker, and trade deal for the rest of the decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
China and Russia have rerouted energy/trade into MENA and ASEAN (Fun Fact: In 1981 I was the stenographer/note taker responsible for recording the very first ASEAN meeting held in Seoul Korea - at that time neither the State Department or US Military Intelligence Community in Seoul were interested in a copy of my official proceedings - I was working for the CINC in Korea and had taken a week of leave with permisison to work/attend this conference).
The net effects of Trump's personal bully pulpit, rather than relying on the State Department first, is there are no chances to access your opponents or the other nation's reaction, nor guage the fallout. There are no do-over's or take-backs.
Once trust erodes, especially in the energy trade, it doesn’t rebuild quickly. You can restart flows. You can renegotiate deals. But the underlying trust is not going to be recovered in a generation or the lifetimes of leaders. It would be appropraite to mention India here as being evidence of exactly such a breach of trust and friendship.
The news has been all negative and presented internally in the west as Anti-Aemrican or Anti-Western when reporting on the Chinese hosted the Shanghai Security Organization (settle regional disputes), and then the pivot to Brics (Trade only, not a defense alignment). Much was revealed about the future trade between Russia, China, India, Africa, and Asian-Pacific regions with regards to energy. It shows that much of the world will no longer rely on American energy exports, or other trade, as Washington has weaponized Switf, USD Trade, the worldwide Energy Trade).
The US and EUrope will have to work hard to regain Trust. The quickest route for Aemrican Exports is to get the people elected or to stage coups to implement long term trade and treaties such as the now famous Trump Corridor - a result of just such meddling and a fragile agreement at best with everyone associated with the deal reeling as Russia ends trade with those two countries.
The US is nearly energy independent, but imports certain types of crude and minerals.
There is now what most the rest of the world is referring to as a Washington Imposed OIL CURTIAN/TRADE CURTAIN. Replacing the Iron Curtian, this one is being errected as a part of the Project Ukraine sustainment effort.
Most the world outside the EU and US clearly see the US Coup in Kiev and installation of the Bandaras Nationalists as the beginning point in Ukraine for the conflict, due to choice of a very hostile anti-Russian fringe element to control Keiv. NATO expansion notwithstanding, the world also sees how NATO was used since the 1990s to maintian western control of Oil and the never-ending wars that came with it.
Trump's Trade War policies are as much directed at Brics as they are at Russia. Trump entered the oval office speaking to the world about an America that was merely a Great Power with a Sphere of Influence. He immediately talked about the Artic and Panama, and Iceland craving out his own vision of an American Sphere of Infulence. He indicated that both China and Russia were the other Great Powers of this period.
American foreign policy, and to a great extent trade policy, does not reflect this new relation of spheres of infulence nor a reduction of American HyperPower status. We are still locked in a cold war mentality or even worst that of a hedgemond gone wild trying to control the globe.
Until the Ukraine situation is resolved, Washington will continue to do great damage to US diplomatic relations from the Oval Office, leaving the diplomats to either repair or inchoate remaining relations in the wake of Trump's public decrees.
The second half of Trump's presidency may see a realization that economic damage and the public relations damage to US Prestige wrought by his first two years is in need of drastic diplomatic action to repair.
The west went all in on Ukraine. Ukraine was important in the context of energy due to the pipelines that connect the mid-east and Russia with Europe. The US sought to maintian a hostage trading partner with EUrope at the expense of those to the east. Washington at a minimum has won the Ukraine Energy War, but it will probably now let Kiev fall by the wayside because it is like concrete boots to a drowning man. We need the world as much as the world needs the US. Trump was only partially correct when he said China needs the US more than we need China. Trump's Trade War with China has isolated the US from not just China, but now India and much of the non-aligned and global south naitons.
EU Brussels continued temper tantrum over now Stealing the Seized Russian Assets as a cherry on the top for much of the world who is falling out of Washington's orbit.
Trump should come to the ocnclusion that continue wars and coups are the way forward, but to explain to the world we have made many mistakes over our mis-adventure in Ukraine and that we owe up to the damage we have caused by our one-sided insistance on being with us or agianst us. This is a necessary first step in restoring Trust. The relationships and the trade will soon follow.
The trade war started 50 years ago. Trump is fighting back.
As one FReeper pointed out, if a hammer is the only tool in your toolchest, everything looks like a nail.
Of course, this thread assumes that BRICs wouldn't be doing these energy restructuring steps if Trump wasn't in the WH. It may be right to be concerned with BRIC nations doing these steps, but wrong to say that Trump is the catalyst.
Very naive assessment of the current situation.
My contacts in the State Department see it much this way. American standing in the world is collasping with each new EU sanction package supported by Washington, the stealing of Russian Assets, etc. Ukraine has been the eseential indegrident in both US internal politics and abroad for many years and it became apparant to all, if not just Trump, in 2015. We have 10-years of Ukraine dominating US decision making in Washington.
To me, there’s a difference between being pissed off at the US and its standing. Trump is not making any new friends, but they are POed because they’ve had their way with tariffs for decades. Now, Trump is trying to level the playing field and they don’t like it. I say let’s internalize foreign aid and apply that sum directly to the US deficit. We’ve given enough of our treasure away since WWII. Time for the flow to come our way for a change.
“...contacts in the State Department...”
Your contacts in the State Department are schizophrenic. They were the one’s (under Obama, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Powers and the EU GloboHomo’s) in 2014 who started the entire destruction of Ukraine. The filthy rats at the State Department are the LAST who I would be taking advice from.
Trump is trying to restore the world order (prior to when the smelly anal fingers of Obama destroyed everything), but this does not mean that countries can continue to rip us off the way they have been doing for decades. The era of gigantic trade imbalances is OVER (looking straight at you China and India). If they don’t trust us anymore then too damn bad.
The biggest thievery in the past 50 years is China's theft of US and European tech. Trade with China should have been cut two decades ago.
Modi is already hedging his bets: the huge Indian presence in the US gives the US a lot of leverage.
If the US, Europe, Australia and Japan cooperated and developed their own resources in North America and Australia properly, there's little they need from the rest of the world. What's critical is that the US under Trump rid itself of its parasitic ruling and business classes and that Europe does the same.
Our colonial empire is falling apart. You really need to open your eyes.
The US dollar is used for oil and other commodities because we were once the primary supplier or consumer. After WWII, with Europe's and Japan's economies wrecked, the US granted generous aid in the form of the Marshall Plan and tolerated unfair access to US markets as a way of bolstering allied economies and and anti-Soviet political alliances.
So even before WWII with Japan, we restricted or loosened trade with the US in pursuit of political goals. We were so much more trustworthy than the European colonial powers that the Saudis formed Aramco with the US because they saw the US would not rob them blind, unlike BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and the French oil companies. We didn't even blockade Cuba (except for Soviet missiles) and simply cut off trade.
The outflow of dollars (trade and investment deficits) is what made the US dollar the "reserve" currency. When do you think China or India or Europe will ever run trade deficits to enable such a reserve to be built up? Never. The BRICS will always be a barter system, a COMECON v2, where Russia for example exchanges oil and gas for Chinese made goods, with China eventually squeezing Russia for all it can get, just as the Soviet Union squeezed its Warsaw Pact vassals.
The big difference now is that we tried the unfair trade route to mollify the Chinese leadership. This policy has been a catastrophe for the United States and has created an enemy that rivals the US not only in military but also economic power.
That's really what the BRICS are about: forming an economic bloc capable of operating without political pressure from the West, which in fact will result (if it succeeds at all) in its members become economic vassals of China, a far worse and more dominating thief than the US has ever been. As an association of thieves and leftists, it has little chance of long term survival as long as the West maintains some form of unity.
We are seeing a change after 500 or so years of western empires. Our empire is the Trade Dollar.
Much like in the 70s when every Visa transactions miniscule fractional payments prompted Japan to launch their first satellite which the funds were recovered in 3 years of Japanese purchases, the use of western financial instruments and institutions are kinda like having an i visible work force bri ging profit back to the US.
No has likened these tiny fees to taxes, but it can be very profitable for the US, who stands to lose this income flow level.
The EU has lived off hostage developing nations who could never profit to lift themselves up due to the likes of France, Belgium, Britain, Italy.... All reaped excessive benefits from what is called free trade.
As the west loses influence, much from installed governments and owned officials, the eventual moment in time is arriving where Brics is the trade bloc allowing countries to achieve trade beneficial to themselves as well as their trade partners.
Sleepy Joe, the hoe, blinkey Blinken dropped the ball representing the long term diplomatic and trade for America... they were to busy lining their pockets, and never thought they COULD BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE. This crew shortcut International agreements, broke treaties and deals, and made short term efforts to beat Russia- impatiently losing everything in the process. The petrol dollar, now the trade dollar. They lost the Trsst of world because they literally did not care about how they treated the world. In fact they lost the gains from the coup in Ukraine as well.
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