|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
TCHS 4O 2000 [4o's nonsense] alvinny [2] - csq - edchong jenming - joseph - law meepok - mingqi - pea pengkian [2] - qwergopot - woof xinghao - zhengyu HCJC 01S60 [understated sixzero] andy - edwin - jack jiaqi - peter - rex serena SAF 21SA khenghui - jiaming - jinrui [2] ritchie - vicknesh - zhenhao Others Lwei [2] - shaowei - website links - Alien Loves Predator BloggerSG Cute Overload! Cyanide and Happiness Daily Bunny Hamleto Hattrick Magic: The Gathering The Onion The Order of the Stick Perry Bible Fellowship PvP Online Soccernet Sluggy Freelance The Students' Sketchpad Talk Rock Talking Cock.com Tom the Dancing Bug Wikipedia Wulffmorgenthaler       |
|
bert's blog v1.21 Powered by glolg Programmed with Perl 5.6.1 on Apache/1.3.27 (Red Hat Linux) best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution on Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ entry views: 2778 today's page views: 1180 (11 mobile) all-time page views: 3736728 most viewed entry: 18739 views most commented entry: 14 comments number of entries: 1256 page created Sat Mar 7, 2026 01:21:18 |
|
- tagcloud - academics [70] art [8] changelog [49] current events [36] cute stuff [12] gaming [11] music [8] outings [16] philosophy [10] poetry [4] programming [15] rants [5] reviews [8] sport [37] travel [19] work [3] miscellaneous [75] |
|
- category tags - academics art changelog current events cute stuff gaming miscellaneous music outings philosophy poetry programming rants reviews sport travel work tags in total: 386 |
| ||
|
 They even reflected the trademark necktie length correctly! [N.B. Make Akiyama Great Again!] (Source: fandom.com, Roots of A) It has not been missed by certain careful readers that Akiyama/Amerika's epithet is "The Liar King*", which more properly refers to the One standing at the end of the (Greatest) Liar Game; well, it is mere days before the original August 1st deadline for the latest tranche of deals, and regardless of whether there will be further extensions, it cannot be denied that a number of the most important ones have been tied up. But to swiftly recap what has transpired: on July 7th, GEOTUS sent the first batch of his tariff letters to fourteen countries - which included six ASEAN nations - informing them that they would be subject to tariff rates of at least 25%. Seven more would be delivered two days later, including 50% tariffs on Brazil ostensibly due to the repression of a conservative former President, but more probably due to Lula's anti-Imperial stance. The Great Future States of Canada and Mexico would receive theirs soon afterwards, with a "world tariff" of between 15% to 20% in the works for the remaining 150-odd bit-part players.  How it's been going, or: the E.U. accepting the new rules by The One King [Embiggen!] (Source: xbato.com) Before continuing with the analysis, it may be instructive to examine the proposed and accepted tariff rates for the various major groupings and countries being targeted, beginning with the European Union and the top fifteen individual countries by total goods trade with the United States of America:
Continuing, the remaining countries that have had tariff letters explicitly sent by mid-July, but which do not have as much ongoing trade with the U.S.A.:
Note that the individual trade surpluses/deficits are not indicated for these sixteen nations, partly to make a point - their total trade in goods sums up to just over US$93 billion, or barely a third of China's goods trade surplus with the U.S. alone, and a tiny fraction of the over US$4,600 billion represented by the sixteen top trade entities in the previous table. Given this, that The Emperor even bothered to send them (casually**) personalized letters makes no sense, if one accepts that the objective of the universal tariff exercise is simply to balance out Amerika's aggregate goods trade deficit; any correction from this set of countries would be a rounding error. Instead, consider what was asserted in our early-May commentary on the affair: The content of the Liberation Day tariffs, is a challenge to the entire world - The King sees you, each of you - and the King accepts all challengers (please bend the knee)  Senpai noticed me!!! (Source: channelnewsasia.com) On the choice of tariff letter recipients, it can be noted that tariff letters were sent to the majority of Amerika's top trading partners/vassals, with the notable exceptions of Taiwan, India, Australia, Singapore and of course China - who are the main attraction for the oncoming Cold War II, after all. As for the remainder, the ASEAN Team Red trio of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos were included, which together with Brunei and the Philippines (due to prompt knee-bending), means that essentially all of ASEAN has been covered (more on this later) Next, it was also pointed out that there was really no need for the Emperor to call out every single country by name in his initial edict, and that he could have compressed countries into broad tiers or categories, because the real point of the tariffs is to reward Amerika's friends and punish their foes - up to and including the toppling of governments; and in any case there was any doubt on the latter, Iran might be an object example. Moving on, it can be observed that the July tariff rates have indeed often simply been the April rates rounded to the nearest 5%, with a bunch of countries getting served with a 30% figure (from 44% or 39% or 31% or whatever). Additionally, despite a few countries such as Singapore, the United Kingdom and Australia having a trade deficit with Amerika, they were not spared tariffs either - heck, Brazil had a US$7 billion deficit, and got hit with a 50% tariff (BRICS+ special rate) anyway! All this, I believe, unambigiously supports the assertion made that the specific percentages (and formula used) are largely immaterial. The tariffs are, at their heart, not an economic measure - but a geopolitical and Imperial statement. The Structure Of The Strategy - time.com, Ballmer the Barbarian!, on trade deals and holdouts  都认爹了，这也只是迟早的事 (Source: skynews.com.au) The Emperor's basic strategy, one believes, should be clear enough by now: capitulate early, and get a (relatively) good deal. From the countries that have bent the knee by accepting zero tariffs on American imports, the concession has generally been a hefty discount on Amerika's initial universal tariff rates (Vietnam: 20%, down from 46%; Indonesia: 19%, down from 32%; Japan: 15% [including on their automobile industry, despite their Prime Minister's red line], down from 24%; the European Union: 15%, down from 20%). The Philippines has been a bit of an exception, which may be partly due to the raising of the baseline rate to 15% (which the E.U. and Japan have secured) to 20% (slightly above the Filipino rate, and similar to fellow ASEAN bowers Vietnam and Indonesia). Britain's 10% tariff rate deal might thus be seen as the fruit of their "special relationship" with Amerika, and a reward for being first in line for the coronation of the Emperor. One believes that at least some - and probably most - of the countries involved would have recognized this Game for what it is by now, which brings us to the time factor hinted at in the previous post. Essentially, much of the dallying on signing trade deals with Amerika was due to not wanting to signal weakness by kneeling too early, which could result in a poorer deal than they might have received otherwise. The lack of precedent (before the U.K. graciously stepped in) further discouraged countries from settling, as evidenced from Vietnam's seeming "buyer's remorse" in wanting to continue pushing for a tariff rate of below 15%, rather than the 20% that GEOTUS TRUMP magnanimously awarded them.  Please sit this out while I conclude my deal with the Emperor first! [Embiggen!] (Source: xbato.com) However, as countries capitulate one by one, the strategic calculus shifts: firstly, the early knee-benders would be expected to establish a ceiling on concessions made by Amerika - following standard strategy as employed by previous Imperial powers such as the Mongols (see above), Spanish, British and many others, Amerika would be expected to reward those who had acquiesced first, more than the holdouts. Secondly, the leverage retained by holdouts would generally decrease, as more countries bend the knee; the last batch can expect to be handed a "take it or leave it... or never mind, just leave it, I don't really care" deal from TRUMP (i.e. 50%+ tariffs?), since Amerika's trade needs would largely be fulfilled by then. Casting the current situation in terms of the Mongol white-red-black tent signalling system, all that has happened up to now is mostly the offering of tacos in a diplomatic overture, with the flags only lazily getting raised on the white  The time of choosing is at hand [Embiggen!] (Source: xbato.com) While there have been some rumblings that such a tariff strategy might drive some countries towards China, the obvious answer would be: but why wouldn't Amerika want to let some countries hook up with China? As TRUMP - who has had a whole class of card games named after him, after all - has sagely suggested, the tariff (and oncoming Cold) war is like a poker game; and if so, one can't profit much without egging other players into calling and raising his bids (i.e. forming opposing groupings and blocs, in the geopolitical scenario); note Team Blue trying to define the conflict by repeatedly naming "China, Russia and North Korea" (with Iran kinda beaten down) as their opposing team, with the NATO chief explicitly naming the four as the enemy axis in Ukraine a couple of months back, followed by calls for war preparations against China and Russia. Well, with the previous post positing that there would be a lot more cheating going on in The Greatest (Liar) Game, the last week or so has seen local Singaporean authorities announce that critical infrastructure had been targeted by UNC3886, a hacking group. While the involved minister did not directly name any country as responsible, the media was happy enough to reiterate that Team Blue Google-owned Mandiant has marked UNC3886 as being from China... an accusation that has been swiftly refuted by the Chinese embassy. Whoever happens to be telling the truth on this, one figures this a sign of skullduggery - and probably a bunch of arm-twisting behind the scenes. ASEAN has in any case become one of the juiciest prizes in The Game, as indicated by GEOTUS taking the effort to craft tariff letters for almost all its ten members, and Malaysia getting a (self-described) 180 I.Q. (like Akiyama) alpha male as their ambassador, in a sign of his regard. Here, it might be mentioned that while our esteemed Foreign Minister has suggested that ASEAN should double down on its integration - including tariff-free internal trade - ostensibly to improve the grouping's collective bargaining power in the ongoing trade war, this looks somewhat unlikely now with Indonesia and the Philippines joining Vietnam in bending the knee and securing their own deals beforehand, without mentioning Myanmar/Cambodia/Laos being unlikely to be spared the Team Blue hammer anyhow.  Singapore or Malaysia lah! [N.B. This is another example of when the apparent statement being made, is not the actual issue at all - much like the current Human/Country Auction arc of The Game] (Source: xbato.com) This leaves BRICS+ partner states Malaysia (25% rate) and Thailand (36% rate) carefully considering their future and which team they would like to be on... and let's be honest, I severely doubt that Singapore's interests are anywhere near the top of their priority list, in these calculations; ASEAN was never an actual supranational organization mandated to pool members' sovereignty - like the European Union - after all, and it's not like the E.U. escaped getting bent over the kitchen table despite that. Given this, one can only hope that our 4G leadership has the LKY/TRUMP-like steel in them to hang with the big boys... or some hidden understanding with Amerika/China in place. [Hint before the next instalment: watch out for whether GEOTUS places a 15% or 20% tariff rate on the remaining countries.] [*Given that the FAKE NEWS has so consistently accused GEOTUS of being both a Liar and a King, it would be pretty incredible were they to now forswear themselves on this title!] [**Which might be the ultimate power move - sure he may misgender or misspell the names of receiving "leaders", but it's not like they won't be eating the tariffs even if they were addressed "Hey, yo" before the copypastas, or had changes made in marker by His TRUMPNESS, as happened to Japan.] [***Proving that the scourge of DEI - or perhaps DIE, in this case - has been around for a long time.] Next: The World Is Not Enough
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Copyright © 2006-2026 GLYS. All Rights Reserved. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
