| ▲ | bijowo1676 2 hours ago |
| the reason China was using stockpiles is they want to time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. The moment they stop using stockpiles and start purchasing the prices will jump |
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| ▲ | DrScientist 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Blaming the current situation on the actions of China is beyond bizarre. |
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| ▲ | bluGill an hour ago | parent [-] | | China has some influence. They did do what was said - but only if you take the absolute most charitable reading (which is a expected here). | | |
| ▲ | DrScientist an hour ago | parent [-] | | Eh? They didn't/aren't using their stockpiles to anywhere near the extent the US has! There reserves are much bigger - they have about a years supply - yet they used less in absolute terms than the US! What they did was aggressively reduce demand by accelerating the switch to EV's and firing up a few more coal powerstations. In terms of influencing the midterms - I suspect China isn't anywhere near the front of the queue in hoping Trump get's a beating given the chaos he is causing. Complaining about foreign interference is ironically straight from the Hillary playbook. |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | Frieren 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. Donald Trump can end this at any time if he wants. It would have been better to not have started it, thou. Less killing of innocent people, less spending on weapons, better mental health for USA soldiers... And why is China suddenly at fault for America's actions? |
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| ▲ | LtWorf an hour ago | parent [-] | | He can't. Bibi is in charge. | | |
| ▲ | sentientlaserbe an hour ago | parent [-] | | Partially true. Seems most likely that Trump didn't like the Iranian provisions for reparations to end the war. A hard stance they've taken, one Trump would never go for (because of how incompetent it would make him look), and here we are. |
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| ▲ | softwaredoug 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Well roughly now would be when you’d time a huge shock OTOH midterm generic ballots are much more stable than top line presidential horse race polling. So it might only matter at the margins. |
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| ▲ | lowbloodsugar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| lol. The orange man is doing more damage to the USA than China could ever do short of actual war. He is destroying the US militarily, economically and politically. They emphatically support his efforts. |
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| ▲ | kadoban 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | At some point they might prefer stability and sanity. I would bet that at this point they don't care much either way. China is playing long, most of the ~unchanging things are in their favor and the US already proved that they're unreliable. People won't forget that soon even if Trump is gone. | | |
| ▲ | LarsKrimi 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Stability and sanity is not happening whether the conflicts stop in Yemen+Hormuz or not. At that point it's just going to go back to tarriff wars and new terror campaigns that the US admin will start somewhere else | | |
| ▲ | kadoban an hour ago | parent [-] | | The context of this is which party China would prefer to win the midterms. The dems winning would distract Trump from being able to fuck up the rest of the world a bit. My bet would be that China doesn't care much either way, they win regardless. | | |
| ▲ | LarsKrimi 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We agree that China won't care long term. They cannot lose in the current setup In my view the worst that can happen for China is that Trump gets limited by anything. He's hurting US relations more than he's hurting China short or long-term. Relations take longer to build than trade "Don't interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake" |
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| ▲ | giardini 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | IMO it is a good thing that the USA is no longer paying for (among others): - NATO
- Maintaining security on the high seas for other than USA shipping, - tariffs imposed by other countries (yes, other countries have been imposing tariffs for decades): https://wjno.iheart.com/content/2025-03-17-qa-how-many-count... The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens (possibly even lowering their taxes!) | | |
| ▲ | jacquesm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Wow, how shortsighted. > - NATO - Maintaining security on the high seas for other than USA shipping, NATO consists of a lot of countries, why would they only work for USA shipping? And where do you think that shipping comes from? > - tariffs imposed by other countries (yes, other countries have been imposing tariffs for decades): Of course they do. But they're not usually idiots about it. > The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens (possibly even lowering their taxes!) You advocate for tariffs but don't understand how tariffs work... | |
| ▲ | dgellow 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens How is that going? Any progress there? Are US citizens richer than they were before? | | | |
| ▲ | dam_jackalopes an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The USA can use that money that way. It's not though. Spending isn't decreasing and any savings in tax has easily been overwhelmed by the increased costs facing consumers, especially in the last two years. | |
| ▲ | globalnode 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The USA can use the money saved for its own citizens (possibly even lowering their taxes!) I was feeling miserable reading this thread until I saw this, thanks for cheering me up. |
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| ▲ | cmrdporcupine an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It's so amazing to watch people (presumably Americans) over and over make everything about American domestic politics. That the only way to explain Trump's behaviour is on the domestic terms that Americans know and are comfortable with. I see this over and over again with the Canada stuff. Or Greenland stuff. Not taking it seriously because "oh that's just Trump deflecting cuz of [Epstein|Midterms|etc]." Meanwhile the actual blast radius here is far far far outside of the domestic arena. When will people just take this guy at his word? He says he wants to conquer or do X Y and Z. That's it. He said those things. Believe him. Stop trying to make it about yourself. (And also he wants to make personal money off manipulating the stock market and oil prices.) It's not a good look, esp to the victims of Trump outside the US who have no power to vote in American elections and yet are victims of American power. |
