31: Trade

The Fine Print of Trump Fascism The Trump regime is taking over every major institution in America. Here's how. ......... CBS. It’s now owned by Skydance Media. Under its Trump-appointed chairman, Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission insisted, as a condition of allowing Paramount to sell CBS to Skydance, that the new owner install an “ombudsman.” ........ If Ellison does not remedy it — or if Trump believes the problem continues, regardless of what the ombudsman decides — the Trump regime can claim that CBS has reneged on its agreement, in which case Skydance’s ownership of CBS could be contested by the FCC. Its stock price would plummet. ......... this method of Trump control is indirect but powerful. ............ This mechanism of control is similar at Columbia University, whose new agreement with the Trump regime stipulates a mutually agreed-upon “monitor” who will, like CBS’s ombudsman, respond to complaints about “bias.” ........... Columbia will provide the monitor detailed information about the race of students who are admitted and rejected, including grade point averages and standardized test scores broken down by race. All data related to faculty and administrative staff hiring and promotion practices must be provided to the monitor annually, and hiring data will be subject to a “comprehensive audit.” ............ The monitor is also charged with assuring that the university establishes processes to guarantee “civil discourse, free inquiry, open debate, and the fundamental values of equality and respect.” And the monitor will review data to assure Columbia is meting out discipline without regard to a student’s immigration status. ........... the Trump regime reserves the right to open a new investigation of Columbia and possibly revoke current or future federal research funds. .......... “This is a monumental victory for conservatives who wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time because we had such far-left-leaning professors.” ............ It’s the same even with Wall Street. “I have been working on multiple deals where I have people inside the White House telling me what I can and can’t do,” a top dealmaker involved in mergers and acquisitions unrelated to the government recently told the Financial Times. “It’s a level of intrusion I have never experienced before.” ......... This level of intrusion inhibits public criticism of Trump, which is what Trump wants. ............ We’re now at a point in American history when a so-called Republican regime in Washington is extending its control far beyond the wildest dreams of the most left-wing of Democrats — or even socialists. ........ But this control is not exercised publicly. It’s behind the scenes. It’s found in the fine print. And it is personal. It depends on Trump’s whims. ....... This is what fascist control looks like, people.

The Media Can’t Handle the Absence of Truth And their diffidence empowers pathological liars ........... the agreement with the European Union, in which the U.S. imposed taxes on its own population while Europe made meaningless promises on investment and energy purchases ......... if a candidate said the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views differ on shape of planet.” ........ [T]o say that the president of the U.S. is making drastic policy changes in order to cure a problem that only exists in his imagination, that’s a very difficult ........ the old Stephen Colbert line, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” If you report what’s really happening, it sounds liberal. ............

International economics is my home turf, so I tend to focus on how Trump has destroyed the international trading system and brought back Smoot-Hawley-level tariffs based on the assertion that other countries are taking advantage of us and blocking our exports, which is pure fantasy. But there are worse things than tariffs, and they are also being justified with completely false claims.

............. What’s worse than tariffs? Mass deportation, with masked men claiming to be government agents — who can tell? — seizing people off the street, in some cases sending them to overseas gulags. All of this is being justified with claims that Americans are being terrorized by immigrant criminals. ............

how many headlines have you seen pointing out that Trump is destroying basic civil liberties in the name of fighting a nonexistent crime wave?

............... Can you find antisemitism on college campuses? Of course, because you can find antisemitism everywhere. But I’m a lot more afraid of MAGA, which is infested with actual Nazis, than I am of a few leftist college students.

What Trump's threat to tariff Russia's trade partners means for India President Trump has announced new tariffs on India, but warned India there is more to come as punishment for buying fuel and weapons from Russia......... The United States will impose 25% tariffs on Indian goods starting in August, Trump said on social media on Wednesday. Also, he added, "they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia's largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE." He said there will be "a penalty" for that. ......... Earlier this month, Trump warned Russia to stop its war in Ukraine or else its trading partners would be hit with 100% "secondary tariffs." That came as U.S. lawmakers have been working on a bill that would allow an even tougher punishment of up to 500% tariffs. ....... India is now the biggest customer of Russian crude oil by volume, according to data from Finland-based think tank the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. China remains the biggest buyer in terms of dollar amount. ......... President Trump's threat against Russia and its trade partners has been met with defiance in New Delhi. Last week, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said there were "double standards" in Trump's threats to punish Russia's trade partners. Misri did not elaborate, but it could be a reference to

members of the European Union and others that continue to import fuel from Russia directly or indirectly.

......... During Trump's first presidency in 2019, India stopped importing oil from Iran after Trump imposed sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. .......... After previous Western sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine, he says, Russia created a "shadow fleet" of tankers — essentially third-party intermediaries — to deliver oil to its importers. ........... India increased imports as Russia offered oil at a discounted price after the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Today, more than a third of the crude oil India imports is from Moscow. But as India's petroleum minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, recently pointed out, it also imports from nearly 40 other countries. "I'm not worried at all," Puri said, referring to Trump's threat to impose secondary tariffs. "If something happens, we will deal with it." ....... "There was always a section of Indian society which said that the U.S. is India's best and most natural ally," Manur says. "But increasingly, the U.S. keeps threatening India with sanctions where they are not aligned with India's interests." ........... In recent months, many Indians were baffled by a number of the Trump administration's actions and claims. This year the U.S. has canceled Indian students' visas and deported Indian immigrants who lacked legal status in the U.S. in handcuffs. Trump contradicted India's government by claiming to have brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, using trade negotiations as leverage.......... Whether or not India stops trading with Russia, there's a risk of oil costs rising. And the average Indian consumer will likely bear the brunt at a time when there's a growing body of research saying most Indians have little money for discretionary spending. ...........

"In India, parties lose elections because of onion prices, not oil."

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US and India launch historic joint mission that could change the way we see Earth The satellite will orbit Earth 14 times per day in order to complete scans of almost all of the planet’s ice and land surfaces twice every 12 days, detecting changes in Earth’s surface down to fractions of an inch in the process. ........ NISAR’s dual radar will collect information that could allow for a better understanding of landslides and earthquakes, and improve the monitoring of ice sheets, glaciers, permafrost, forests, wetlands and agricultural fields. The data, which will be publicly available as it is collected and downloaded from the satellite, will also be used to prepare for and respond to hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, flooding and wildfires. ........ “NISAR is an equal 50/50, partnership between NASA and ISRO,” said Wendy Edelstein, NISAR deputy project manager at NASA’s JPL, during a July 21 news conference. “These two radars work together to achieve science that neither could see on their own.” .......... The signal of each system is calibrated to features of different sizes on Earth. Shorter wavelengths in the S-band can measure small objects, like leaves and the roughness of surfaces, to monitor crops, while long wavelengths in the L-band can peer through thick tree canopies to study forest structure and even spot boulders and tree trunks. The radar systems can also take specific measurements of motion, land deformation and moisture content. .......... “We are two nations with one mission,” said Karen St. Germain, director of Earth science at NASA, during a recent news conference. “NISAR unites the US and India to study our home planet together. The collaboration, cooperation and information sharing between our two agencies is a foundation that we really look forward to continuing to build upon.” ........... Together, members of the NASA and ISRO team collaborated across 13 time zones and more than 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) to work on NISAR, requiring long-distance travel and many late-night and early morning video calls to build and test systems. The hardware was assembled on two different continents before being integrated in India to complete the satellite. .......... Dr. Jitendra Singh, India’s Minister for Science and Technology, said the mission is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for India to become a “Vishwa Bandhu,” or a global partner that contributes to the collective good of humanity .......... “NISAR is not just a satellite; it is India’s scientific handshake with the world.”

Modi’s ‘True Friend’ Trump Deals India Another Blow With Tariff Threats India’s prime minister has made a big effort to build closer ties using his rapport with the U.S. president, but critics say he is getting little in return. ......... The much-touted bond, nurtured through platitudes and joint appearances at stadium rallies during Mr. Trump’s first term, led one television anchor sympathetic to India’s leader to coo that “they have extraordinary chemistry.” Another chipped in: “When the two of them are onstage together, it is like lightning.” .......... Mr. Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he was slapping 25 percent tariffs on India, as well as an unspecified additional penalty for India’s economic ties to Russia, was just the latest in a series of slights. Mr. Modi has also faced a storm of criticism over the Trump administration’s treatment of India, which it has seemingly been treating as an equal to its smaller archnemesis, Pakistan. ............. “One of the attributes of Indian foreign policy in the past 20 or 25 years is that we built an equation, at the leader level and at the systemic level, with America through thick and thin, through multiple transitions,” said Ashok Malik, the chair of the India practice at The Asia Group and a former adviser to the Modi government. “That has been shaken.” .............

relations appear to be the worst since the early 1990s, “which was a very testy time.”

.......... But just days ahead of a visit for Mr. Trump’s inauguration for a second term in January, the United States deported planeloads of Indian immigrants in shackles. Images of the deportations caused a political storm at home for an image-conscious Mr. Modi, signaling from the U.S. that he should not expect Indians to be treated more sensitively than any other nationality. .......... This spring, things got worse. When India took military action against Pakistan, which it blamed for a terror attack in Kashmir that killed 26 people, it thought it could count on the U.S. to take its side. ........ Instead, President Trump, who had in the past penalized Pakistan for being a “safe haven for terrorists,” essentially treated both countries as equals. When they agreed to a cease-fire, Mr. Trump went on to repeatedly claim that he had forced the deal on New Delhi, much to the embarrassment of Mr. Modi. As the Indian leader tried to control the damage at home, Mr. Trump added salt to the wound by inviting Pakistan’s powerful army chief to lunch, a departure from established protocol. ........... Then came the tariffs. Although many countries have had to wrestle with Mr. Trump’s desire to make trade deals that favor the United States, India has not yet done so. .......... India’s exports to the United States have been growing rapidly, making the U.S. its largest trading partner. Trade in goods alone between the countries is estimated to be about $130 billion, with pharmaceuticals and electronics — including Apple’s new iPhones — among India’s major exports. .............. a major sticking point in the trade negotiations has been agriculture, which has long been a politically sensitive area for any leader in India. For Mr. Modi, it is a particular minefield — the biggest setback of his 10 years in office came in the form a prolonged farmers’ protest that choked New Delhi in 2021 and forced him to withdraw market reforms. ............ India’s agriculture sector, which half of its population of 1.4 billion still relies on, is deeply troubled, and many farmers are in debt. Opening the market to American products, by expanding quotas on almonds or apples, for example, could exacerbate the situation and make competition difficult. ......... What has particularly surprised many in India is Mr. Trump’s penalty over India’s purchases of oil and weapons from Russia. ......... In the early months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India faced strong pressure from the Biden administration and European countries to cut back its ties to Moscow. But over time, that pressure dwindled, and it seemed the Western governments preferred to focus on New Delhi’s potential as a counterweight to the larger threat of China. India now imports up to two million barrels of oil a day, making it the second-biggest buyer of Russian oil after China.