Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you’re a little more pessimistic.
Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.
While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.
Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.
It wouldn’t really be correct to say that Latin America is “siding with China over the US” - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump’s bizarre economic strongman routine won’t make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What’s significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.
As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
What is a possible consequence in the long run? Weakening of the CPC, China’s internal crisis gets slowed down, or something else?
Win-win for both US and China. The new status quo.
If the US succeeds in shifting its export of dollar from running trade deficit into foreign investment, then in principle, the US gets to preserve its dollar hegemony while also allowing it to reduce its trade deficits. The US wants to have its cake and eats it too (although whatever contradictions that might arise from this, I don’t know).
China gets foreign investment to save its failing property and stock market prices (which they believe that, when stabilized, could encourage domestic consumption), and as offsets to its dwindling export revenues. If my prediction is correct, the Fed will lower the interest rate come June (as part of the deal) as inflation eases, and Chinese banks will then lower their rates and alleviate the massive overhanging local government debts. China’s economy gets stabilized, and it continues to develop/alleviate poverty as before.
The losers are Europe and the Global South.
Europe now faces a very difficult dilemma. The US tariff rate on China determines how much Chinese goods are dumped into Europe and elsewhere. If Europe lets cheap Chinese goods enter its market freely, then say goodbye to its domestic industries. If Europe goes protectionist and enacts tariffs against Chinese goods, its high energy input prices (thanks to Nord Stream bombing) have already made its exports uncompetitive, and this will kill off its growth trajectory.
It’s lose-lose for Europe, and opens them up to making a deal with Trump.
The US tariff imposed on China is like the valve on a gas stove with Europe being boiled, and just the possibility of US raising tariff rate against China [is enough to make the Euros tremble(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-15/eu-economy-chief-urges-china-self-restraint-on-diverting-goods). Still being defiant and don’t want to make a deal? I’ll turn up the temperature (more Chinese goods being dumped into Europe) and see if you’ll start feeling the pain?
Europe will probably end up with unfavorable bargains, being forced to purchase US goods while selling off their high tech industries. This will allow Trump to claim trade deficit reduction, while the US acquires key European technologies and industries without having to reindustrialize themselves.
For the Global South, this is of course a massive loss of opportunity to escape from the yokes of Western imperialism. I have written at length how China can run a Marshall Plan with Chinese characteristics to create an alternative economic bloc, so won’t be repeating it here.
Instead, the sword of Damocles hangs over every exporter economy in the Global South. If the US reduces import (either by raising tariffs, or the US goes into recession itself), then everyone will have to compete with China to export their goods to an ever smaller slice of market, and they will lose. Failing businesses cause local recessions, priming those countries for harvest by global financial capital and institutions like the IMF.
The “export-led growth” model that many countries, especially in Asia, adopted, can only work when there is a country willing to permanently run a large deficits to import from them. This is simply the outcome of how the world’s economy has been shaped over the past 50 years.
Over the longer term, the US seeks to dominate over the global supply chain. The US reshapes the global supply chain by buying up the failing assets across the Global South.
So, no, jobs aren’t coming back to the US. And no, imports will continue to enter the US, because there is nowhere else for them to go.
US finance capital may also start buying up Chinese businesses that have been failing under intense competition (for example, the solar panel industries have been eating huge losses last year, and many smaller EV companies are imploding). China won’t let the US touch the major corporations and the key industries, but the US can still acquire the many thousands of intermediate suppliers and the cutting edge technologies of the smaller Chinese companies that are going out of business under intense competition.
This is why I keep saying that the only way to break this nefarious plan is for China to step up, raise the wages of the Chinese working class such that they have the purchasing power to absorb the surplus export capacity of the Global South. If that happens, then nobody will have to export stuff to the US anymore, and it will become the biggest loser.