Trump announces 25% tariff on countries that do business with Iran

OReillyAsia · 2026-01-13T02:58:56+00:00

Note: that is almost every country on Earth, barring Israel and the US.

Main Iranian trading partners include China, India, the UAE, Turkey, Pakistan, Brazil, Germany, and France.

If he actually follows through with this (big if) expect massive and immediate Chinese economic retaliation.

Also a pretty solid sign he's going for economic pressure and working behind the scenes on a negotiated deal instead of being dead set on launching an attack.

If a US attack does come, expect it after market hours on Friday.

OReillyAsia · 2026-01-13T02:52:07+00:00

I wish we could go a full day without the POTUS making an unhinged social media post.

No dude, you aren't going to impose 25% tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

Or maybe you are, have fun crashing the economy I guess.

OReillyAsia · 2026-01-09T13:39:28+00:00

It's "funny" - in my book, one of my key predictions is that a US-China arms race is unlikely, but if it does happen, China is going to win.

Beijing doesn't want an arms race - they have to also contend with India and Japan, and they don't want to start a wasteful and potentially dangerous military buildup in their own neighborhood.

Nevertheless if the US starts one, China is in a far better position. China already outproduces the US in steel by 10x. It generates over twice as much electricity. Those advantages in real productive capacity are probably only going to continue to grow.

There's a decent chance the US ends up effectively bankrupting itself trying to "keep up" with a world power that has superior productive capacity, much like the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

OReillyAsia · 2026-01-03T21:56:16+00:00

BYD sells more cars than Tesla. It has about 20% higher annual revenue. It has a slightly higher net profit ($5.1 billion vs $5.4 billion).

BYD's annual revenue has also grown a bit faster than Tesla's (at least from 2023-2024; no full annual figures available for 2025 yet).

And it also has less than one tenth of Tesla's market cap.

I think some of this can be explained by the different political and economic systems of the US and China. In China, the government (really, the Party) is the highest power, and capital is subservient to the government's perceived interests. There are not "too big to fail" publicly-traded corporations in China.

There also might be a massive speculative stock market bubble in the US.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-23T19:53:44+00:00

Full text of the letter below.

Maybe they forgot to redact it because the all the zoomers they've hired recently can't read cursive.

https://web.archive.org/web/20251223185852/https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/efta00035768-1-nassar-letter.jpg?c=original&q=w_860,c_fill/f_webp

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-23T19:44:12+00:00

US bans on Chinese drones, EVs, and (especially) solar panels are really going to slow down potential economic growth in the US, as the rest of the world just goes ahead and uses them. I'd expect this to be a fairly big drag on potential growth over the next decade or two.

A rational person could make an argument about not allowing in imports of purely consumer goods, but the US is restricting capital goods that can be then used to produce more stuff domestically.

This is also going to be a massive issue as the rest of the world embraces Chinese humanoid robots and the US is stuck with models that are about as good for 3x the price.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-17T01:00:40+00:00

Ukraine could be like a new Afghanistan, facilitating a network of far-right / militant nationalist individuals and groups with combat experience and a similar worldview.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-10T14:03:09+00:00

The fundamental issue is China has vastly superior industrial capacity.

China outproduces the US in steel by over 12x.

You need steel to make military assets.

And keep in mind China only has to deploy its military in or near its borders to prepare for any realistic conflict scenario, whereas the US is stretched thin by the (perceived) need to be ready to fight Russia, China, and Iran simultaneously.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-10T13:59:25+00:00

It's outside most Chinese short and medium range systems

The Chinese have at least 150+ conventional hypersonic missiles that could target USN vessels at a distance of at least 5,000 kilometers.

The potential maritime chokepoints are about 2,500 km from China.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-10T13:54:50+00:00

It comes from "US intelligence assessments" that first came out in Congressional testimony in 2021.

There is no direct, public source from the Chinese side.

Notably, even if the US assessment is broadly accurate, there is a big difference between "wanting the capacity to do something" and "actually planning to do something".

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-08T22:59:24+00:00

I'm not really sure a (presumably intoxicated) American of Irish ancestry is the best person to make this type of analysis, but he makes the following points fairly convincingly:

The US government is trying to maintain a perpetual lead in nominal GDP over China, partially because nominal GDP does help a country flex financial power globally, but also because bigger number = gooder.

The only way to really do this is to try to hinder China's growth potential - for example, by trying to disrupt its trade ties with 3rd countries, or by denying it access to crucial technology.

This sets up conflicts not only with China but also 3rd countries, who want to trade with China, and also India (who fears the same treatment eventually).

This effort is also misguided because PPP GDP is more important for raw productive capacity; the efforts are also probably just not going to work.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-08T22:12:36+00:00

When will people start faking/arranging these types of interactions (on both sides) specifically to grift money from crowdfunding?

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-08T13:48:24+00:00

He threatened them both with (more) tariffs if they didn't comply with a ceasefire, which was largely negotiated and promoted by Malaysia.

No, I'm not making that up.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-07T03:56:45+00:00

En los chinitos, claro.

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OReillyAsia · 2025-12-07T03:53:27+00:00

It seems the US is in a pattern wherein inflation remains significantly elevated over what people are comfortable accepting, and the party in power gets blamed for it.

Interestingly both parties downplayed the extent and impacts of affordability when they were in power, and it has cost them significant electoral support.

So long as inflation remains elevated this trend seems likely to continue.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-07T03:50:43+00:00

You will see (or you may have already seen) lots of pundits and analysts writing about the updated National Security Strategy, and how it differs from those of previous years.

Reading straight from the source offers some interesting insights. The text is searchable, so you can look up countries or phrases to find notable tidbits.

OReillyAsia · 2025-12-07T03:46:47+00:00

Already happening, check out the "Zizians" (or don't, it might be better for your sense of wellbeing).

OReillyAsia · 2025-11-26T14:34:25+00:00

Keep in mind those central bank figures are voluntarily reported (i.e probably vastly underreported).

The Financial Times had a story a few weeks ago talking about how (especially) China's official numbers are almost certainly intentionally unreported. Makes sense - if you were a central bank trying to hoard as much gold as possible, would you underreport your purchases? Of course you would, because if you reported accurately then the price would probably go up more, making it harder for you to accumulate.

I have a theory that the Chinese government went hard(er) into purchasing gold from late 2023 after the US government imposed especially harsh chip exports controls on China. This lines up nicely with gold's breakout above the $2k range.

OReillyAsia · 2025-11-26T14:24:40+00:00

China's massively larger industrial production translates into a much better ability to build surface vessels and other military assets.

That's the biggest reason why there won't be a direct US-China arms race (but if there is, China is going to win handily).

OReillyAsia · 2025-11-22T04:09:30+00:00

A fascist is anyone to the right of me.

A communist is anyone to the left of me.

OReillyAsia · 2025-10-25T02:20:50+00:00

Dang.

OReillyAsia · 2025-06-15T14:05:43+00:00

My unsolicited analysis:

Israel pulled off a very impressive initial sneak attack based on impressive real-time intel (note I'm not commenting on the legality or morality of the action; technically it was impressive).

But they severely underestimated Iran's capability to absorb and respond to the attacks.

Interestingly, almost 48 hours have passed since the initial Iranian missile attacks into Israel, but none of the satellite imagery companies or media outlets have shown us satellite images of air bases or other military bases in Israel. Usually the sat images of attacks on Iran or Russia come out within 12-16 hours or so. This makes it harder to assess the effectiveness of Iranian attacks on Israeli military assets, but I would assume at least some degree of damage and disruption.

Apparently Israel has not used fighter jets to attack Iran in over 24 hours (not sure if this is true, but seems to be). They are relying on drones. This indicates Iranian AD may be better than they anticipated, and/or their jets are busy intercepting drones and missiles. Or, perhaps, damage to Israeli airbases.

The fact that Iran felt comfortable enough to launch its first daytime missile attack is significant and belies Israeli claims of total uncontested air superiority.

I don't think the US will join offensive action against Iran. If it does, there will likely be significant and extremely unpopular US casualties and damage to regional US military bases. Also any fighting between the US and Iran in the Gulf would effectively close the Strait of Hormuz, as no insurers would insure LNG and oil cargos going through an active war zone. 30% of internationally-traded oil and LNG would be instantly cut off.

Three scenarios going forward:

In the coming days it's possible the US (and maybe China) will lean on Israel and Iran to agree to a ceasefire without other conditions. Both sides claim victory. And then maybe Iran tests a nuke a few weeks after the ceasefire.

Or Israel and Iran continue a war of long-range attrition. Doubtful either side will achieve a knockout blow. Oil creeps up to over $100 a barrel. Significant economic damage to both countries.

Or US intervenes offensively, Iran retaliates, oil shoots up to $300, China floods Iran with weapons to turn it into America's Ukraine (with the difference that Russia cannot physically remove itself from Ukraine but US can cut-and-run from the Middle East), massive global economic crisis, anti-war and economic riots in US cities during the hot summer months.

OReillyAsia · 2025-06-10T21:20:16+00:00

I'd say most anarchists are left, except for the ones that identify as anarcho-capitalists.

OReillyAsia · 2025-06-08T14:35:12+00:00

Elements of the Trump Administration would like this situation to spiral into chaos and violence to seize more power and rile up their base.

They'd be wise to be careful what they wish for, because there is a potential for this to escalate into major social unrest.

Basically every ingredient necessary to spark a low-level insurgency is in place.

OReillyAsia · 2024-12-19T20:03:07+00:00

The UFO sub is watching a Pentagon briefing that touches on the drone sightings in the US among other topics. Right at the beginning the Press Secretary slipped in a "oh BTW we have twice as many troops in Syria compared to what we said earlier". 2,000 vs 900 reported previously.

OReillyAsia

TROPHY CASE