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Debt Rattle July 31 2025

Jul 312025
 
 July 31, 2025  Posted by at 9:48 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Peter Beard Francis Bacon on his Roof at 80 Narrow Street, London 1972

 

• Anti-Russia Sanctions Ultimatum Will Blow Up in US’ Face: Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)
• Trump Envoy Says This Time Oil Sanctions On Russia Will ‘Bite’ (ZH)
• Kremlin Points To Russian ‘Immunity’ From Sanctions (RT)
• US Media Owes Putin Apology – Fox News Host Greg Gutfeld (RT)
• FBI Chief Finds ‘Burn Bags’ of Russiagate Evidence In Secret Room At FBI (RS)
• More Americans Watch RT Than CNN – James Clapper (RT)
• From Union to Eunuch: How Trump Fixed EU’s Spine Problem (Amar)
• Ukrainians Can Stay In US – Trump (RT)
• Ukraine’s Mobilization Has Become A War On Civilians (RT)
• Europe’s Pledge To Buy $750BN In US Energy Is Mathematically Impossible (ZH)
• Trump Punishes Brazil With Sweeping Tariffs, Sanctions (ZH)
• Stunning Stats From the Border Crisis (Catherine Salgado)
• Democrats Are so Clueless About Men That It’s Hilarious (Margolis)
• The Camp of the Saints (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

layoffs

flynn

deal

terms

zaluzhny

mearsheimer

Bessent China

Devine

 

 

 

 

Trump is digging a deep hole. Wonder why. Tulsi Gabbard points out quite clearly that Russiagate had/has two victims: Trump and Russia. He should apologize for what the US did, but instead insists on naming himself as the only victim.

• Anti-Russia Sanctions Ultimatum Will Blow Up in US’ Face: Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)

Threats of new economic restrictions against Russia are not only “dangerous” and counterproductive, but a sign of the severe incoherence plaguing the Trump administration, the world-renowned US economist and political commentator says. “If the sanctions are actually applied, they are an escalation of the conflict, and therefore very dangerous. I do not believe that they will be effective. For example, I do not believe they will stop Russia from selling oil, gas, and other commodities to Asian markets. Yet, provocations and escalation often have unpredictable negative effects, and that could be true here as well,” Sachs told Sputnik. Undermining Washington’s strategic policy objectives, new restrictions “could expose” its “incompetence or accelerate the breakup” of US-led geopolitical and economic blocs, the Columbia University Center for Sustainable Development director believes.

“This is, in short, the wrong approach. We need diplomacy and negotiation to get to the root causes of the conflict, and solve them, not unworkable ultimatums based on the idea of an unconditional ceasefire,” Sachs said, highlighting Western powers’ refusal to discuss the “underlying reasons” for the Ukrainian crisis, from NATO’s eastward expansion and the US regime-change operation in Ukraine in 2014, to “the failure of the Western powers to honor the Minsk II agreement, among others.” “Instead, the Western powers now demand an unconditional ceasefire. Russia will not agree to this, nor will a new round of US sanctions compel Russia to agree to this,” Sachs stressed.

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It’s only round 19 after all.

• Trump Envoy Says This Time Oil Sanctions On Russia Will ‘Bite’ (ZH)

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Russia and Ukraine, has freshly warned in newly published comments that oil sanctions will have a serious and hard-hitting economic impact if properly enforced – though they haven’t been up till now, he suggested. His prediction comes after President Trump’s announcement early this week that he would shorten Russia’s deadline to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine down to ten days from the previous 50. “We haven’t really applied full pressure on the oil sector yet,” Kellogg said on The Record With Greta Van Susteren. “Russia’s a petrostate, exporting around 7 million barrels of oil daily, much of it through what’s called the ‘dark fleet,’” he continued.

Noting that India and China remain Russia’s two biggest oil customers, he described that the revenue from these exports helps finance the war in Ukraine and fund “huge bonuses” for soldiers being recruited as Russia expends manpower in a war of attrition. The proposed sanctions, including 100% tariff on countries purchasing Russian oil, will “start to bite”… “If that happens—and if Russian oligarchs start seeing the effects, especially with Russian sovereign assets largely held in Belgium—Putin will start feeling the pressure not just from within his military, but also from the oligarchs and internally,” Kellogg said. He gaged the current level of sanctions as moderate, rating them at about “six out of ten” while admitting that enforcement remains weak, which he put at a “three out of ten.”

Kellog called for strengthening enforcement if Washington hopes to make the sanctions more effective. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has shrugged off these new threats and Trump’s revised timeline, which is clearly aimed at drastically ratcheting the pressure on Moscow. “We’ve taken note of President Trump’s statement,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday. “The special military operation continues.” He added, “We remain committed to a peace process to resolve the conflict around Ukraine while safeguarding our national interests.”

As for what’s next after US new secondary sanctions are activated – probably little will change, at least initially. Russia has been able to weather the sanctions storm fairly well, while deepening its economic relations with major BRICS countries, and its ground advance in Ukraine east – and even into Sumy lately – has shown no signs of stopping. At home, store shelves are full, and average Russian citizens have been living their daily lives with little perceptible change in circumstances.

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“The first wave of sanctions began after the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014(!)..”

• Kremlin Points To Russian ‘Immunity’ From Sanctions (RT)

Russia has long been accustomed to Western pressure and sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after US President Donald Trump announced a shortened deadline for a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict and threatened new sanctions if Moscow does not comply. On Monday, Trump said he is moving up the deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine from 50 to “about 10 or 12 days,” adding that “there’s no reason in waiting.” He warned that failure to comply would result in new “sanctions and maybe tariffs,” targeting nations that buy Russian oil. Commenting on Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, Peskov signaled that Russia is not worried about new sanctions. “We have been living under a huge number of sanctions for quite a long time,” he stated.

”Of course, a certain immunity has already developed with regard [to sanctions],” he said, adding that Moscow “continues to take note of statements coming from President Trump.” Earlier, Peskov stressed that while Russia is “committed to the peace process to resolve the conflict around Ukraine,” it wants to ensure that its interests are respected. Moscow has insisted that a settlement must include Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and recognition of the new territorial reality on the ground. Russia remains the most sanctioned country in the world by far, with more than 10,000 imposed by Western countries. The first wave of sanctions began after the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, and the number rose sharply after the conflict escalated in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow should not be intimidated by sanctions, otherwise it could “lose everything,” noting that they often boomerang against those who imposed them.

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“People lost jobs, careers, friends. There need to be consequences.” They owe a lot of people an apology. Hell, they even include Putin.”

• US Media Owes Putin Apology – Fox News Host Greg Gutfeld (RT)

The US media needs to make “serious” amends to many people, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, for its role in spreading the Russiagate hoax, according to popular Fox News host Greg Gutfeld. The political commentator, comedian, and author was responding to recent revelations made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who released a trove of documents she described as “overwhelming evidence” of a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials – allegedly led by Barack Obama himself – to politicize information dismissed by US intelligence agencies and falsely accuse Donald Trump of colluding with Russia to win the election.

“We cannot let this go. They need to make serious amends because we are still living with the aftermath,” Gutfeld said on his latest show, which aired last weekend. “People lost jobs, careers, friends. There need to be consequences.” They owe a lot of people an apology. Hell, they even include Putin. According to Gutfeld, major American news media outlets “played the starring role in amplifying the subversive plot against the president of the United States.” He dismissed recent claims by the media accusing the Trump administration of trying to “rewrite history,” calling them an “attempt to shift culpability away from themselves and hide the lie they perpetuated for almost a decade.”

Earlier this month, a similar assessment was made by former CIA Director John Ratcliffe. In an interview with the New York Post, he cited an internal review suggesting that American public opinion had been manipulated through repeated media leaks and anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other major outlets.

Allegations of “Russian collusion” persisted in mainstream media coverage even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no evidence to support the claims. Moscow has repeatedly denied interfering in the US election. Gabbard described the Trump-Russia probe, widely referred to as Russiagate, as “a years-long coup” against Trump. The US president himself, who has consistently dismissed accusations of ties to Russia as fabricated, praised Gabbard for “exposing” the alleged plot and urged her to “keep it coming.”

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Great story. What will he find?

• FBI Chief Finds ‘Burn Bags’ of Russiagate Evidence In Secret Room At FBI (RS)

It has taken nearly a decade, but we may be just beginning to find out the immense scope and breadth of what amounts to a years-long soft coup being carried out by members of the Obama administration and other “deep state” players against President Donald Trump throughout much of his first term in office. Democrats, the same people who accused Trump of colluding with Russia for literally years, are now saying, “Move on.” However, new information is emerging almost daily, and we may be gaining a much clearer picture of what transpired. In June, FBI Director Kash Patel appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and discussed a “secret room” that contained documents and computer hard drives, which he claimed “no one had ever seen or heard of.” This has been described as a concealed sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).

On Wednesday, it was reported that in that room, Patel also found what were described as “burn bags” full of sensitive documents related to the Trump-Russia investigation. Burn bags are used to destroy documents that are designated as classified or higher. Sources claim the bags contained thousands of documents. One of the documents in question that was found is the classified annex to a final report from special counsel John Durham. Declassification of the annex is being done by a team of intelligence and law enforcement officials, including Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and acting National Security Agency Director William Hartman. Once this team is finished, the document will be handed over to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who will then make it public.

Some of the information contained in the classified annex reportedly includes the fact that the U.S. intelligence community had what it called “credible foreign sources,” indicating that the FBI would become a key player in spreading the supposed Trump-Russia collusion story before the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe was ever launched. The annex foretold the FBI’s subsequent actions, “with alarming specificity.” Fox News Digital reports that sources with knowledge of the annex stated, “Ultimately, the release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the U.S. government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia. Mere days after this intelligence was collected, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane. It’s really hard to see how Brennan, Clapper and Comey are going to be able to explain this away.”

It is unknown what other information was found in the documents. Patel and his team are working through them and will turn over any pertinent documents to Grassley. During his appearance with Rogan, Patel summed up exactly what was going on at James Comey’s FBI, saying: “Just think about this. Me, as director of the FBI, the former ‘Russiagate guy,’ when I first got to the bureau, found a room that Comey and others hid from the world in the Hoover Building, full of documents and computer hard drives that no one had ever seen or heard of. Locked the key and hid access and just said, ‘No one’s ever gonna find this place.'”

The list of questions the secret stash room brings up is almost endless. Did Comey and others really think no one was ever going to find it, or was it sloppiness, arrogance, or a combination of both? Who designated the documents to be burned? Did John Brennan or James Clapper tell Comey to burn them, or did Comey take it on himself to designate the documents to be burned? Why were they designated to be burned — and then why weren’t they burned? Are they the only copies? Or are there other copies and/or digitized versions of them?

And perhaps the biggest question of all: Does this mean those who designated the documents for burning are “busted?” A recent RedState Guest Editorial shed some light on if or when some consequences might befall those involved. Could the same statute, 18 US Code, Chapter 115, at Section 2384, that was used for January 6 defendants, be used on anyone involved here? It is early in the investigation, a lot of work remains to be
But whatever happens, if all of this has been found by Kash Patel and his team, one wonders what else James Comey (and others) may have hidden.

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RT is banned everywhere, so we have to doubt this. But if they did, they would be much better informed.

Can’t quite place it. Perhaps he said it at some point in the past?!

• More Americans Watch RT Than CNN – James Clapper (RT)

RT has a larger American audience than CNN, former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has claimed. Clapper was a key figure behind the Russiagate conspiracy theory, which included claims that RT helped influence the election of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Earlier this month, Clapper’s successor Tulsi Gabbard declassified a trove of Obama-era documents which reportedly detail efforts by the two-time US president and his senior officials to distort intelligence on unsubstantiated claims Moscow interfered in the 2016 US election. In an interview with CNN aired last week, Clapper doubled down on the conspiracy and accused Russia of unleashing “a very sophisticated, extensive and aggressive information operations campaign to influence public opinion” in the US.

”RT… has a bigger following in this country than this network [CNN] does” while accusing it of using what he described as “fake news implants,” he said. Clapper claimed that the alleged Russian campaign was aimed at “sow[ing] doubt, discord and distrust among the American public.” RT has faced increasing censorship and legal hurdles in the US since 2017, when the Department of Justice required RT America to register as a “foreign agent.” The RT America channel was then denied congressional press credentials before being forced to close down in 2022 following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict and the West’s decision to impose unprecedented sanctions on Russia.

RT content was later restricted and deleted from major digital platforms, including YouTube, where the network had ratcheted up some 5 billion views and several million subscribers, and Facebook. Last year, the US also indicted two Russians, identified as RT employees, with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), money laundering, and illegally funneling millions of dollars to US-based entities to covertly influence US audiences. Separately, the US sanctioned RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and other senior RT employees, over alleged efforts to influence the US election. Moscow has denounced the crackdown, calling it a testament to the degradation of US democracy and “its transformation into a totalitarian neoliberal dictatorship.”

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“The art of the kneel: How Trump’s ‘deal’ brought Brussels to heel..”

“Regal von der Leyen – with aristocratic nonchalance – besides, never cared to check if she even has a right or the practical means to promise away $1.35 trillion that, actually, only specific companies could make available. Hint: she does not..”

• From Union to Eunuch: How Trump Fixed EU’s Spine Problem (Amar)

[..] First, it has been inflicted not by an enemy, but by an “ally” and big-brother-in-“values”: This is the moment the NATO-EU underlings are falling over each other to keep paying for the US-instigated and failing proxy war in Ukraine while also building the equivalent of a dozen new Maginot Lines (this time including a “drone wall”) against the big, bad Russians. Yet it is Washington that has struck its eager-to-please sycophants in the back. The EU has also done its very worst to assist in its own trouncing. As Trump retainer Sebastian Gorka – himself, ironically, a European slavishly serving the US empire – has correctly put it, Europe has “bent the knee.”

And once it was all over, with the blood not yet dry on the floor, the EU picked itself up, dusted off its pantsuit and said thank you, in the best tradition of German chancellors who grin and scrape when American presidents tell them they will “put an end” to Germany’s vital infrastructure. We are talking, of course, about the so-called tariff and trade “deal” just concluded at the Scottish luxury golf resort of Turnberry, between the US, under self-declared “tariff man” and elected, if by very messy rules, President Donald Trump (also owner of that golf resort) and the EU represented – no one really knows on the basis of what mandate – by the pristinely unelected head of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The same one who promised us a “geopolitical” Commission and EU. If this is your “geopolitics,” it’s suicidal.

It was a bloody affair, but we can’t even call it the “Battle of Turnberry” because there was no fight before the EU went down. The gist of what really was an economic massacre is simple. After months of negotiations, seven trips to Washington and over 100 hours of empty talk by its touchingly useless trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic alone, the EU has brought home not a bad deal but pure, total defeat, as if it had been busy distilling the very essence of being on the losing side at Cannae, Waterloo, and Stalingrad: While Trump could enumerate a substantial list of big, expensive concessions made by the Europeans, von der Leyen got nothing, strictly nothing. This is not a “deal” at all. It is unconditional surrender. Without a preceding war.

In essence, the US will now levy “baseline” tariffs of 15% on most of its massive imports from the EU, including on cars. But there are exceptions! Already punitive American tariffs of 50% on steel and aluminum will remain in place. In return, for the US, selling in the giant if decaying EU market will be, in essence, free, at an average tariff rate of zero or, at best, below 1%. And to show its appreciation of such a fine, evenhanded “deal,” the EU sweetened it by throwing in some extras as if there is no tomorrow. Like at one of those late-night TV direct sales shows. Only that the EU slogan is not “order immediately and…” but “ruin us right now and get an extra $1.35 trillion just to make us even poorer and you even richer!”

That $1.35 trillion consists of two promises of direct EU tributes (yes, that is the correct, real term) to Washington: an additional – as Trump stressed – $600 billion which EU companies, surely dizzy with gratitude, will invest in the US; and $750 billion of especially dirty and expensive American LNG (liquefied natural gas) which they will buy to feed into whatever will remain of European industry. Meanwhile, Trump is making concessions – again – to China. China, of course, being the sovereign country and economic powerhouse that did what the EU completely failed to do: fight back against the Washington bullies. And now imagine what the EU could have achieved if it had worked with China to check US aggression. Instead, the recent EU-China summit in Beijing has shown that the EU is still not ready to abandon its arrogant stance of hectoring and threatening China, in particular in a futile attempt to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow.

The other thing the summit has made clear is that China will not budge. And why would it? The absurdity of all of the above is staggeringly obvious, even if there already are quarrels about the details. Because between Team Trump and Team von der Leyen, two card-carrying egomaniacs and narcissists, there was of course no one to take care of those. Regal von der Leyen – with aristocratic nonchalance – besides, never cared to check if she even has a right or the practical means to promise away $1.35 trillion that, actually, only specific companies could make available. Hint: she does not.

But what does it all mean? Here are three take-away points: First, we must, for once, agree with American regime change and war addicts, such as Anne Applebaum and Tim Snyder: European appeasement is a real thing. But not of Russia, which has never been appeased but provoked, needlessly fought, and, mostly, systematically denied even a fair hearing. No, what the Europeans appease is, obviously, the US, their ruthless and utterly contemptuous hegemon and worst enemy, from letting America and its cut-outs blow up Nord Stream to the Turnberry Fiasco.

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Does that include Zelensky?

• Ukrainians Can Stay In US – Trump (RT)

Ukrainian refugees will be allowed to remain in the US until the conflict between Moscow and Kiev ends, President Donald Trump has said, reversing concerns that his administration would revoke their protections. Roughly 240,000 Ukrainians have entered the US since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, many under the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) parole program introduced by former President Joe Biden. After taking office in January, Trump instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to terminate all categorical parole programs, including U4U, raising concerns that protections for Ukrainians could be revoked as part of a broader crackdown on immigration. Fears intensified after a public spat between Trump and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office in February.

In April, thousands of Ukrainians also received emails from the DHS stating they had to leave the US within seven days. The department later said the messages had been sent in error and did not reflect policy changes. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump was asked by a Deutsche Welle reporter whether Ukrainians would be allowed to stay in the US until the end of hostilities. “I think we will, yes, I will,” the president replied, noting that “we have a lot of people that came in from Ukraine, and we’re working with them.” Trump’s remarks come as he has issued a ten-day deadline for Moscow to agree to a peace deal with Kiev, threatening secondary sanctions if it does not. The Kremlin has said it remains open to talks but dismissed the ultimatum as unconstructive.

Several European countries have recently taken a harder line on Ukrainian refugees. In Germany, lawmakers have called for benefits for military-age men to be cut, while in Poland support for accepting Ukrainian refugees has dropped from 81% to 50% since 2023. The UK has begun rejecting asylum claims on the grounds that some regions of Ukraine are safe for return. The EU, meanwhile, is debating long-term plans for the more than 4.3 million Ukrainians who reside there amid rising social tensions and costs.

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“Kiev isn’t ‘losing’ men. It’s sending them to die..”

• Ukraine’s Mobilization Has Become A War On Civilians (RT)

To Western commentators, even scenes of forced conscription and street violence are not seen as failures of the Ukrainian government – but as further justification to continue the fight against Russia. That changed on July 6, when a man was beaten to death by draft officers in Ukraine’s Zakarpatie Region. His name was Jozsef Sebestyen – an ethnic Hungarian and citizen of Hungary. This time, the silence was broken. Hungary’s Foreign Ministry filed a formal protest. The president sent condolences to the family. And Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called on the EU to condemn the brutality of Ukraine’s mobilization system. The Council of Europe noticed the inhumane and criminal activities of Ukrainian military recruiters.

Human Rights Commissioner Michael O’Flaherty published a report highlighting systemic violations of the rights of conscripts. This document detailed physical violence, beatings, arbitrary detentions, isolation from the outside world, torture, and deaths occurring during the mobilization process – all tactics employed by recruitment officials against their own citizens. While the death of Sebestyen drew rare international attention, for most Ukrainians, violence at the hands of draft officials is a daily threat. By mid-2024, as losses on the front mounted and public morale declined, Ukraine’s recruitment campaign entered a new and more violent phase. Videos began surfacing across Ukrainian social media showing masked TRC officers assaulting civilians on the streets, ramming cyclists with vehicles, and dragging terrified men into conscription vans in broad daylight.

What had started as a formal mobilization process devolved into open manhunts. Occasionally, these harrowing encounters have ended in death. On March 3, a 48-year-old man died at the Kremenchuk recruitment center. His death was officially attributed to heart failure. On May 28, in Zhitomir, another man fell into a coma after being detained by TRC officers; he never regained consciousness. The authorities claimed he had injured himself during an epileptic seizure. On June 19, yet another man reportedly suffered a fatal heart attack at a TRC in Strye, Lviv Region. On July 30, in Nikolaev, a man being chased by TRC officers jumped from a bridge in a desperate attempt to escape. According to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation, he died instantly. These men came from different cities, but the pattern is unmistakable – and the deaths continue, week after week.

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If they fail to do it, Trump has another stick in the carrot game.

• Europe’s Pledge To Buy $750BN In US Energy Is Mathematically Impossible (ZH)

As part of the U.S.-EU trade deal agreed over the weekend, the EU committed to purchasing a mindblowing $750 billion worth of US energy products over three years ($250 per year) including LNG, oil, and nuclear fuel (again this is very big picture: neither side has detailed what was included in the energy deal – or whether it covered items such as energy services or parts for power grids and plants). There is just one problem: this number is laughably unrealistic because it would require the redirection of most US energy exports towards Europe and the EU has little control over the energy its companies import. Indeed, as Rabobank explains, unless energy prices increase materially, that figure remains beyond realistic expectations.

The EU imported roughly €65 billion worth of energy products from the U.S. in 2024, including €20 billion (35 million tons) of U.S. LNG and €44 billion of oil and oil products. To reach the required $250 billion per year, the EU would need to import roughly 67% of its energy needs from the US, based on 2024 Eurostat data. Even if the EU were to purchase all of its LNG from the U.S., the total would rise to only €40–50 billion, based on 2024 prices. This would require countries like Russia, Algeria, Qatar, Nigeria, and even Norway to completely relinquish their market share in the EU, while the U.S. government would need to mandate its LNG exporters to prioritize Europe. The shift in flows for crude oil and refined products would be even more substantial, as the EU currently imports only around 17% of its needs from the U.S.

Existing suppliers in the Middle East and India are unlikely to surrender market share without significant economic incentives, while U.S. refining and export capacity is already stretched. Capacity, cost, and competition will continue to shape energy flows, regardless of political intent. Reuters adds that “there is strong competition for U.S. energy exports as other countries need the supplies – and have themselves pledged to buy more in trade deals. Japan agreed to a “major expansion of U.S. energy exports” in its U.S. trade deal last week, the White House said in a statement. South Korea has also indicated interest in investing and purchasing fuel from an Alaskan LNG project as it seeks a trade deal.”

The flipside is just as laughable: total U.S. energy exports to all buyers worldwide in 2024 amounted to $318 billion. Of that, the EU imported a combined $76 billion of U.S. petroleum, LNG and solid fuels such as coal in 2024, according to Reuters’ calculations based on Eurostat data. More than tripling those imports was unrealistic, analysts said. Arturo Regalado, senior LNG analyst at Kpler, said the scope of the energy trade envisioned in the deal “exceeds market realities.” “U.S. oil flows would need to fully redirect towards the EU to reach the target, or the value of LNG imports from the US would need to increase sixfold,” Regalado said. Competition for U.S. energy could drive up benchmark US oil and gas prices and encourage U.S. producers to favour exports over domestic supply. That could make fuel and power costs more expensive, which would be a political and economic headache for U.S. and EU leaders.

Meanwhile, the EU estimates its member countries’ plans to expand nuclear energy would require hundreds of billions of euros in investments by 2050. Its nuclear reactor-related imports, however, totalled just 53.3 billion euros in 2024, trade data shows. The energy pledge reflected the EU’s analysis of how much U.S. energy supply it could accommodate, a senior EU official told Reuters, but that would depend on investments in U.S. oil and LNG infrastructure, European import infrastructure, and shipping capacity. “These figures, again, are not taken out of thin air. So yes, they require investments,” said the senior official, who declined to be named. “Yes, it will vary according to the energy sources. But these are figures which are reachable.”

There was no public commitment to the delivery, the official added, because the EU would not buy the energy – its companies would. Private companies import most of Europe’s oil, while a mix of private and state-run companies import gas. The European Commission can aggregate demand for LNG to negotiate better terms, but cannot force companies to buy fuel. That is a commercial decision. “It’s just unrealistic,” ICIS analysts Andreas Schröder and Ajay Parmar said in written comments to Reuters. “Either Europe pays a super high non-market reflective price for U.S. LNG or it takes way too much LNG volumes, more than it can cope with.” The United States is already the EU’s top supplier of LNG and oil – thanks to the Biden-inspired war in Ukraine and the CIA blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia – shipping 44% of EU LNG needs and 15.4% of its oil in 2024, according to EU data.

Raising imports to the target would require a U.S. LNG expansion way beyond what is planned through 2030, said Jacob Mandel, research lead at Aurora Energy Research. “You can add on capacity,” Mandel said. “But if you’re talking about the scale that would be necessary to meet these targets, the $250 billion, then it’s not really feasible.” Europe could buy $50 billion more of U.S. LNG annually as supply increases, he said. Amusingly, higher EU fuel purchases would, however, run counter to forecasts for EU demand to decline as it shifts to clean energy, analysts said. “There is no major need for the EU to import more oil from the U.S., in fact, its oil demand peaked a number of years ago,” Schröder and Parmar said.

* * *
According to Rabobank, the most plausible outcome of the trade deal’s energy provisions is increased European participation in U.S. LNG projects (which would also have been achieved without the deal). Unlike crude and refined products, LNG offers scalable, long-term opportunities through joint investments in liquefaction capacity and infrastructure. European firms are likely to commit capital to U.S. terminals to secure future supply and diversify away from Russian gas. However, this will not materially alter market balances over the next five years and by then Trump will be long gone.

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50%nis crippling.

• Trump Punishes Brazil With Sweeping Tariffs, Sanctions (ZH)

In a huge move which the Brazilian government has blasted as rank political interference in its internal affairs, the Trump administration on Wednesday pulled the trigger on previously threatened sweeping tariffs on Brazil, and in addition sanctioned the judge overseeing the trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who has been accused of plotting a coup – and remains currently on trial – after rejecting the election results which brought President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to power. “Today, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes (de Moraes), who has used his position to authorize arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppress freedom of expression,” the US Treasury statement reads.

“Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against US and Brazilian citizens and companies,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions—including against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Today’s action makes clear that Treasury will continue to hold accountable those who threaten U.S. interests and the freedoms of our citizens.” It is quite significant that the Treasury statement openly names Bolsonaro as essentially subject of a political witch hunt. Trump himself has previously emphasized these precise words in several statements.

The outspoken former president, who has long been dubbed by some regional media as ‘the Brazilian Donald Trump’ – has even lately been ordered by the court to wear an ankle monitor after declaring him a flight risk. Bolsonaro recently returned from what was essentially political exile in Florida, only to be detained and stand trial once to his home country. This action is very unique, given that compared to other tariffs recently introduced by Trump, these measures against Brazil are explicitly political, which puts the two countries’ long positive trade relations in jeopardy. But Moraes is now in the spotlight, and pressure could build for Lula to made a political sacrifice and simply dismiss and make this all go away, to preserve economic status quo with the United States.

The US has sought to present this as more than just political and in protection of Trump-ally Bolsonaro, however, as the Treasury also cited Brazil’s “unusual and extraordinary” actions as harmful to American businesses, free speech, and economic interests. Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president, has defended Trump’s actions, saying it’s not about revenge, but justice. But certainly revenge and punishment is seems a big motivating factor given the recent history involving MAGA and Moraes, and recent very public clashes… “The time has come for Congress to act. Broad, general, and unrestricted amnesty is urgently needed to restore peace, restore freedom to those persecuted, and show the world that Brazil still believes in democracy,” he said in reaction on X.

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“By the time Fiscal Year 2024 ended, the immigration court backlog had an appalling and obviously unmanageable 4 million cases, which represented a number nine times greater than a decade before..”

• Stunning Stats From the Border Crisis (Catherine Salgado)

The massive immigration backlog is finally dropping like Democrats’ popularity, and apprehensions at the border have reached historic lows as the Trump administration keeps a tight hand on the erstwhile disastrous border crisis. With the immigration court backlog down by more than 300,000 and apprehension numbers for border officers plummeting, it is evident that the Joe Biden border crisis is rapidly becoming a matter of the past. Now we just have to make a dent in the tens of millions of illegal aliens who have been breaking the law for years to live in our country and take our money and jobs. Hopefully, Donald Trump will live up to his previous promises of mass deportations of all illegal aliens, a policy that at least 56% of Americans support.

Center for Immigration Studies’ Law and Policy Fellow Andrew R. Arthur emphasized the significance of how much the immigration backlog has gone down. The Biden administration let practically anyone who showed up at either the northern or southern borders in, giving them a meaningless court date for sometime in the future that everyone knew most of the migrants would not honor anyway, and which precluded judicial diligence. The backlog for immigration grew way out of proportion; then Donald Trump came back into office. Today, fewer than 450,000 cases [the 2015 number] in the immigration court backlog is an almost unthinkable dream. By FY 2020, the backlog had risen to 1.52 million pending cases – though even that figure has become a misty watercolor memory of the way the immigration courts were not so long ago.

By the time Fiscal Year 2024 ended, the immigration court backlog had an appalling and obviously unmanageable 4 million cases, which represented a number nine times greater than a decade before, Arthur wrote. The main driver was the millions of migrants Border Patrol agents and CBP officers encountered at the Southwest border under the last administration, who poured into the United States illegally as the then-president and his DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, ignored congress’s migrant-detention mandates. Though those aliens were released, most (a point I’ll get to) were placed into removal proceedings before increasingly overworked immigration judges. If amnesty is your goal (and it was the express goal of Biden’s fellow partisans), crushing the courts is the best way to get there.

Fortunately, we no longer have a president who is trying to ensure amnesty for as many people as possible. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks touted other encouraging statistics at the start of this month. In June, there were 8,039 apprehensions altogether, versus last year, when the number hit 11,414 after only the first three days of June. June 28 also saw the lowest number for single-day apprehensions on record at 137, while authorities estimate that “gotaways,” or illegals who evaded Border Patrol, likely went down by as much as 90% compared to June 2024. The Biden administration was constantly engaging in catch-and-release; the Trump administration had zero releases. This is exactly what Americans voted for in 2024.

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At the core: men don’t want men in girls’ dressing rooms.

• Democrats Are so Clueless About Men That It’s Hilarious (Margolis)

Democrats are still scratching their heads over why young men keep slipping through their fingers. After years of trading in empty promises and socialist fantasies, the Left was stunned in 2024 when young men broke ranks and cast their votes for Donald Trump. Satellites could probably pick up the wailing from Washington. Who could possibly be surprised that young men are turning away from a party that openly sneers at masculinity, constantly lectures about so-called “male privilege,” and blames every societal issue on “the patriarchy”? Instead, gaggles of overpaid consultants huddled in generic hotel conference rooms to solve the Gen Z male riddle as if it were a malfunctioning piece of software. Remember when Democrats launched a $20 million effort just to figure out how to talk to men?

Despite the hefty price tag, their messaging keeps missing the mark because it’s rooted in the same elite, progressive ideology that alienated working-class men in the first place. Instead of addressing real concerns like economic opportunity, national security, or cultural respect, Democrats are throwing money at consultants and focus groups while ignoring the actual values and frustrations of male voters. The more they spend trying to rebrand themselves, the more obvious it becomes that they don’t understand or even particularly like the men they claim to be trying to reach. And yet the left still doesn’t understand what’s happening. The Washington Post certainly doesn’t. After acknowledging that Republicans won young men in the last election and that young Latino and black men in particular swung hard toward Trump, the paper still struggled to grasp the why.

“What happened?” it asks. Young men in swing states say the Democratic Party abandoned them, leaving them feeling helpless in providing for their families as prices rose and jobs evaporated. They felt no sympathy from the left, who they say brushed away their legitimate economic woes by citing their male privilege. They acknowledge historical patriarchy but assert that doesn’t make them invincible in a job market where graduate unemployment is concentrated among men. Those are the latest findings in focus groups conducted by the centrist pro-Democratic group Third Way and HIT Strategies with men ages 18 to 29 from swing states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The men were lower-propensity voters — more likely to turn out in a presidential year than a midterm — and voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump last year.

And here’s the key part: Men feeling left behind elicits eye rolls in many corners of the Democratic Party. The gender pay gap persists, with women making 85 percent of what men earned in 2024, despite greater female participation in the workforce than in past decades. The numerous calls from party leaders to appeal to the “manosphere” and appear less “woke” also elicit concerns that that means throwing marginalized groups under the bus on issues like trans or women’s rights. Let’s drop the polite fiction: The Democratic Party doesn’t respect young men or take their concerns seriously. Men, Democrats say, have privilege. If you want to win back men, you don’t do it by rolling your eyes at the issues that concern them or by peddling the debunked gender-pay-gap narrative.

Here’s the cold, hard truth. You cannot run a political party as a cult for the fringe and expect the mainstream, especially young men who still believe in hard work and fundamental truth, to stomach your nonsense forever. When Democrats choose to cater to purple-haired activists with preferred pronouns, bureaucratic meddlers, and billionaire tech lords, they make it crystal clear who counts and who doesn’t.

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“Thirteen years ago Anjem Chaudhry, a leader of Muslim immigrant-invaders in England, said that the British would be under Muslim rule and Shariah law by 2027.”

• The Camp of the Saints (Paul Craig Roberts)

England is rapidly disappearing as a white ethnic nation. Eighteen British cities, including London, Manchester, Sheffield, Brighton, Oxford, and Salisbury have Muslim immigrant-invader mayors. Twelve year old Courtney Wright was sent home from school in Warwickshire for wearing a Union Jack dress to school on Culture Celebration Day. She was supposed to be celebrating the cultures of immigrant-invaders, not English culture. For her offense, she was sent home. In Britain, Culture Celebration Day excludes British culture, a hateful racist thing. The disintegration of ethnic Britain is approaching light speed. Less than one week ago the British government posted a job opening for a Shariah Law Administrator.

Thirteen years ago Anjem Chaudhry, a leader of Muslim immigrant-invaders in England, said that the British would be under Muslim rule and Shariah law by 2027. With the largest cities governed by Muslim mayors and the British government’s job posting for a Shariah law administrator, Chaudhry’s prediction seems on the money. The current ethnic British protests against the overrunning of their country are being put down by the white British police. The situation is the same in the US, Scandinavia, and Western Europe.

The state of Maine has hired an immigrant-invader as a police officer with the authority to arrest American citizens. California police departments have been hiring illegals for more than a year. The US now has immigrant-invaders as judges, prosecutors, and university professors. As Chaudhry said, as Muslim power grows, we will replace Western law and social mores. This is what French novelist Jean Raspail predicted in 1973 and Enoch Powell predicted in 1968. The dumbshit Western intellectuals snickered and pointed their fingers. Having been failed by its intellectual class, which endorsed Sodom & Gomorrah and a Tower of Babel, Western civilization disintegrated. What is left of it?

The belief system has been destroyed. Law and media have been weaponized against white ethnics. Free speech has been suppressed. A merit-based society has been replaced by an institutionalized DEI society that discriminates against white ethnicities. Schools teach white kids that they are racists and must stand aside for people of color. Feminists have destroyed the white family, thus dispensing with the basis of white society. Readers can add to the disasters that we have allowed to be inflicted on us. With the wars that are being stirred up, it appears that white ethnicities are on the verge of being exterminated. Where is a leader when Western civilization needs one?

Perhaps social Darwinism is true after all. People without survival instincts do not survive.

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