US reliant on China for essential goods - Plutocrats "running" government

The Policy Circle, which is based in India, says the US reliance on Chinese inputs spans 532 key product categories, including essential pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, and rare earth elements — materials indispensable to defence, green tech, and digital innovation. 

"Beijing knows this, and has already weaponised its control over rare earths by placing American defence and tech firms on its export control list.

When a nation controls 72% of your rare earth imports, you do not pick tariff fights unless you are ready for economic masochism.

Nor is the impact of these tariffs confined to urban industries. Farmers in Trump’s heartland — soybean growers in the Midwest, poultry producers in the South — are once again collateral damage.

These are the very people who powered Trump’s rise in 2016. And they are hurting. American soybean exports to China have never recovered from the first wave of trade wars. Chinese buyers have moved to Brazil, where the grain is cheaper and the diplomacy less abrasive."

Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China

Opinion1| Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China.

The Times Opinion columnist discusses what he thinks Trump — and American policymakers  — misunderstand about China in the escalating trade war. "Credit Credit..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-thomas-friedman.html

The New York Times in a pice by Ezra Klein in a discussion Tom Friedman: "Thinks. We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong".

 The Times Opinion columnist discusses what he thinks Trump — and American policymakers — misunderstand about China in the escalating trade war.

Peterson Institute: "The Trump admin is embarking on an economic equivalent of the Vietnam War — war of choice that will soon result in a quagmire, undermining faith at home & abroad in trustworthiness & competence of the US — & we all know how that turned out."

"Farmers in Trump’s heartland — soybean growers in the Midwest, poultry producers in the South — are once again collateral damage. These are the very people who powered Trump’s rise in 2016. And they are hurting. American soybean exports to China have never recovered from the first wave of trade wars. Chinese buyers have moved to Brazil, where the grain is cheaper and the diplomacy less abrasive."

Adam S. Posen ["When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with,” U.S. President Donald Trump famously tweeted in 2018, “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

This week, when the Trump administration imposed tariffs of more than 100 percent on U.S. imports from China, setting off a new and even more dangerous trade war, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a similar justification: 

“I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they’re playing with a pair of twos. What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them.”

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Posen said Bessent, a billionaire and former hedge fund manager, had wrongly likened the dispute with Beijing to a game of poker in which the US held all the best cards.

Li Chenggang has been appointed China’s top international trade negotiator at the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing.

Find more statistics at Statista

Alan Beattiet of the FT: "Its not EU protectionism that hurts American carmakers abroad. The European Commission has long had an open offer to the US to cut all industrial goods tariffs including cars to nil, which the US has failed to take up. Still the sense of victimhood persists."

The Plutocrats "running" the US government

The current government is rule by the top 0.0001% (read as the top one ten thousandth per cent).

In January sixteen of Trump’s 25 wealthiest appointees and nominees were members of the 0.0001%, meaning they are among the 813 billionaires in the United States, where some 341 million of the rest of us make up the 99.9999% (earning an average yearly income of about $61,000).

Trump had a chequered business career, and some of his 0.0001% cabinet picks are incompetent.  

"Elon Musk’s outrageous wealth places him in a category all his own, as the world’s richest person. 

By contrast, cabinet members who are mere members of the top 1% – members such as J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, and Marco Rubio – appear almost working class, even if the wealth of each is more than triple the median income Americans earn over their entire lives ($1.7 million)."

Democrat senators also get into the 1%.

Most of the 50% poorest population live in a different world to Trump and his wealthy friends.

More than 38 million Americans live in poverty. Someone is defined as “poor” when they can't afford life's necessities, like food and shelter.

 In 2022, the U.S. government set the poverty line in America at an annual income of $13,590 for a single person and $27,750 for a family of four.

According to the National Health Institute, the uber-rich don’t just have a more comfortable life, they have a longer one.

 Their research showed that, on average, the wealthiest 1% of women live 10.1 years longer than the poorest 1%. For men, the difference was even greater, with the top 1% living 14.6 years longer than the poorest 1%.

Related

The countries that lend to America

America is the sick man of the advanced world

America's 1% control 31% of wealth- 50% control 6%

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was a Nobel laureate in economics and senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution and served on President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board. Margaret Thatcher was also a fan.

Leonard Read (1898-1983), founder of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), is best known for his essay "I, Pencil," which Milton Friedman used to illustrate the power of free markets and the invisible hand of the economy.

"Once, on a visit to China, a deputy minister asked, "Who in the America is in charge of materials distribution?" The question took me aback, yet it was natural. For it was almost inconceivable that a citizen from a command economy could understand how markets distribute materials among millions of people for thousands of uses untouched by political hands."

The countries that lend to America

Major foreign holders of United States treasury securities as of December 2024 (in billion U.S. dollars)

The Federal Reserve and U.S. Department of the Treasury say foreign countries held a total of 8.5 trillion U.S. dollars in U.S. treasury securities as of December 2024.

Of the total held by foreign countries, Japan has $1,059.8  and China held the greatest portions, with China holding 759 billion U.S. dollars in U.S. securities.

The Irish $336.2 in billion, may be related to American firms that are domiciled in Ireland.

The federal deficit

The federal deficit in 2024 was $1.8 trillion, equal to 6.4% of gross domestic product.

America is the sick man of the advanced world

U.S. healthcare spending per capita is almost twice the average of other wealthy countries

The average life expectancy in Western Europe is 83 years, while in the US it's 77 years.

Trump's America doesn't like foreigners

Europe highlights gender rules and entry risks and Finland's advisory, updated Tuesday, advises applicants to put their gender at birth. "If the applicant's recorded gender differs from their birth sex, US authorities may deny entry."

Several European countries, including Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway, have updated their travel advisories for the US, highlighting potential entry risks for transgender individuals and those with gender identity discrepancies, due to stricter US immigration measures.

'A hostile state': Why some travellers are avoiding the US

Trump signed an order on April 2, 2025, announcing global tariffs minus Russia 

Adrian Wooldridge of Bloomberg has written "If health means wealth, as the adage has it, then America’s economic future looks grim.

Traditionally, the U.S. has enjoyed a health premium. In the colonial era, American men were on average two to three inches taller than Europeans, according to military records, a fact that fascinates historical demographers because height is correlated with longevity, cognitive development and work capacity.

Today, a premium is turning into a deficit. American men are shorter on average than Northern European men, and the gap is getting bigger. Six in 10 Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition and 4 in 10 suffer from two."

"America is a sick society,” says William Galston in the Wall Street Journal. "Literally.”

Healthcare spending per capita is substantially higher in the US compared to Europe, yet the US lags behind on metrics like life expectancy and infant mortality.

Survival in the wealthiest U.S. quartile appeared to be similar to that in the poorest quartile in northern and western Europe.

The US is the sick man of the developed world.

Americans' living standards aren't nearly as good as they like to think they are.

Health expenditures per person in the U.S. were $12,555 in 2022, which was over $4,000 more than any other high-income nation. The average amount spent on health per person in comparable countries ($6,651) is about half of what the U.S. spends per person."

US personal savings are close to rock bottom

Personal Saving Rate - in 2024, the US was at 4.6%; 15.3% in the 20-country Euro Area, and 44.3% in China.

GDP per capita April 2025: Ireland at $107.24 but is fake and Є30 thousands is correct

IMF April 2025 GDP per capita, current prices: US dollars per capita

Switzerland 111. 72; Ireland 107 .24; Singapore 93. 96; Norway 90. 35; US 89. 68; Denmark 71. 97; Netherlands 70.61. 61; Australia 67. 98; Austria 61. 08; Sweden 59. 51; Germany 57. 91. Canada 55. 89; UK 54. 28; New Zeland 48. 23; Italy 41. 71; Spain 37: 36; Russia 15. 08 and others.

In 2023 (published in mid-2024) the Irish Enterprise agency reported that €34.60 billion (Euros), in indigenous exports. There were no net data.

In 2023, the European Union (population of 449 million) and the UK (population of 68 million) bought just about €10 million from indigenous firms in Ireland.

European Union at the start of 2024: "The highest relative share of foreign-born individuals within the total population was in Luxembourg (51.0% of the resident population), followed by Malta (30.8%), Cyprus (26.9%), Ireland (22.6%), Austria (22.1%), Sweden (20.6%) and Germany (20.2%). By contrast, foreign-born individuals represented less than 5% of the population in Poland (2.6% of its resident population on 1 January 2024), Romania (3.1%), Bulgaria (3.3%) and Slovakia (3.9%)."

The Irish population was at 5.4 million in April 2024.

Mainly American firms give the impression that Ireland's per capita GDP is the second highest in the world.

It is in line with Portugal's.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos gift of $40 million to Melania Trump; Donald Trump's crypto project netted at least $350 million

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau slammed the US president for launching a trade war against "their closest partner and ally, their closest friend," favoring “talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, aligning with a murderous dictator.”

Trudeau says Trump’s "dumb" tariff trade war is designed to collapse the Canadian economy.

Trudeau also rejected Trump’s repeated taunts that Canada should cede its sovereignty and join the US: “That is never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.”

The Financial Times says "Trump’s crypto project made at least $350mn from the launch of his memecoin, a windfall that is likely to fuel concerns over conflicts of interest arising from the token. 

Digital wallets owned by the entities running the scheme earned the money from sales of $TRUMP in the three weeks after it was launched in January, according to a Financial Times analysis of blockchain data."

New York CNN — "President Donald Trump established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a stockpile of other digital assets through an executive order on Thursday, shortly before hosting a crypto summit at the White House."

The Treasury Department will set up an office to administer the reserve, which will be capitalized with Bitcoin (BTC) confiscated by the government as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings, according to the order. “Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency,” the order said. “Because there is a fixed supply of BTC, there is a strategic advantage to being among the first nations to create a strategic bitcoin reserve.”

Zelensky for 2025 Nobel Peace Prize? as Trump takes his guide from Moscow

President Volodymyr Zelensky leaving the White House after a heated meeting with President Trump, 28 February, 2025

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Norway by a five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting (parliament). The first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1901.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded on December 10th in Oslo, Norway.

Chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist Alfred Nobel (1833–1896) built a fortune selling explosives and ammunition and investing in petroleum companies. Even though he sold weapons, he hoped that his inventions would eventually remove the need for wars entirely.

In his will Alfred Nobel laid out who he wanted to be responsible for the selection of the Nobel Prize laureates. The prizes were to be awarded by Swedish institutions – apart from the peace prize, whose award was to be decided by a committee of five persons elected by the Norwegian Parliament.

Norway's national assembly (Storting) declared an end to the union with Sweden on June 7, 1905.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 105 times to 142 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2024, 111 individuals and 31 organisations. Since the International Committee of the Red Cross has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize three times (in 1917, 1944 and 1963), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two times (in 1954 and 1981), there are 28 individual organisations which have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Click on the links to get more information.

Trump's appeasement is worse than Neville Chamberlain in 1938

1% of Americans get almost 33% of the wealth while 53 million (44% of all workers) have a median annual wage of only $24,000 The U.S. resembles an emerging market.

Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister (1937-1940), holds up a copy of the Munich Agreement in September 1938, which he signed with Adolf Hitler.

The Munich Agreement was agreed in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and Fascist Italy.

At Munich, Chamberlain got an international agreement that Hitler should have the Sudetenland (Sudetenland was a region in Czechoslovakia that was predominantly German-inhabited. It was located in northern and western Bohemia and northern Moravia. In exchange for Germany making no further demands for land in Europe.)

Chamberlain said on his return home from the pact with Hitler, it was: "Peace with honour, Peace for our time."

Hitler said he had "No more territorial demands to make in Europe."

America's 1% control 31% of wealth- 50% control 6%

Elon Musk in the Oval Office, Feb. 11, about cost-cutting in the federal government.

The world’s richest man and government official Elon Musk has accused federal workers of unfairly getting rich off the taxpayers, citing, without evidence, “quite a few” with a net worth of tens of millions of dollars.

Musk’s own companies have accepted over $20bn+ in taxpayer funds in the form of contracts, tax breaks, and other subsidies.

Upgraded to $38bn according to The Washington Post on 28 February, 2025. 

“We find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Musk said.

“I think the reality is they’re getting wealthy at taxpayer expense,” he added.

The Fortune magazine said "Neither Musk nor President Trump offered any evidence of corruption or improper enrichment that might explain federal employees allegedly getting rich off their government roles, and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) did not respond to Fortune’s request for examples.

Irish poor voters as US improve and Nordic stars

The 2024 Irish general election to elect the 34th Dáil (Parliament) took place on Friday, 29 November 2024.

National voter turnout at 59.71% was down 3.19% on the general election in February 2020 when it was 62.9%.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) based in Stockholm, has a database of the Voting Age Population (VAP), as well as the number of Registered Voters (REG) as indicators of political participation.

The VAP figure includes an estimated number of all those citizens over the legal voting age, while the registration rate comprises the actual number of people on the voters’ roll.

The VAP Turnout for Ireland on 29 November 2024 was 54.86% and 85.17% in 1977.

Country data are found here.

Ireland's VAP Turnout rate was only 56.65% in the general election of 2020; 58.04% in 2016 and 63.78% in 2011.

In Age of Conflict only 7.8% of World Population in Full Democracies

Europe and Britain struggle in changing markets in 2025

In Europe 2024, the STOXX 600 ended the 52 weeks with a gain of 6%, according to Reuters. The STOXX and the American S&P 500 tracked each other from the early 1990s but from about 2012, the 500 never looked back.

The Financial Times at the year-end reported that Germany has an answer to US “magnificent seven” (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla).