Bulletins and News Discussion from April 14th to April 20th, 2025 - The Lamentations of a Levy-Loving Leader

Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.

It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.

Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.

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Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson regarding the ongoing talks with the US:
- Imagine the US negotiating in bad faith, shock and horror, hopefully the liberals in Iran can be conflvinced if the futility of this
  
  Liberals in Iran just keep walking back into the rake, over and over forever. Once must imagine they love the rake
- This comes after a meeting between Waltz, Vance, Rubio and Witkoff on the issue. Witkoff and Vance were happy with the initial negotiations just around nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment. Waltz and Rubio wanted a more hardline stance. So now there's a new proposal by the US, a compromise between the Vance-Witkoff camp and the Rubio-Waltz camp. Restrictions on uranium enrichment levels at 3.67% (Iran is currently at 60%), and monitoring of the Iranian missile program, in terms of the amount of missiles Iran has and their various ranges and configurations and capabilities, as well as monitoring the warhead design with respect to to what would cause Iran to design a potential nuclear warhead. Negotiation second round also moved from Italy back to Oman, in essence restarting negotiations from square one.
  As for the spokespersons comments, Iran would have to be extremely naive to not expect the US to push the envelope here, given the current US military buildup in the Middle East region. All is fair in love and war.
  
  Restrictions on uranium enrichment levels at 3.67% (Iran is currently at 60%)
  This is not a typo?
  
  No it's not a typo, JCPOA terms (previous nuclear deal) state that the maximum allowed enrichment is 3.67% for civilian use. Back when JCPOA was first signed, Iran had stockpiles around 20%. Witkoff mentioned the 3.67% number in a recent Fox News interview. And yes, as part of Iran's "negotiation strategy" in anticipating Trump 2, and after Operation True Promise II failed to deter an Israeli attack on Iran (which Iran still has not responded to militarily), Iran started the testing of longer range ballistic missiles, along with enriching uranium to 60% levels for some of their stockpiles. This is why we are in the current situation now.
  Witkoff's comments to Fox News:
  “In some circumstances they [Iran] are enriching at 60% and at others at 20%. That cannot be,” he said. “You do not need to run, as they claim, a civil nuclear programme where you are enriching past 3.67%. This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme and then ultimately verification on weaponisation – that includes the type of missiles they have stockpiled there and the trigger for a bomb.”
  
  Trump’s admin keeps doing this, splitting the difference between the neocon faction and the realist/isolationist faction. They are doing this in regards to Ukraine negotiations too, with constant waffling between a “unconditional ceasefire” (the neocon demand) and “Istanbul plus” (the realist agreement that Russia could entertain).
  In the end, if Trump can’t get his neocons into line and make a decisive move into the realist camp he’s just gonna be Biden 2.0. A warmongering imperialist who failed to achieve peace and continued dragging out and escalating the conflicts.
  He needs to give supreme foreign policy authority to Witkoff and tell Waltz, Kellog and Rubio to eat shit
- There seems to be some miscommunication in their diplomacy. In america every deal must be explained in terms of burgers. Explaining in terms of football, and not the football they're thinking of, will only confuse the western brain

923 comments