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Bulletins and News Discussion from January 27th to February 2nd, 2025 - Tariffs in Trump's Imperium - COTW: Colombia

Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.

Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ending slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]

It's still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden's, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several "allied" nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they'd do. I suspect we'll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.

I'll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump's administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It's funny how that works.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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1.1K comments

  • This is pure speculation but I'm 90% sure that the NVidia drop had nothing to do with Deepseek R1 and was actually insider trading on the "news" that Trump was considering a tariff on Taiwanese chips.

    First, R1 was released on the 20th, 5 days before the stock dropped. It wasn't at all a secret, basically it was the talk of the town that whole week and their capabilities claims were shown to be solid very early on by many many people running independent benchmarks. But the market didn't react.

    Second, the big AI companies want all the compute they can get, they aren't satisfied with training 10 or 100 or 1000 times more quickly, this is why they're talking about trillion dollar data centers with nuclear reactors. Also of note, R1 was trained on Nvidia TPUs with the same amount of vram as the H100s. You couldn't cheaply train such a model on any other brand of hardware, demand for Nvidia products isn't going anywhere.

    Third, if anything it's the AI software companies that would take a big drop, they're the ones who are supposedly spooked and scrambling to replicate R1 internally. The major software only players took only a small hit but recovered quickly, that would be Microsoft and Meta. Google is also a hardware company, they're trying to move some of their chip fabs to TMSC but their TPUs are made by Samsung. They took a small hit and have not yet recovered. AMD is a hardware company, they have fabs all over including sourcing from TMSC, same story. Intel, a similar company, no change whatsoever, they don't use TMSC at all. Nvidia took the big one, and they get ALL of their chips from... TMSC. All the action happened about simultaneously in after hours weekend trading.

    Fourth, when the tariff news dropped the market seemed to be unaffected almost as if it had already been priced in over weekend trading.

  • The University of Michigan has suspended a pro-Palestinian group for 2 years

    Boycott University of Michigan. They have a Huge college football presense. Blue and Gold.

    Let it be known the University of Michgan is a ZIONAZI fascist organization that atands with genocide, aparthied, racism and bigotry. They used false anti semitism to shield their own fascist involvement and behavior.

    Do not enroll. Do not watch their games. Do not buy their merch or themed merch.

    Idk how to get a recall going but perhaps we can recall the board members and regents who are highly paid gifting zionazis. They are a public institution. They should be held accountable.

  • Qassam has released quite a lot of footage of their operations against the IOF during the last month or so, before the signing of the ceasefire. All I can say is that despite 15 months of relentless bombing and a full blown ground operation, the Resistance's fighting capacity is still there. It's not untouched though because I believe the Resistance has suffered tremendously, but they are more than able to fight back and even determine the pace of fighting. In the latest series of videos released by Qassam, named "Ambushes of Death", the picture couldn't look worse of the "israelis".., scores of their soldiers are killed or seriously wounded in elaborated RPG, IED and sniper operations in the last few months. In one such operation, a Qassam Brigades team detonates a BIG IED under a Merkava tank and flips it over, tossing the turret away from the chassis in the process, resulting in multiple dead for the "israelis" as well as gravely wounded.

    Do check out Jon Elmer's twitter account if you haven't, it's a great archive of Qassam/PIJ footage that might be uh.. handy I guess.

    I have nothing but admiration for the military prowess of the Gazans, they're fighting in a small strip of land that is almost entirely flat and urban. There are no mountains or jungles to run away to, it's just a big city with smaller ones as satellites, the sea and the big border with "israel" and Egypt, completely at the marcy of their genocidal neighbors. Their only hope was to dig, dig and dig, study every single street and corner that exists and have a plan for each part of the city, strike only when necessary or when the enemy is completely distracted (like when these mfs just start posing for pictures or bulldozing buildings). Their way of conducting urban guerrilla warfare will be studied for generations, there have been urban guerrillas in the past but I think none is just as good as this one.

  • A host at a German public broadcaster allegedly had visceral reaction of disgust, when a guest, an Israeli-German cyber-security professor, said her name was "from Israel". First of all, there is no such thing as being "from Israel", and what's an Israeli name anyway?

    Only a Zionist would answer this way, I thought, and yeah, she has written an article about how "Israel must also defend itself on the Internet".

    The host is probably going to get fired, she's Turkish-German so they'll count that against her.

  • https://xcancel.com/AliAbunimah/status/1883973272695627992:

    I’m free! I wrote this on the plane and I’m posting it just after landing at Istanbul. On Monday evening I was brought to Zurich airport in handcuffs, in a small metal cage inside a windowless prison van and led all the way to the plane by police. This is after three days and two nights in a Swiss prison cut off from communication with the outside world, in a cell 24 hours a day with one cell mate, not even permitted to contact my family. On Saturday in a police interview in the presence of my lawyer they accused me of “offending against Swiss law” without ever telling me what crime I had committed in Switzerland or listing any charges. As far as I know I have not been charged with any crime whatsoever and I was held in “administrative detention.” On Sunday morning, they took me from my cell for questioning by Swiss defense ministry intelligence agents without the presence of my lawyer, and they again refused to allow me to contact her or my family. I refused to talk to them without my lawyer and told them take me back to my cell. During my imprisonment I refused every meal and every cup of coffee or tea they offered me except the last meal, after I knew I would be going home. I accepted only water, which is the right of every human being. All of this was after I was abducted off the street around 1:30pm on Saturday while on my way to the Palestine teach-in by undercover agents, handcuffed, forced into an unmarked car and sped straight to the prison. My “crime”? Being a journalist who speaks up for Palestine and against Israel’s genocide and settler-colonial savagery and those who aid and abet it. I came to Switzerland at the invitation of Swiss citizens to talk about justice for Palestine, to talk about accountability for a genocide in which Switzerland too is complicit. But while I was hauled off to prison like a dangerous criminal before I even had a chance to say a word, the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who declared at the start of the genocide that there are no civilians in Gaza, no innocents, received a red carpet welcome in Davos, a carpet soaked in the blood of the more than 47,000 known victims of the genocide and the thousands more still under the rubble, or who died of deliberately inflicted starvation and denial of medical care. And on this very day Netanyahu freely travels to Poland to make a mockery of the Auschwitz commemoration despite an outstanding ICC arrest warrant. That is the perverse, unjust world we live in. This ordeal lasted three days but that taste of prison was more than enough to leave me in even greater awe of the Palestinian heroes who endure months and years in the prisons of the genocidal oppressor. More than ever I know that the debt we owe them is one we can never repay and all of them must be free and they must remain our focus. The police gave me my phone back only at the gate of the plane so I’m only seeing now the extent of the overwhelming support and solidarity from all over the world. I’m deeply grateful to each and every person who stood up for me. I’m especially grateful to my lawyer Dina Raewel and her team, to our friends in Zurich who I learned afterwards demonstrated outside the prison, to my family and my colleagues at EI and so many others. I honestly had no idea what was happening outside that concrete room! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I want to tell the whole story of what happened, perhaps in an @intifada livestream in the next day or two, because I think it’s important for people to know the depths to which their Western so-called “democracies” have sunk in the abject service of genocidal Zionism. Right now I’m glad to be on my way home. I’m looking forward to hugging my mom and dad, taking a shower and sleeping in my own bed. Journalism is not a crime! Speaking out for Palestine is not a crime! Standing against racist genocidal Zionism is not a crime! Say it with me:

    From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free! ❤️🇵🇸✌️

  • Sheinbaum orders tariffs against the USA in response to Trump; "categorically" rejects criminal alliances

    Sheinbaum ordered the Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, to implement tariff and non-tariff measures for defenders of Mexican interests, after the United States imposed widespread tariffs on Mexican products.

    The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said this Wednesday that she does not believe that this week US President Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on the country and its neighbor Canada will come true.

    President Claudia Sheinbaum ordered Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to implement tariff and non-tariff measures to defend Mexico's interests, after the United States imposed widespread tariffs on Mexican products.

    The president also "categorically rejected the White House's slander against the Government of Mexico of having alliances with criminal organizations, as well as any interventionist intention in our territory," responding to Washington's statement that Mexican drug trafficking organizations have a "intolerable alliance" with the Government of Mexico.

  • Plane and helicopter collide in the air in Washington D.C. The aircraft exploded and crashed into the Potomac River, which runs through the US capital.

    The American Airlines aircraft was bound for Kansas. The helicopter, according to sources, was a Black Hawk. Reagan Airport is closed and flights have been suspended.

  • It's funny to see western liberal papers criticize R1 for "censoring" their models. True, it does censor some stuff by default like the June 4th events or Taiwan but I've had it saying Chinese economy only works because it's repressive completely unprompted.

    Also says some crazy stuff Openai models would never, like quoting Mao, "Revolution is not a dinner party".

  • Italy has blocked the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek, Reuters reports. DeepSeek is blocked in the Apple and Google app stores.

    The blocking comes after local authorities decided to investigate how exactly DeepSeek uses users' personal data. The regulator is demanding explanations about what data is collected, for what purpose and whether it is stored in China.

    Companies linked to DeepSeek have until February 17 to respond to the Italian watchdog's requests. If found to be in breach of privacy laws, the chatbot could face significant fines or restrictions.

    ChatGPT also collects data and sends to Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

  • [nytimes archived link]https://archive.is/IkuOE edit:: updatehttps://archive.is/zP5jp

    White House Orders Pause in All Federal Grants and Loans The White House budget office has ordered a pause in grants, loans and other federal financial assistance, according to a memo sent to government agencies on Monday, potentially paralyzing a vast swath of programs and jeopardizing spending that Congress has mandated by law. In the two-page memo, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, directed federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” and any other programs that included “D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.”

    It was not immediately clear which programs would be affected, although the scope could be vast. The memo said Medicare and Social Security benefits were exempt.

    hmmm

  • South Africa and several of its allies have formed The Hague Group in another attempt to bring the "Apartheid Entity" to account and a possible alternative to the illegitimate courts in the West, with the ICJ's nuts roasting on an open fire in a war of attrition so to say. A live broadcast of the press conference started less than 30 minutes ago from me posting, being streamed by Salaamedia. Here is the link now saved on TankieTube, in 1080p.

    Some of the other key figures present in The Hague Group press conference also include Namibia, Colombia, Malaysia, Bolivia as well as Ireland's Sinn Fein chairperson Declan Kearney.

  • ‘Make Argentina Gay Again’: Argentines hold anti-fascist pride march

    (Clever use of the MAGA slogan)

    The queer community’s call to march against Javier Milei’s Davos speech received international support

    Argentines hit the streets on Saturday afternoon for the Federal Anti-Racist and Anti-Fascist Pride March. Rivers of demonstrators clutching rainbow fans, waving smoke flares, and dancing on protest trucks flowed through the streets of Buenos Aires, Tucumán, and more than 100 other towns and cities countrywide and major cities across the world.

    The protest was spearheaded by the country’s LGBTQIA+ community, but it was explicitly intersectional, encompassing marginalized groups from all walks of life. The march was a response to President Javier Milei’s speech at the 2025 World Economic Forum, in which he equated queer people with child abuse, claiming that femicide put women’s lives over men’s and accusing migrants in Europe of crime.

    Micaela Pérez, from La Matanza, is an activist with travesti-trans activist group, Las Históricas. (Unlike its direct English translation, the Argentine word travesti is a gender identity worn with pride.) Pérez survived the dictatorship and has fought for LGBTQIA rights, despite being jailed several times. She recalled that the travesti-trans community was long denied access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, and equitable access to jobs. Now, she believes, the queer community will consider seeking support from international rights institutions, if necessary.

    “This is an anti-rights, homophobic state that is playing cheap politics with our laws,” she said. “We are living memory. That’s why we’ll go out [to march] as much as we have to.”

    ‘Nunca Musk’

    Milei’s statements were just the latest in a series of comments that senior figures in Milei’s La Libertad Avanza government have made against the rights of women, queer people, immigrants, and other groups. He spoke just days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Milei attended the ceremony, at which Trump likewise made comments against trans people, migrants, and other marginalized groups.

    Many signs at the protest rejected — or poked fun at — Trump and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and Tesla who is now heading up Trump’s newly-created Department of Government Efficiency. Trump allies have indicated that he drew inspiration in part from Milei’s austerity agenda. Milei, for his part, vociferously defended Musk in an X post after he was accused of performing two consecutive Nazi salutes on inauguration day.

    Some people wore pink baseball caps that read “Make Argentina Gay Again,” a slogan that was scrawled on banners and posters dotted throughout the procession. One sign, written in the font of the important post-dictatorship rights report Nunca Más (Never Again), read Nunca Musk (Never Musk).

    Carola Escolar, a queer English teacher at the University of Buenos Aires, marched with her union. “There were a lot of people in our union’s group,” she said. “The anti-fascist, anti-racist and LGBTQA+ cause really moves people […] It gives you energy to see people react. When you hear the president’s comments at Davos, they don’t just stay at home.” Protester Ale Bravío voiced concern that undoing progress in Argentina could have a ripple effect across the region. “Argentina has always been a beacon of LGBTQ+ rights, since the Equal Marriage law and the gender identity law,” she said. “We can’t go back 15, 25 years, because that means paving the way for other governments to take protections away from their people.”

    Demonstrations took place throughout Argentina and several other countries, including Mexico, Spain, Italy, the UK, and the Netherlands. In Buenos Aires, demonstrators were scheduled to march from Congress to Plaza de Mayo at 4 p.m. — but started to gather shortly after midday. In Tucumán, a huge march began in Plaza Urquiza. At around 7 p.m., demonstrators marched towards Plaza Independencia, where the Governor’s House is located, led by leaders of the local queer community, as well as social leaders and left-wing activists. There were chants against Milei, comparing him to the dictatorship, as well as Governor Osvaldo Jaldo, a Peronist politician who has been cooperative with Milei since he took office.

    An assembly that ballooned

    “I hope this march will be a celebration, a collective cry against fascism, and a turning point to push back against this political project that is trying to exterminate us because life is at risk, but we are alive, organized, and ready to defend it,” said Alejandra Rodríguez, a transfeminist activist of the Buenos Aires City LGBTQIA+ Antifascist Assembly, ahead of the march. The protest was decided by popular vote a week earlier at an open anti-fascist LGBTQIA+ assembly in Parque Lezama. Assemblies held simultaneously across the country put their own February 1 protests on the calendar.

    Rodríguez told the Herald organizers were surprised by the magnitude of the response, explaining that it started with a small meeting of friends and activists in Parque Lezama on the day of Milei’s speech and quickly ballooned to thousands in the same spot just two days later. “There were health workers, students, scientists, sex workers, artists, teachers, retirees, workers of memory and human rights sites, a whole range of struggles and conflicts that said ‘Enough, Milei!’” she said.

    “The fight for our anti-fascist and anti-racist LGBTQIA+ pride march is also for society as a whole, this march that has the support and participation of a huge breadth of affected social sectors.” Speakers at the assembly emphasized intersectionality and called for a broad coalition to combat fascism. Many groups and human rights organizations had, in turn, shown support for Saturday’s march.

    “We call on people to hit the streets to condemn this government that starves, represses, offends, lays off, indebts and hands over sovereignty,” said the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in a communiqué. “To defend our jobs, salaries, freedom, and the right to food, health, and free sexual orientation.” Author and activist Marlene Wayar urged people to attend in an interview on radio station Futurock: “This is the time to be anti-fascist and go. Go! Ultimately, all these little speeches will be lost and will be summarized in an aerial photo that tells the world: where is Argentina going? Towards fascist sh*t or not? This is the time for antifascist pride.”

    I unfortunately was unable to attend to this protest. None of my friends called me and I was left pretty much alone and going alone to a protest sucks and is also dangerous, plus I work on saturdays which sucks. Lots of people showed up despite the terrible weather, nevertheless the unrelenting heat will not stop the anti-fascists.

    death to milei and death to "israel" too.

1069 comments