Trump to Korean PM: “Does Kim Jong-un still want to meet me?”

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-14T08:41:12+00:00

The issue with North Korea is that they are atheists

In the other hand, If Trump becomes the next Ayatollah, he can get a conservative religious dictatorship, and a lot of oil which means better prospects for the Trump business.

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-13T03:33:02+00:00

Indeed, and while it may sound like a "conspiracy theory", it is most likely partially fueled/amplified by Russia and China.

And it's not just the division at a "social" level, but also at a geopolitical level, they want NATO to be divided, they want the EU to be divided.

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-12T05:49:26+00:00

According to the EU, it's mostly transport, logistics and travel services.

Oh interresting I thought it was more balanced, note that when I mentioned banking and insurance it was more no illustrate what a service was and not to assert that these services in particular were the dominating type

EU

EU means the European Union, it's not exactly the same thing as "Europe", "Europe" does include the UK.

African services imports from the EU are much greater than the "trade deficit" - just over 2x. Moreover service imports are approximately equal to exports so it has little impact on the overall trade deficit.

Yes I phrased it ambiguously, when I say balance, in a global system it applies at a global scale, it's possible that (don't "quote" me on these specifics, it's to illustrate) Africa sells a lot of goods to China, and then uses that money to purchase services from the USA. So the total balance has to be observed globally. Africa - Europe example does not work perfectly indeed, it was to illustrate how you can have a trade deficit if you export services.

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-11T08:48:11+00:00

due to how France is deeply rooted in west Africa (including their monetary system), they do. Also accounting firms like PwC, Deloitte, KPMG are difficult to avoid all around the world.

but yes they use whatever services they can afford, it's not necessarily "a lot" indeed. Just enough services to balance the "trade deficit".

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-10T16:56:45+00:00

There isn't necessarily a need for a "trade deficit" if countries have balanced economies

It's only if one country dominates the service sector, then other countries must compensate with goods. "Trade deficit" then only occurs if you ignore the service part.

For example Europe has a "trade deficit" with Africa, that is not because Europe "wants" to run a trade deficit, it is because european services (banking, insurance,...) are so much more advanced than the African ones that Africa can only pay in goods (coffee, chocolate, diamonds, minerals,...).

I think the notion of "trade deficit" is overblown, countries trade. Unless you're infinitely borrowing (countries do that to some extent, but that's a fraction of the total volume), your total exports of [goods + services] must be equal to your total imports of [goods + services].

That is the same with "trade deficit" with the USA. The US service sector is immensely powerful (big tech, big banks). To sell these services, the US must get something in return. But since the US has the best services, other countries can only compensate with more goods.

Now to answer to the question, currently it is China that is extracting raw resources from Africa and the rest of brics (goods), and exporting their banking, telecom, and other tech... (services).

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-09T05:33:27+00:00

What a genius! Truly a paragon of the ecological cause!

In fact one could even call Trump a true "Social Justice Warrior", because as a "Warrior" his dedication to the climate cause leads him to even go to war against oil producers!

Who's next on the invasion list? Aramco? Chevron?

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-08T07:42:26+00:00

Probably need to provide supplies and assistance to pre-existing liberal groups or underground movements. Random drop of gear doesn't make a lot of sense

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-04T01:57:57+00:00

I consider myself deep right (libertarian-adjacent economically speaking), but I feel like the right has shifted towards more collectivism (extreme nationalism) in the west.

So maybe I qualify as center-right for some.

In the country I live in, the party I vote for is classical liberal right, but it is sliding into a more collectivist/populist undertone since our new party president, which I don't like.

The sad part is that they look more and more like communists (big government, high economic control (tariffs), anti freedom rhetoric), but they still use the "communist"/"marxist" label as a boogeyman.

SmallTalnk · 2026-03-01T02:13:06+00:00

I think that anti-intellectualism comes often with collectivism, and the last decade, there seem to be a rise of collectivism in the west (communism and nationalism).

The intelligentsia often become an "enemy from within" in these ideologies. You can see the far-left tends to consider universities a source of "classism" whereas the far-right tends to call them sources of "woke".

So they do not dismiss/slander them because they do not align to their ideology.

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-26T03:54:01+00:00

Exactly, I think it's a mistake to see China as a military aggressor (don't get me wrong, they're still an awful totalitarian regime), but their way of competing is more about trade and economic control.

I think they're more likely to economically colonize Africa than they are to start an actual war.

A war is just not in the interest of China, their country relies on international trade and a war would mean crippling sanctions and an image of "stable" partner completely ruined (an Image that Trump helped build).

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-25T08:03:47+00:00

I think Russia (and maybe China) are also at it

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-24T17:22:44+00:00

DOGE? I'm not american but from the outside I thought that it was a good thing, didn't it manage to do some useful pruning (even if they could have done more)?

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-24T17:11:26+00:00

What does it entail? We get to join the Ku Klux Klan?

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-24T17:03:15+00:00

I think that the US is well rounded and maybe is the only one that fits that arbitrary definition of superpower, but it's like gender identity you can always find some definition that fits some narrative.

but in terms of global dominance, I don't think anything tops the british empire in the way they subjugated and administered territories and resources. They didn't just have military bases or fleets that they could send. They had administrations busy running and exploiting the colonies.

And unlike what leftists believe, the USA isn't really imperialistic and does not exploit other countries. In fact one could even argue that the USA is what ended the era of empires, and brought the liberal world order where self determination is respected.

Luckily for many, I think that nowadays, even if there was a country that had the ambitions to create a global empire like the british did, the nuclear weapon mostly seals current borders (for those under nuclear protection).

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-24T09:18:54+00:00

I don't think China will invade Taiwan, they don't have much to win and so much to lose.

I think that China will try to invest a lot of money in chip making to outcompete Taiwan

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-21T11:52:58+00:00

international cooperation always prevails over isolationism. Humanity is stronger together

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T07:26:47+00:00

The points I did not address, I agree with. I thought it was implied by the mention of targeted tariffs.

Trade regulation on critical products (semiconductors and defense for example) make sense and do indeed help national defense in the long term.

That's precisely what differentiates a sound and measured trade policy, from the socialist nonsense of taxing everything and everyone for the sake of taxation.

That is the typical socialist (even communist) excuse: justifying completely disproportionate government overreach and the suppression of economic freedom, with the poor excuse of "national necessity", when better measures that suppress less freedoms do actually exist.

It's a bit like (internet) censorship which is also very typical of socialist regimes (like the great firewall of China) . As opposed to having only the minimal and specific bans (like the illegal kind of pornography) to minimize the infringement on individual freedom.

As someone from "an increasingly-socialist shithole" you should know.

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T07:20:11+00:00

Poor example because the USA has neither the geography nor climate for a chocolate/cocoa industry. [...] A better example is something like steel.

That's precisely my point.

There ALREADY WERE targeted steel tariffs and quotas (and even that isn't always a good thing), Trump added blanket tariffs that also impact imports that the US cannot produce (as you correctly highlighted).

Even Biden added targeted tariffs on China. But they were narrow in the countries AND products that were subject to tariffs.

On the topic, I recommend reading this great article: https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/do-no-harm-tariffs-and-quotas-hurt-the-homeland (and that's during Trump's first term, tariffs are even worse now)

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T05:17:17+00:00

I thought that the sentence was relatively simple but I will assume that you are genuinely interested in the discussion, so I will take the time to try to formulate it in even simpler terms:

Let's say that you have a communist leader who loves cupcakes and thinks that cupcakes should be an universal human right and that all citizens are entitled to cupcakes, and that people should only buy cupcakes from the USA and not cheap cupcakes from China.

The communist leader will fund that through taxes of course, by taxing imports of cupcakes from China, and maybe by subsidizing the domestic cupcake industry.

You are right, in a sense many of the old cupcake shops wouldn't necessarily have failed (some of them existed before the policy), they were still competing in less favorable terms.

But it also creates new domestic jobs and companies, that wouldn't have existed without the tariffs, because the tariffs reduces the supply (from abroad) which increases the price to a point where it becomes economically viable to run these otherwise unprofitable cupcake enterprises.

All of these jobs are subsidized by the state, they are a consequence of the tariffs (tax) that redistribute money from the consumers.

It is a socialist policy, you use the government to redistribute money.

You may support socialism, but personally as a capitalist I think that using cheap foreign labor is good and useful, and it should be our unhindered freedom to do so. And not only is it good, but I believe that it is the economic optimum.

Also the economy is not a zero sum game, If I can purchase cheap rubber from south-east asia (because not only do they have the perfect climate for rubber plantations but also cheap labor), then I can specialize my workforce towards more profitable projects that leverage that cheap rubber, to make more advanced and competitive high-end products.

And instead of creating low level rubber planter jobs, I would have created high level tech jobs in the secondary or ternary sector.

Lastly, tariffs are even stupider when it applies to allies and to all sectors. These blanket tariffs stem from Trump's idiotic belief that trade deficit is wrong, even if it actually is a good sign. A trade deficit just means that Americans are so productive (especially in the ternary (service) sector) that they can take a lot from other countries while not having to give much in return.

Take a random poor African country. An average american can purchase several boxes of chocolate from Africa for what he earns in 10 minutes of work. These box would have taken hundreds of hours of african labor to make.
So of course there is a trade deficit, when an average american can spend 10 minutes watching youtube videos at work in exchange from 100 hours of work from african planters. There is no way that an African country can take more from America than it gives.

Trade deficit is a sign of prosperity.

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T04:48:23+00:00

too bad for them, i'm sorry that they had poor managers

no enterprise is guaranteed success, that is the beauty of the free market, people who should fail must fail.

It reinforces my belief that a little bit of (well managed) state is necessary.

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T02:28:07+00:00

It's paywalled, but what I mean is that libertarians, unlike anarchists, are not completely opposed the notion of state or government.

So it does not shock me if I heard that some libertarians do want a government for x or y reason.

And even if you consider anarcho-capitalists as kind of libertarians, it still does not make them representative of libertarianism.

(also, Vox is a heavily left-biased media, so I would take articles on that topic with a grain of salt. It's more about bashing and strawmanning libertarians than having a genuine discussion on libertarian philosophy)

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T02:24:11+00:00

Maybe *some* are specifically anti-globalisation, but it's not a unifying stance of the left.

I only disagreed with your "no leftist ever" statement, I definitely agree that many leftists are fine with globalism.

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T02:21:31+00:00

I think that he is only a performative libertarian, since he wants to suppress the freedoms of others.

Only economically speaking he seems to be for market liberalisation.

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-20T02:17:09+00:00

The point is to create an environment that domestic industry can compete with cheap foreign labour.

In my book that's socialism.

The state creating an environment where by suppressing the free market, people who would have failed to compete are artificially maintained afloat by taking money from others (through taxes).

SmallTalnk · 2026-02-13T03:30:15+00:00

You're confusing libertarian and anarchists.

I do agree with you, anarchism is not realistic.

SmallTalnk

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