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.
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.