Fair Fairy

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Do you guys realize - if I get a speeding ticket or accidentally check a voting checkmark at the DMV - im may no longer be eligible for US citizenship.
fucking speeding ticket

from here https://t.me/s/artjockey_lite

Dmitriev gave a statement following his meetings in the US. Let me remind you that this was actually the first visit of this level since the beginning of the war, and sanctions were temporarily lifted for it.

As a result:

The timing of a new round of negotiations between the US and Russia will be determined in the near future;

The resumption of direct air travel is under discussion;

US businesses are ready to take the place of companies that left from the EU [they know how to appeal to Trump];

Overall, the US is taking a constructive stance and behaving respectfully.

Judging by the statements, the talks were successful, but in practice — the truth is in the outcome. We’ll see whether there are any developments soon regarding the implementation of Russia’s conditions for a “maritime truce” or, on the contrary, whether Russia will make concessions and agree to it without sanctions being lifted.

Also, a reminder that in a few days, a Ukrainian delegation is set to hold negotiations in the US regarding a resource deal that Trump has already openly referred to as part of a peace agreement.

All in all, it looks like another round of diplomacy may take place next week. A maritime truce and a signed deal by Ukraine could be on the horizon. If that happens — or even if specific dates are set — the chances of a full ceasefire by the end of the month will significantly increase.

Do people not realize there is no US Russia trade so tariffs would be moot.

translated some analytics written for Russian audience. from here: https://t.me/s/artjockey

About the Tariffs Today marked the “great day for the USA” previously announced by Trump, as the U.S. has now imposed import tariffs against the entire world. I won’t make predictions about how this will affect the global economy, how much the S&P has dropped, and so on. Instead, I want to draw attention to something that might not be immediately obvious.

The newly introduced tariffs can be divided into three parts: economic, political, and protective.

At the core of these tariffs is a baseline 10% duty on all imports. I’m not sure why there’s so much noise around this—basically, Zoomers invented the reusable shopping bag, and Trump has invented VAT. The U.S. has never had a national-level VAT before, only state-level sales taxes. Now, there will be a federal VAT, but only on imports and only at 10%.

There are also clear protective tariffs, intended to give advantages to domestic manufacturers and to motivate foreign companies that want to sell in the U.S. to move production inside the country, so they can stay competitive against local producers. These are 25% tariffs on all imported cars and computers. It’s all fairly straightforward and not worth overanalyzing. Russia has all of this too: VAT, protection for domestic car makers (e.g., AvtoVAZ), and maybe in the future Trump will even “invent” vehicle recycling fees.

In short, Trump could have quietly pushed a 10% import VAT through Congress without much publicity, and you wouldn’t have even seen the news in any headlines. But in that case, he wouldn’t have been able to kick off a series of trade wars.

The most interesting part of the tariffs is their political nature. I think everyone understands that the 54% tariff on all imports from China (a combination of a previous 20% and today’s 34%) is by no means a reciprocal move—it’s a global trade war that could even precede a real war. This was expected; Trump launched a trade war with China during his first term, and the motivations are clear.

What’s far more intriguing are the tariffs against some of America’s allied countries, which, in my opinion, make up a rather unexpected list:

India: 26%

Japan: 24%

EU: 20%

Taiwan: 32%

South Korea: 25%

Israel: 17%

Philippines: 17% (a country hosting U.S. military bases aimed at China)

Meanwhile, countries that didn’t receive tariff increases and stayed at the base 10%, from a global perspective, include:

South American nations: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay — 10%. Panama also 10%.

Oil-rich Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, plus Turkey.

AUKUS members: UK and Australia — even though Trump criticized Australia in a speech, no extra tariffs were added.

Africa: Though likely of little strategic interest to Trump for now.

From this differentiation of tariffs, you can infer how Trump views the U.S.’s global strategic direction—a vision that will likely be pursued further.

Notice the low tariffs for South America. Remember how Rubio, right after taking office, made a diplomatic tour across Latin America—something that hadn’t happened in a century? It seems Trump is aiming to “pull Latin America out of China’s hands” and form a U.S.–Latin American alliance in the Western Hemisphere.

At the same time, clear preferences are being given to those joining new U.S. military alliances, as alternatives to the increasingly hard-to-control NATO.

On the other hand, traditional U.S. allies are out of luck. The economies of the EU, Japan, and South Korea—countries that have money but are not considered crucial allies by Trump—are being treated as revenue sources.

This is especially evident in the EU’s case. According to the “Trump Doctrine”, the main rival to the U.S. is China, and the EU is useless in the fight against China. They won’t go to war over Taiwan, nor will they support a likely sanctions regime against the PRC. So, in Trump’s view, they should simply start paying America in hard currency now, with the long-term plan being further deindustrialization and relocating manufacturing to the U.S…

The tariffs will go into effect between April 5 and 9. Based on past experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if they never actually take effect—maybe they’ll be repealed, suspended, or something else. But if nothing changes and the 20% tariffs on the EU, Japan, and others remain in place long-term, then the so-called “golden age of universal prosperity” will likely become a thing of the past for those nations.

For some reason I’m confident this is not the first time this happened. But now it’s covered by European sources so news leak out to the public.

Go Rubio, go me boi.
Or not, would be nice to crush Ukraine entirely

They I think almost kicked out of there.

what is hexbear?
heard a lot, dont know what that is

Seems neutral to me

Artjockey, he has telegram - go sub it’s pretty good

I don’t really care. Not even for a second.

Despite what u believe I’m not paid to do this

I just translated and reposted this analysis from Russian analyst

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This guy simply don’t understand, these cheap propaganda tricks simply don’t work anymore

So explain it

Macron’s Address

Strangely enough, it was even more interesting than Trump’s address, which wasn’t really worth discussing. Trump spoke for a long time but said little of substance, which was expected. Macron also spoke without much clarity, but at least there was a chance he would announce some significant decisions. Spoiler: he didn’t.

For the most part, Macron tried to stir fear with his fantasies about Russia in an attempt to pressure the government into allocating more money for weapons. This is where his claim about Russia building 4,000 tanks by 2030 came from. I think everyone understands that this is completely unrealistic, given that Russia barely manages to produce a hundred or two tanks per year, even under wartime conditions.

That said, Macron did explicitly state that more weapons are needed, while also insisting that the French army is already the most effective in Europe, meaning no further strengthening is necessary. I wonder what the French military handbook says about a soldier’s actions if he hears a suspicious buzzing sound in the sky while outside of cover?

Regarding Ukraine, Macron once again reiterated that there should be no ceasefire and that the war must continue “until the last Ukrainian.” According to him, peace will only come with a “pacified Russia.” In polite circles, such statements are usually backed by a commitment like, “Therefore, I am providing Ukraine with €5 billion in military aid from French army stockpiles.” But Macron struggles with this—he wants to be a hero at someone else’s expense.

Before his speech, he also tried to single-handedly introduce an utterly ridiculous and unrealistic ceasefire plan, which proposed halting deep strikes. I don’t know what Zelensky did to upset Macron to the point where he decided to forbid him from bombing Russian oil refineries. Fortunately, no one takes Macron seriously, so even the UK rejected his plan. However, it’s known that Macron, Starmer, and Zelensky are once again trying to come up with another peace plan to present to Trump. I expect the outcome to be the same as their previous attempts.

Behind the scenes of his grandstanding, Macron and Starmer were reportedly trying to convince Zelensky to accept Trump’s demands, restore relations, and sign a resource deal. In other words, there’s no real effort to replace the U.S. in supporting Ukraine—Macron himself spoke about peacekeepers again. And once again, he made it clear that nothing is guaranteed (as we know, France is very reluctant to send troops without U.S. backing), that peacekeepers won’t be stationed at the front lines, won’t engage Russian forces, and so on.

In short, I am convinced that Macron understands Trump’s “deal” is inevitable and that there is no alternative. He is simply trying to increase his leverage. In the worst case, he’ll say he did what he could and blame everything on Trump. In the best case, he’ll pretend that peace in Ukraine was somehow his personal achievement.

If Macron wanted to make real decisions that could shift the course of the war—such as announcing that France is seriously committing to supporting Ukraine with weapons and funds—he would have done so yesterday. There won’t be a better moment, especially now that U.S. military aid has been suspended. Since he didn’t make such an announcement, I doubt he ever will. And neither did any other European leaders at the series of unusual emergency summits.

Macron has zero leverage over Trump because he would have to answer a simple question: Why should the U.S., which has invested $350 billion in the war (according to Trump) or $114 billion (according to the Kiel Institute), listen to France, which has contributed only $4.8 billion—less than Poland, Sweden, or Denmark? And you can be sure Trump will ask Macron exactly that.

This is just disingenuous.

Lookup trade balance with each one of these. EU, china, Canada and Mexico and all of these are majorly disbalanced