Economists have this thing called "comparative advantage".

E.g. the US specialises in software; China in PV and batteries; EU in industrial equipment; the Middle East, oil; Australia IIRC is minerals; each trades what they're optimised for in exchange for what the others are optimised for, and are better off for it.

This works only so long as nobody is dominating a strategic sector, something that everyone needs but they are such a major player they get to set the prices. Monopolistic behaviour, but from a nation that cannot be sued for it rather than a corporation which can be ordered broken up.

Unfortunately, OPEC was already a thing even before Hormuz, the MAGA tariffs are confused and seem to be trying to make the US into an autarky but also keeping trade open so it can be taxed, and China seems to want to be dependent on nobody else while also keeping everyone else dependent on them, which currently leaves the EU and similar currently holding this particular hot potato and goodness only knows in which direction and on what schedule we'll yeet it elsewhere.

Trump cancelled a ton of green energy initiatives, why are we blaming the same regulators you imply are a good thing by pointing out that China "doesn't do ecological protections"?

> I'm assuming that China, with its industrial power and leadership position to produce a bunch of green energy components (like solar panels), is well-positioned to benefit from this.

My comment points out that, yes, China is wildly benefiting from this. They have 80%+ of the global solar PV market. They also have a deflationary macro environment encouraging persistent exports, along with 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.

TLDR China has enough manufacturing capacity slack to support scaling exports at this scale immediately.

(tangentially, they have the capacity to build 20M EVs per year, roughly 1/4th of annual global demand for light vehicles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48379805)

China’s Solar PV Export Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/chinas-solar-pv-export-explore... (“The latest solar PV export data from the world’s largest exporter, China, by country or region of destination. Data updated on a monthly basis.”)

> The IEA has stated that China’s solar photovoltaic exports account for 80% of the global market. While there is a wide variety of products that make up the solar supply chain, panels, cells and wafers make up the majority of exports by trade value, and can be expressed in GW terms. Ember tracks these products to give a clearer picture of the global solar supply chain.

https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...

> China has invested over USD 50 billion in new PV supply capacity – ten times more than Europe − and created more than 300 000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011. Today, China’s share in all the manufacturing stages of solar panels (such as polysilicon, ingots, wafers, cells and modules) exceeds 80%. This is more than double China’s share of global PV demand. In addition, the country is home to the world’s 10 top suppliers of solar PV manufacturing equipment. China has been instrumental in bringing down costs worldwide for solar PV, with multiple benefits for clean energy transitions. At the same time, the level of geographical concentration in global supply chains also creates potential challenges that governments need to address.

Europe seems to be backtracking on some of their far-right flirtations after seeing the idiocracy in the US. Orban was voted out in Hungary after decades in power. Meloni in Italy is often described as far right but her party also strongly supports the EU, NATO and Ukraine.

Mass deportation of who? The far right governments of most EU countries just play on basic fear tactics, none of them will ever do anything remotely close to your mass deportation fantasies. The most hardcore things they'll do is apply the laws which already exists regarding foreign people committing crimes and people illegally entering, and even that isn't given

Just look at the post brexit UK or Meloni's Italy...

> They're electing their far right leaders and primed to start mass deportation

No amounts of deportations meaningfully affect the demographics. They can at most slow down the new immigration. For all his bluster, Trump deported barely more people than the long-term average in 2025.

But more importantly, the "far right" in Europe is far less crazy than in the US, and they support re-establishing local industry.

> police speech

Europe has never had absolutely free speech like the US. It's by design.

Far left will continue to rule in Europe.