Key aspects of Trump's threat to the BRICS
Dec 5, 2024 , 2:35 pm .
Donald Trump could take counterproductive measures for his own country (Photo: Carlo Allegri / Reuters)
Donald Trump decided to dust off his first book, The Art of the Deal, to apply some of its axioms in the international and economic field, just over a month after his new inauguration as president. With his particular style, he made a threat to the BRICS on November 30 :
"The idea that the BRICS countries are trying to get away from the dollar, while we stand by and watch, is over. We demand a commitment from these countries that they will not create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other to replace the mighty US dollar or else they will face 100% tariffs and say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy. They can go find another 'sucker'! There is no chance whatsoever of the BRICS replacing the US dollar in international trade, any country trying should say goodbye to the US."
So far, only Russia has officially responded to the intimidation. Through Dmitry Peskov , the Kremlin spokesman, Moscow responded:
"If the United States resorts to force to compel countries to use the dollar, it will likely further reinforce these tendencies to move to national currencies. The dollar is beginning to lose its appeal for a number of states."
Peskov added that "this is a process of erosion of the dollar's attractiveness, which is actually underway and gaining momentum."
The Kremlin's response corresponds, in effect, to a trend that has been worsening since 2022, when the United States, supported by the European Union, issued a series of destructive sanctions against the Russian Federation in response to the Special Military Operation in Ukraine and Donbas, measures that allowed the theft of some 325 billion dollars in Russian assets , including bank accounts, real estate, stocks, bonds and investments, most of them located in the European Union .
Meanwhile, Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said that "no one will win a trade war" over the tycoon's previous comments about raising tariffs on Chinese products by 10% as soon as he returned to the White House.
Both countries have increased trade levels to record levels over the past two years , increasingly using national currencies — especially the renminbi — and decreasing the dollar's share in cross-border transactions.
Reports that China is preparing to be sanctioned by the United States due to tensions with Taiwan, taking into account Russia's experience in this matter, would confirm that there is indeed an unrenounceable tendency to carry out alternatives to the dollar in commercial and financial movements between the most influential countries of the BRICS .
During the summit of the multipolar bloc in the Russian city of Kazan last October, President Vladimir Putin said that the coercive framework imposed by Washington on his country has generated a response in the search for alternatives to make and receive cross-border payments.
Thus, the Russian Ministry of Finance announced this year the creation of BRICS Bridge , a unified payment system, still under development, which would provide the possibility of replacing the mediation of traditional banking institutions and would facilitate the transmission of financial messages through a digital platform and under the use of national currencies.
There are also plans for a system for accounting, trading and investment activity called Brics Clear, as well as Brics Pay, a digital payment service for foreign citizens that would facilitate transactions with cards, including Mastercard and Visa, as well as the Russian Mir.
In response to these initiatives, the next US president decided to press the preemptive alarm button with a new tariff threat, which could be the result of a misunderstanding, an overreaction or even a backfire.
It's not the first time
However, this would not be the first time that Trump has announced an increase in trade tariffs on the United States in the event of an attempt to replace the dollar on an international scale.
What he raised through digital networks was done previously during the electoral campaign, in an economic forum, this time without referring explicitly to the BRICS.
He also proposed new tariffs of 25% on products from Mexico and Canada, with which the United States has free trade agreements, due to what he believes are "trade injustices."
De-dollarization in the making
A Bloomberg article commented that Trump's action is an unnecessary provocation since, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the dollar is used in 90% of commercial transactions in the world.
However, the tariff threat could be based on a growing lack of confidence in the US currency, as observed by future policymakers in Washington, the New York newspaper said in a note.
But the supremacy of the dollar as a widely traded currency and reserve asset must be acknowledged. Russian publication Nezabisimaya Gazeta comments :
"No matter how hard some regions try to reduce their dependence on the US dollar, the dollar remains strong globally," says Natalia Pyrieva, an analyst at Tsifra Broker. "In her opinion, American politicians will not be able to influence foreign trade relations between the BRICS countries, but the BRICS countries will not be able to give up the dollar to any great extent. Nevertheless, many developing countries continue to reduce the share of the dollar in their international settlements," says Oleg Kalmanovich, chief analyst at Neomarkets."
Putin himself said in Kazan that if it were not for the financial blockade against Russia and the weaponization of the dollar, his country would continue to use the US currency for reasons of convenience.
Thus, the consensus among the leaders of the BRICS countries seems to point not towards replacing the dollar as the hegemonic currency but towards generating alternatives due to Washington's current and potential financial and trade wars against the rest of the world.
When other options emerge, the United States responds in accordance with the policy established by the government in power. Since 2015, Trump has been campaigning for the increase of tariffs as a protectionist measure; when he was in the White House, he implemented only some of his economic promises, including the increase of tariffs on high-tech products from China.
Furthermore, the imposition of destructive sanctions on Iran and Venezuela during his administration gave rise to our countries, together with the BRICS, joining the development of alternative financial instruments out of necessity.
Although de-dollarization is a trend, it is certainly still in its infancy and is not an imminent threat to the United States. It is not a reality that will materialize in the short term, but it is a factor to be considered in Washington in the medium and long term. All of this while the pillars of the dollar remain intact: coercion, so-called "trust" and the petrodollar.
The first pillar is a structural policy of the United States, which maintains an aggressive attitude in the face of the decline of its global hegemony. The second has been broken by the sanctions measures against Russia and other countries, whose assets in international financial organizations have been frozen and even stolen. The third seems unchanged, although China is appearing with the petroyuan on the energy scene.
Why Trump insists on increasing tariffs
Since the US ended the gold/dollar parity in the 1970s, a process of extreme liberalization of the US economy and finances has begun. The country has had more than four consecutive decades of trade deficits that, according to economist Richard Koo , have caused losses "equivalent to 153% of GDP since 1980," some $41 trillion at the current rate.
Koo warns that, as a result, it generated a very strong dollar on the international stage, but on a local scale "trade deficits are directly related to the manufacturing industry and involve a huge number of manual jobs, while in the financial sector a relatively small group of people handle large volumes of money."
Trump's economic logic - or rather, that of his advisors - is that the more finished products are imported, the less power the local manufacturing industry, one of the prides of the North American country in the mid-twentieth century, has. It is a phenomenon that our country knows very well historically, as a result of what Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo called the "Venezuela effect . "
The tycoon's threat to impose tariffs on products from BRICS countries is in line with his team's economic vision. However, a 100% tariff would seriously affect the "wonderful American economy" - a major producer of finished energy goods, various sectors in agriculture and technology associated with the electronics industry, and not much else - and also financial confidence in the dollar, since it would imply a lower use of the US currency in commercial transactions between BRICS countries, even though 88% of the business volume within the group is done in national currencies .
But the main buyer of Chinese exports is the United States, according to an April 2024 report by the World Trade Organization. Thus, the 100% tax on Chinese products would produce a significant imbalance in American consumption, as well as in its imports of rare earths — important for the electronics industry and high-tech — a market in which the Asian country is the world leader.
And, as we mentioned, China has been preparing for a scenario of trade and financial restrictions during the new Trump era.
In this sense, the BRICS will continue to create new financial architectures and use their national currencies for investment and trade. Would the supposed expert negotiator and tycoon be willing to empty the US economy of the necessary products from those countries and cause a lower use of the dollar in the productive and commercial world of Asia and Africa? Will he assume the costs of the aforementioned currency ceasing to be "powerful"? Would the United States shoot itself in the foot again with more financial and trade wars?
https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/lo ... -los-brics
(Trump looks like a toad swallowing a large bug. Just a herpetological observation...)
The road to tightening sanctions is full of obstacles
Dec 3, 2024 , 3:20 pm .
US oil companies launch offensive to avoid reversing current sanctions status quo (Photo: Archive)
Last week, two high-profile publications, one from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the other from Foreign Affairs , highlighted key movements within the United States political and economic spectrum regarding Venezuela. Both outlined how certain sectors are promoting a more pragmatic approach towards the country for Donald Trump's new presidential term in 2025.
The pieces, published on November 28, one written by WSJ correspondent Kejal Vyas and the other by Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez , agree that the "maximum pressure" strategy implemented during his first term failed not only because it failed to achieve the "regime change" sought but also because of its repercussions in the region, especially in terms of migration and energy instability .
"A return to that failed strategy would be a grave mistake. Sanctions rarely achieve regime change," said Rodriguez , an opposition economist, in his speech for Foreign Affairs . In similar terms, former diplomat Thomas Shannon told the WSJ: "The challenge is how to disengage from an approach that failed to generate political change in the country, impoverished more people and accelerated the migration of millions of Venezuelans."
Although Trump's agenda towards Venezuela remains uncertain, the former president's recent statements and the appointment of figures such as Marco Rubio to the post of Secretary of State point to a scenario marked by tensions and hostility, rather than a pragmatic approach.
In this context, for months the US oil sector has redoubled its efforts in Washington to moderate the illegal sanctions affecting the Venezuelan hydrocarbon sector. Among the most notable movements are:
July 2024 : Just days before the elections in Venezuela, oil executives expressed their preference for the continuity of the government of President Nicolás Maduro, seen as a guarantee to protect their investments.
November 2024 : Leaks reveal that industry lobbyists are urging Trump to abandon the "maximum pressure" policy and negotiate a swap: "More oil, fewer migrants."
These approaches reflect a certain sense of urgency to ensure the regular performance of investments in the country and guarantee a sustained flow of Venezuelan oil , given the neuralgic position of Caracas in the global energy market and the varied catalogue of types of hydrocarbons it offers.
In short, it is becoming increasingly clear that a resistance front has emerged within the US energy sector that advocates for the continuation and expansion of the licensing scheme granted to companies to operate with Venezuela, which not only benefits the companies involved but also the end consumer, by guaranteeing constant access to strategic products, such as high-quality asphalt.
Reversing these exceptions could destabilize the domestic energy market, increase operating costs and generate uncertainty for investors.
Venezuela as a piece in Trump's energy policy
Despite the weight and influence of the oil lobby , there is also significant resistance within the political and business sectors that advocate maintaining, or even tightening, sanctions against Venezuela. These obstacles come largely from factions aligned with a political vision of confrontation, in which any easing is interpreted as a defeat for the Venezuelan government.
This is demonstrated by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has repeatedly promoted legal instruments that prohibit the purchase of Venezuelan oil, even after the elections in Venezuela: "I have introduced a bill to end all US oil cooperation and trade with Venezuela until the legitimate results of its recent elections are respected," Durbin reported on his account on the social network X.
It is worth noting that congressmen representing states with local oil activities tend to favor market shares for domestic production as they seek to protect their industry from competition from foreign crude imports. This is evident in Durbin's position, as he represents the oil-producing state of Illinois, whose crude is primarily processed at one of the refineries operated by CITGO , a PDVSA subsidiary, illegally seized by the United States.
The next US president, however, has promised to reduce dependence on foreign hydrocarbons and, as a result, implement measures that will lead to an increase in domestic oil and gas production in the United States. "The policy will be one of abundance, independence and, even, energy dominance. We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country," Trump declared during the electoral campaign.
In addition, the Republican tycoon cultivated a close relationship with the energy sector, securing significant contributions from its entire value chain. This support came not only from production companies but also from service, refining and distribution companies, which demonstrates the commitment of major investors in the sector to the new administration.
Meanwhile, last week a shipment of Venezuelan asphalt managed by Global Oil Terminals, under General License 40A , arrived at the port of Palm Beach.
How do these pieces fit into Trump's policy on this issue? The proclaimed independence from foreign resources, the interests of the energy sector and Venezuelan oil converge on a central point: the system of illegal sanctions, which acts as a platform to articulate these objectives in a strategic and illegal manner.
Regarding asphalt shipments, Harry Sargeant IV , president of the company, stressed that it is undeniable that the renewed flow of high-quality, low-cost Venezuelan asphalt to the United States has benefited the American taxpayer.
He added that it had been a blow to strategic competitors since, under sanctions, "those barrels were converted into low-cost fuel that simply subsidised the Chinese economy."
This approach was also expressed months ago by Brian Nichols , Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, who noted that licenses have moved oil trade into the formal sphere. According to him, this prevents the product from going to China or Iran, and concluded that "it is better for American consumers because we receive products that we need."
On the one hand, Trump promises to boost domestic crude oil production to achieve energy independence , and at the same time, lobbyists have found in the licenses a strategic opportunity to import specific products, such as Venezuelan asphalt.
This situation reveals an ambiguous position: although there is no attempt to strengthen direct oil ties with Venezuela, the exceptions represented by these licenses allow for a balance between internal , business and regional interests.
For example, Venezuelan asphalt, essential for maintaining the road network in the United States, is marketed under favorable terms, taking advantage of discounts on barrels that allow companies like Global Oil Terminals to generate significant margins.
These specific licenses , granted under strict conditions, create a model in which companies operate in a regulated but economically profitable environment. For its part, the Venezuelan government uses these revenues to counteract the impact of the system of financial sanctions imposed since 2014, which has generated economic stability in an adverse situation.
The preservation of licenses granted for operations in Venezuela not only responds to criteria of calculated ambiguity but also reflects the resistance of key business sectors to a possible return to the "maximum pressure" approach.
These actors have found in the license management scheme an attractive and highly profitable formula that allows them to protect and expand their investments. Their position, based on stability and predictability, clashes with political currents that advocate once again toughening the harassment against Caracas.
Ultimately, the current panorama reflects a complex web of conflicting interests surrounding Venezuelan oil and its place in Trump's energy policy , issues that reveal a strategic dynamic that seeks to balance internal demands and reduce regional tensions.
Big companies are looking for a predictable and favorable environment for their activities in Venezuela , with President Nicolás Maduro at the helm, as one American oil magnate said last July : "My recommendation is to work with this guy [Nicolás Maduro] for six more years."
https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/el-c ... obstaculos
'Business is business', but the existential fear and loathing of the plutocrat for anything remotely like 'communism' could trump the profit motive.
A cautious China awaits Trump
Gustavo Ng
Dec 4, 2024 , 3:00 pm .
China, under Xi Jinping, shapes its response approach to Trump 2.0 (Photo: Archive / Cenital)
The Asian country has been preparing for years for another aggressive partner management
There is no solid consensus among Chinese analysts regarding what will happen to the relationship between their country and the new administration of Donald Trump.
There are alarm bells to be heard, such as that raised by Jia Qingguo , former dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, who described Trump as an “unpredictable, emotional and unethical person” and predicted that his victory would mean “a race to the bottom, high tariffs and very provocative actions, such as receiving a phone call from Tsai Ing-wen (former leader of Taiwan, pro-independence) or announcing that the US Secretary of State will visit Taiwan.” He said that what China should do is speed up its military modernisation in order to prepare for possible US challenges to Beijing’s core interests, such as Taiwan.
"Under Trump, US-China relations are on no footing," said Yun Sun , director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, explaining that the benefit will probably not outweigh the cost to China given the damage a second Trump administration will inflict on US-China relations, and China in particular.
Instead, intellectuals such as Jin Canrong of Renmin University have argued that "if I had to choose, I would say that Trump, frankly speaking, would be more beneficial to China" because even if he seeks to cause problems, he would lack the strength due to internal opposition for being a 'white supremacist' and international opposition for being an 'isolationist'.
Henry Huiyao Wang , founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), wrote that although Donald Trump’s return to the White House brings with it greater uncertainty, his transactional and pragmatic approach may also provide new possibilities for cooperation and stabilization of bilateral relations. For starters, he believes that “the new US president is likely to negotiate a second-phase trade deal, seek China’s help in ending wars and maintaining Taiwan’s status quo ,” noting that “Trump, who has repeatedly accused Taiwan of stealing the US chip industry, is also likely to take a more pragmatic attitude toward the island.”
Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, believes Trump will be reasonably cautious when it comes to Taiwan because he will seek to avoid US involvement in a third simultaneous military conflict.
Meanwhile, Hu Wei , vice president of the Public Policy Research Center of the Office of the Counselor of the State Council, believes that Trump, as a businessman, might well be willing to reach a deal — with tycoon and future official Elon Musk available as an intermediary — in order to force the island to pay for protection or even reach an agreement to "resolve the Taiwan problem."
Henry Huiyao Wang argues that Trump will have to seek Beijing's support to resolve the wars he has promised to resolve, given, for example, that China is playing an increasingly important role in West Asia and is Ukraine's largest trading partner.
As the US election results became known, local social media showed the Chinese people's massive interest in the topic. The hashtag "Trump officially declares victory" (特朗普正式宣布获胜) had more than 1.2 billion views on Weibo.
Reactions ranged from expectations that Trump will come with a pragmatic, business-oriented mindset, friendlier to China and more beneficial to global stability, to concerns about falling stock markets, setbacks for electric vehicle companies and increased trade frictions.
What is clear from the different points of view of Chinese specialists on Sino-American relations is that Xi Jinping's government did not wait for Trump to win to decide how to face this new moment. It is inevitable to think of Sun Zi Bingfa , "The Art of War" by Sunzi, and remember the maxim that the best way to win a war is to prepare so well that it can be avoided.
This recharged Trump has been a scenario that has decisively influenced China's domestic and international politics, even before Biden's victory.
Attempts to establish a negotiation channel with Biden
China initially prepared to engage Trump during the Republican's first term, and continued to do so throughout Joe Biden's administration, as he implemented the state of conflict that Trump had established in his foreign policy.
China tried to de-escalate the situation without losing its firmness, but on the contrary, strengthening itself to defend itself from a more consolidated position. Thus, it both returned blow for blow and sought agreements.
Following the latest meeting between President Xi Jinping and his counterpart Biden on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which the message of the Chinese leader - who has permission to continue leading the country in 2028 - to the US president is clear. On the one hand, he said that "the Thucydides trap - that is, the possibility of a war between a declining power against the new one that would challenge it - is not a historical inevitability": making moves to "contain China is reckless, unacceptable and destined to fail." On the other hand, he ruled that red lines should not be challenged: "The Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, China's path and system, and its right to development are four red lines for China," Xi said bluntly. In May 2022, Biden suggested that he would intervene "militarily" if China ever invaded Taiwan. In Lima, the Chinese president said that "if the US always says one thing and does another," in the end "it will undermine the trust between China and the United States."
Xi Jinping also noted that the two countries' "common interests" are increasing rather than decreasing and that "their cooperation is crucial not only in economy, trade, agriculture, anti-drug trafficking, law enforcement and public health, but also in addressing the global challenges of climate change and artificial intelligence (AI)." In other words, the Chinese Communist Party is warning that it will both stand its ground more firmly and not take the initiative to confront the US.
In this scenario, the relationship with the state of California should be considered, as it has proposed a negotiation route that could be interpreted as a possible relief valve for tensions or an instance of mediation.
A significant mechanism considering the size of California, which in 2022 had a GDP of 3.6 trillion dollars, which would place it —taken as a country— as the fifth largest economy in the world. And China is California's largest trading partner, with almost 166 billion dollars in bilateral trade two years ago. In 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom spent a week in the Asian country and met in Beijing with Xi Jinping — he was the first American governor to meet with the Chinese president in six years. "Divorce is not an option," he said of his country and China, adding: "We have to lower the temperature. We have to manage our strategic differences. We have to reconcile our strategic red lines."
Some Chinese analysts stress the need to work on negotiation channels with the US. Yan Xuetong estimated that “Trump’s victory will increase uncertainty and China may need new strategies to manage it.” To stabilise bilateral relations, Yan spoke of the need for mechanisms that can guide interactions and prevent conflicts. Before Trump took office in 2017, the two countries had around 70 official channels of consultation. During Trump’s first term, that number was reduced to zero, then back to around 20 under President Biden.
Safety at the centre of gravity
China, which calls itself a "country of the center," instinctively and consciously, strategically and relentlessly seeks to assert itself at its center of gravity, both for expansion and defense. China's history provides philosophical, political, economic, cultural and geostrategic foundations for the deep and irrevocable certainty that placing oneself firmly at the center results in the best possible position.
This is how the last Congress of the Chinese Communist Party – the 20th Congress, held in 2022, which outlined the five-year plan that would be in force under a new Trump administration – established “national security” as its ultimate foundation. In other countries, the term refers to the military sphere; in China, it implies all areas of national life, in addition to the military field: from securing what has been achieved in the fight against poverty to protecting avenues of technological innovation, including food security, supply chains, technological sovereignty and social peace.
The document discussed by the nearly 2,300 delegates at that congress established that, "considering the security of the people as the objective, political security as the foundation, economic security as the basis, military, scientific-technological, cultural and social security as the guarantee and the promotion of international security as the support, we must make a joint planning of external and internal security, of the territory and of the citizens, of conventional and non-conventional, and of individual and collective security, and also of the preservation and forging of national security."
The Congress explicitly expressed, through a speech by the president of the nation, that national security is indispensable in view of the instability of the world scenario.
Technological innovation and military front
The internal strengthening has in technological innovation probably one of the fields of greatest projection for the tense and overabundant interweaving between the USA and China. In this dimension, the commitment to renewable energies is strengthening the international profile of China in an unstoppable way, as demonstrated by the European alarm over the production of electric cars and the foreseeable alarm of the North American country over the manufacture of these vehicles in Mexico by oriental companies.
Specifically in the military arena, Chinese defense spending has increased 2.3-fold since 2013. In March of this year, during the second annual session of the 14th National People’s Congress, the government announced that by 2024 the defense budget will have increased by 7.2%, which would be equivalent to about $236.1 billion. This is the third consecutive year of an increase of 7% or more, and although it is much lower than the $824 billion of the US budget, its persuasive power from a defensive position is resounding. The signal is focused on Taiwan, the stage that China has chosen to show its teeth — which is a rather modest reaction, considering that the US has three lines of attack, or “containment” in its view, in the Pacific Ocean, involving South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.
Economic security
Economic security, of course, is security in the last resort. The strategy matrix for such a case integrates two instances, which in many fields took up the Chinese formulation of "dual circulation": a virtuous feedback between the national economy and economic relations with other countries.
On the one hand, then, is the pursuit of security within China, which the government is forging not only by maintaining economic development but by expanding it. The economic "crisis" in China that is so widely touted by the Western media is as much a result of real indicators - the slowdown in growth, the risk of a real estate bubble or restrictions on youth employment - as it is due to the fact that one of the world's two largest economies is growing by 5% annually. The expansion of the social sector with a good capacity for consumption and the strengthening of the services sector are part of the reassurance that development, although at a slower pace than a decade ago, will not stop and will make the economy increasingly robust.
By the way, the health of China's economic development is not exactly decoupled from the US economy, as is evident, for example, in the consumer market that China represents for a multitude of US brands, and in US capital investments in China, precisely one of the issues that has in some way fueled the birth of Trumpism.
The global projection
As a first line of action, then, China is facing a possible economic aggression from Trump by strengthening its domestic economy. Taking extreme caution, security means not depending on third parties in the strategic areas of national life. China has firm plans to achieve self-sufficiency in food, energy and everything that depends on the reproduction of the economy.
This does not mean, however, that China is seeking to cut ties with countries that provide or can provide these resources; rather, the different degrees of self-sufficiency strengthen its negotiating position.
The truth is that China has been working both on self-sustainability and on strengthening and creating supply chains with other countries, especially those that the US has been harming in different ways, from direct attacks through a military conflict to indifference.
China's work on the international level, both through bilateral relations, but above all through the promotion and creation of multilateral partnerships in which it is a protagonist, has implied a giant boost, especially since Trump declared a trade war in his first administration. At that time, China had already launched its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which began as a national project to connect with neighboring countries, until it became the matrix of Chinese international relations, in the form of an open proposal.
The BRI also began to speak of international democracy, and the BRI began to make proposals, deploy strategies and invest resources in different conglomerates, blocks and networks established before or emerging in recent years. It operates with India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (11 other countries joined as "observers" or "dialogue partners"), works with 20 States of the Pacific basin in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC), has a specific relationship with the countries of Central Asia, is an external partner and protagonist of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), was one of the creators of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in which 15 nations participate.
It tries to connect with Latin America through the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, which brings together 33 countries) - certainly much more than what the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean seek. The profuse development in the African continent was institutionalized in the Forum for Cooperation between China and Africa (FOCAC), which includes 53 African countries. It was deepening and consolidating the relationship with Russia. Its connection with the oil countries registers a decisive commitment, evidenced in facts such as the peace achieved by its diplomacy between Iran and Saudi Arabia and in its relationship with Saudi Arabia, its main oil supplier - which should not be unrelated to the surprising abandonment of the petrodollar by the Arab country - as well as with other kingdoms of the Persian Gulf and with Muslim countries such as Turkey, among several others.
China's leadership in climate change, especially in renewable energy, is also consolidating international alliances. Last year, it spent $273 billion on clean energy, followed by Europe, which spent about half that amount, and a third of global investment in renewable energy comes from China, which also increased its wind capacity by 66% in 2023.
China presents the super-active international projection that it has been forging at great speed and incessantly, preaching a rhetoric that predicts economic benefit as a fertile field for the emergence of peace - peace being, in turn, the best scenario for economic cooperation. In this narrative, the "Chinese Dream" is projected towards other nations as a Community of Shared Destiny for humanity, based on multilateralism, democracy, non-interference in the internal affairs of others and inclusive development as a product of cooperation.
The wisdom of The Art of War reappears, insisting that the best strategy to gain positions is not confrontation. Barely nine days passed between the victory of Trump, who wants China out of his "backyard" and the inauguration, with Xi Jinping, in Peru, of the Chancay megaport , an initiative by China that not only announces that it will not withdraw from the region but also embeds a node destined to reconfigure its trade with Latin America.
The New York Times admitted that “as the United States transitions from Biden to Trump, presidents and prime ministers around the world are looking for stability, particularly when it comes to China.” The paper quotes John Delury, a historian of modern China: “European leaders will look to Xi with a ‘now you have to step up’ attitude.”
In the face of Trump, China has ultimately strengthened its size, in a double movement of consolidating internal factors and expanding and solidifying its planetary gravitation.
https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/un ... arda-trump
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