As China Retaliates for and Mocks Trump Tariffs, Eurasian Consolidation Accelerates
At the United Nations, that support echoed in Moscow's envoy bluntly accusing the British of lying through their teeth and inventing an absurd story to defame Russia. In a half hour speech, Vassily Nebenzia, the successor the late Vitaly Churkin, excoriated the UK's theory that the Russian state poisoned the Skripals as revenge for his betrayal of the country and as a message to would be defectors, asking rhetorically why Moscow let Skripal leave in a spy swap with Great Britain after eight years in prison.
Why, Nebenzia mockingly asked, would the Russians poison ex-GRU agent Sergei Skripal and accept the blowback days before a presidential election in Russia and months ahead of the World Cup? Nebenzia asked why if Moscow wanted Skripal dead, it would resort to a such an absurdly toxic and risky assassination weapon, and why British government sources have offered multiple versions of how and where the Skripals came into contact with the poison: at their door, inside Sergei's BMW sedan, or hidden inside breakfast kasha or bay leaf Yulia brought in her luggage from Moscow (British pundits and supposed experts having ridiculed multiple versions of the crime mentioned in Russian media as a replay of the 'conspiracy theories' Moscow offered to disavow its alleged involvement in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, without mentioning the multiplicity of Skripal poisoning theories anonymous UK government sources have presented to their own press). In an appeal to states less inclined to be under Washington's thumb at the UNSC, Nebenzia repeated Moscow's willingness to join in a genuine joint investigation into the Skripal case, which the British have rejected both at the UN and at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
According to Nebenzia's boss, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, speaking at a joint press conference in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, at least 20 countries in the world are capable of manufacturing 'novichoks', the nerve agents said to have been used to poison the Skripals:
Trump White House and John Bolton-led National Security Council's Plans to Reimpose Some Iran Sanctions, Even on a Delayed Basis, Likely to Exacerbate U.S./EU Tensions
The Iranians also criticized the Americans at the Moscow Security Conference, with Defense Minister Amir Hatami declaring, "They spare no effort to hinder the creation of the Central Asian security system, because they believe that any consolidation in the security sphere runs counter to the interests of retaining the strength of America’s power, standing and dominance in the world". From Syria to the South China Sea, everywhere it seems the Eurasians have had enough of the flailing, failing petrodollar empire's games and lies. And Trump, to the chagrin of the failed bipartisan Washington foreign policy establishment, is making the U.S. position weaker, not stronger vis a vis the Eurasians and pivotal U.S. trade partners in Europe, led by Germany.
Trump's threat to tear up the nuclear energy deal with Iran is bound to further alienate Paris and Berlin whose industries have signed lucrative contracts with the Iranians and do not need the uncertainty of facing reimposed American sanctions in retaliation for agreements already signed with Tehran. It's noteworthy that Germany, while going along with the expulsion of a few Russian diplomats at the end of March, did not succumb to the pressure from Capitol Hill and the State Department to drop the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline to be constructed beneath the Baltic Sea. The appointment of longtime neocon fanatic John Bolton as National Security Adviser nonetheless signals that the Trump Administration is very likely to go forward with at least a partial withdrawal from the Iran agreement, which included representatives of the EU, Russia and China, with predictable negative consequences for relations between Washington and Berlin. In this respect, the Atlanticist orientation of former Stasi informant and mass refugee exodus welcoming Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself barely able to form a compromise government, hardly matters anymore. Now in her fourth term, the childless former scientist turned great and greatly loathed frau Bundeskanzler is an irrelevant lame duck.
Petroyuan Introduction Makes China More Confident in Declaring Support for Russia in Cold War 2, Slapping Down U.S. Moves in Trump's Failing Trade War
Compared to the impact from accelerated de-dollarization and use of euros or perhaps yuan in Iranian trade with Europe, Trump's waffling on withdrawing U.S. troops from eastern Syria is geo-economically irrelevant. The main action as London Paul states on the RogueMoney Radio and X22 Report programs is happening with the petroyuan and how it is drawing more economies into the orbit of an increasingly confident China. The Chinese are still willing to negotiate with Washington, but it's clear with their retaliation targeting $50 billion in soybeans, automobiles and other exports grown and manufactured in Trump voting red states that they've had enough. That in turn is prompting several U.S. Senators, some of whom like Ben Sasse were never enthusiastic in their support of Trump to begin with, to denounce the President's policies as counterproductive and harmful to American farmers:
Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, said Mr. Trump was “threatening to light American agriculture on fire.”
“Hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again, but if he’s even half-serious, this is nuts,” Mr. Sasse said. “Let’s absolutely take on Chinese bad behavior, but with a plan that punishes them instead of us. This is the dumbest possible way to do this.”
Even in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, the recent downgrading by Dagong Global the Chinese rating agency (which competes with the discredited Standard and Poors and other Western outlets which touted mortgage backed securities as 'AA or AAA' before the 2008 financial meltdown) can hardly be coincidental with Beijing threatening to dump U.S. Treasuries. The fact that China has already spent the last decade quietly converting its vast holdings of USTs into gold, OBOR infrastructure in developing countries and hard assets abroad is well known to RogueMoney and Dr. Jim Willie the Golden Jackass listeners. But the 'official' figures regarding China's UST holdings as of January 2018 remained in excess of a trillion dollars, giving Beijing greater leverage if the great Trump trade war escalates.
Xi Cleverly Uses North Korea Talks to Make Trump Look More Presidential While It Defeats His Initiatives in the Trade War -- Owing to Decades of U.S. Manufacturing Outsourcing to China
With the visit of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Beijing, Xi has also demonstrated that China holds all the cards in deescalating the North Korea nuclear standoff and promoting reunification oriented projects like a Russian gas pipeline linking the North to South Korea. Kim has gotten the message with the expansion of highways and People's Liberation Army presence on the Chinese side of the North Korean border that he is not personally indispensable to Beijing, but his stated willingness to meet directly with President Trump puts this White House in Xi's debt. Those chips at the trans-Pacific bargaining table will be cashed in as we shall see in the coming weeks. Bringing Kim Jong Un to direct negotiations, while denounced as legitimating the North Korean dictator, is the one feather in Trump's 4-D chess cap he can present to supporters as proof that his brilliant plan is working.
For now, while Trump is flailing away at the Chinese and being denounced across the legacy media spectrum from so-called liberal Democrats to Never Trump-er neocon and globalist Republicans, the Washington Establishment cannot muster a coherent set of alternatives. The Swamp can only demand that U.S. troops remain in Syria forever, European allies who've already quietly bought into China's New Silk Road be brought back into line, and Russia be denounced in ever more shrill language. Like the Duke brothers at the end of the 1983 movie Trading Places, all the dollar dependent globalists can do is bellow who they are and demand that the machines be turned back on. Or applaud speeches from the soon to be former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster at the Atlantic Council on his way out the door before getting a job at one of their irrelevant non-think(ing) tanks.
The Russian Analyst expects severe economic pain ahead for Americans, with our country much closer to the dollar collapse then when we started writing for RogueMoney over three and a half years ago. As former RM guest Peter Schiff said recently, the incentive for the 'deep state' to crash the monetary hypoxia suffering paper markets Trump has foolishly staked a great deal of his reputation as a doer and economic genius to trigger a 'blue wave' bloodbath in the 2018 midterms is strong. However, the World War III scenario many of the 'black pilled' among us like my Swiss White Russian friend The Saker have worried about, appears to be off. If for no other reason than Uncle Sam and many of its partners are soon going to be too broke to pay for a global conflict, and China and Russia have demonstrated their unity in preparation for any desperate military moves the imploding Anglo-American empire could possibly make.
