🇺🇸🇾🇪 Jennifer Griffin has reported that B-2 bombers operating from Diego Garcia have been employing GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) against underground Houthi infrastructure targets since early April. The MOP is a highly specialized and limited stockpile weapon, designed specifically to neutralize deeply buried and fortified targets.

If confirmed, this would mark the first known combat use of the GBU-57 and would send a clear and deliberate message to Iran.

🔗 GMI

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇮🇷🛢 US imposes sanctions on a Chinese refinery accused of buying Iranian oil

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions Wednesday on a Chinese refinery accused of purchasing more than $1 billion worth of Iranian oil, saying the proceeds help finance both Tehran’s government and Iran’s support for militant groups.

The sanctioned refinery in China’s Shandong province received dozens of shipments of crude oil from Iran worth more than $1 billion, the Trump administration said. Some of the petroleum came from a front company for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, U.S. authorities said.

Officials also announced that several companies and vessels involved in the shipments were added to the sanctions list.

The new penalties were imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and follow earlier efforts by the administration to disrupt the flow of Iranian oil, which authorities say is carried by Iran’s “shadow fleet.” The United States has already penalized dozens of individuals and vessels involved in the shipments.

“Any refinery, company, or broker that chooses to purchase Iranian oil or facilitate Iran’s oil trade places itself at serious risk,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

https://apnews.com/article/iran-sanctions-shadow-fleet-oil-china-trump-d0f677185a09fc1f3392de209670b3d5

🇺🇸🇨🇳 White House says 245% Chinese tariff is false

China faces:

— 125% reciprocal tariff
— 20% tariff to address fentanyl crisis
— Section 301 tariffs on specific goods, between 7.5% and 100%

🔗 unusual_whales

🇪🇺🇩🇪 Looks like the era of EU-immigration has ended for Germany. Last year was the first year with a net loss of EU-foreigners, mostly Poles, Bulgarians and Croats. Eastern EU countries have now converged enough for migration flows to reverse.

🔗 BirthGauge

🇺🇸🇨🇳 U.S. officials are planning to use negotiations with 70+ nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, per WSJ.

The U.S. is reportedly attempting to "isolate" China.

🔗 The Kobeissi Letter

🇪🇺🇷🇺🛢 EU shelves idea of sanctions on Russian LNG imports

European officials have dropped the idea of pushing for a ban on the bloc's Russian liquefied natural gas imports in upcoming packages because of resistance from some governments and uncertainty about alternative sources, EU officials said.

Instead, the Commission wants to iron out a new road map to end the bloc's reliance on Russian energy by 2027. The plan is due to be announced in early May but details are scarce.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/eu-shelves-idea-sanctions-russian-lng-imports-2025-04-16/

https://archive.ph/zN0r3

🇺🇸 President Trump is set to cut foreign aid by 75%, slash the State Department’s budget by 50%, and strip funding from the UN, NATO, and over 20 international bodies.

Notably, aid to top recipients Israel and Egypt remains untouched.

🔗 AF Post

🇨🇳 Exclusive—How China's Military is Quietly Gaining Control of the Pacific

China has quietly extended its military reach far across the Pacific by building dozens of ports, airports, and communications projects at key points in a vast region that could shut out the United States and its allies in the event of war, a new report says.

The projects appeared civilian in nature but were in reality "strategic nodes" stretching about 3,000 miles, from Papua New Guinea immediately north of U.S. ally Australia, to Samoa, which lies about 40 miles away from the U.S. territory of American Samoa in Polynesia, according to the new study made available exclusively to Newsweek. The remote, scattered islands of the Pacific were once crucial to American warfighting strategy in World War II, and they could play a role in the next global conflict, too.

The growing logistics network in the South Pacific—built mostly by Chinese state-owned companies with ties to its defense sector—was being overlooked even as Beijing's rivalry with the U.S. deepened and as China's overseas base ambitions elsewhere drew attention, said Domingo I-Kwei Yang, an assistant research fellow at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), an institution funded by the government of self-ruled Taiwan, which China has threatened to invade.

"The question is not whether, but when, China will complete a civil-military logistics system in the Pacific," Yang said in China's Dual-Use Infrastructure in the Pacific, a study published on Monday as part of the Coastwatchers 2.0 Project, a collaboration between the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Project Sinopsis, a research center in Prague in the Czech Republic.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-south-pacific-strategic-dual-use-infrastructure-us-military-2059048

🇨🇳🌏 The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area was established in 2010. Since then, bilateral trade has surged, tripling from 2010 to 2024.

🔗 Valiant Panda

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, JD Vance and Susie Wiles helped shut down Israel/USA joint attack on Iran -- NY Times

This probably explains why three of Hegseth's aides have now been fired for supposed "leaks"--internal knife fighting is intensifying.

🔗 Douglas Mackey

🇺🇸🏭❌🏭🇨🇳 — 📰 ZeroHedge | Made In China Vs Made In America | April 16, 2025:

"While China’s status as the world’s largest manufacturing hub seems to be a law of nature these days - one only challenged by President Trump - that hasn’t always been the case. 

In fact, as Statista's Felix Richter shows in the chart below, as recently as 2009, the U.S. trumped China in manufacturing output as measured by total value added in the sector."

#Geoeconomics #WWT

🗄 Archive

🔗 Source

🇨🇳 Nvidia’s CEO makes surprise visit to Beijing after US restricts chip sales to China

The chief executive of the American chip maker Nvidia visited Beijing on Thursday, days after the US issued fresh restrictions on sales of the only AI chip it was still allowed to sell to China.

Jensen Huang’s surprise visit was on the invitation of a trade organisation, according to a social media account affiliated with state media.

The official broadcaster China Central Television said Huang met Ren Hongbin, the head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, where he said he hopes “to continue to cooperate with China”.

The visit caps a tumultuous week for Nvidia. The US restrictions, announced on Tuesday, apply to shipments of its H20 datacentre GPUs, a lower-powered version of other Nvidia chips, which was designed specifically to comply with Biden-era restrictions on sales to China.

The US government, which is battling China in the race for AI supremacy, told Nvidia the new rules were designed to address the risk that its products might be “used in, or diverted to, a supercomputer in China”.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/17/nvidias-ceo-surprise-visit-beijing-restricts-chip-sales-china

🇺🇸 Trump says Fed Chair Jerome Powell's "termination cannot come fast enough"

President Trump took aim at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday, writing in a social media post that Powell should be cutting interest rates and adding that his "termination cannot come fast enough."

Mr. Trump's comments on his social media app, Truth Social, come after Powell delivered a speech on Wednesday that warned of the potential consequences of the Trump administration's trade war, while reiterating that the central bank plans to hold interest rates steady for now.

In his social media post, Mr. Trump on Thursday pointed to the European Central Bank, which cut rates by 0.25 percentage points after the president posted his message.

"The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, 'Too Late' Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete 'mess!'" Mr. Trump wrote.

He added, "Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-powell-federal-reserve-termination-fire-interest-rates/

🇨🇳🇲🇾 China’s Xi wraps up Malaysia visit with jet, chip deals before heading to Cambodia

Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his first visit to Malaysia in over a decade on Thursday with a flurry of trade and investment pledges – including support for Chinese-made aircraft sales and semiconductor cooperation – as Beijing seeks to position itself as Southeast Asia’s most dependable partner amid Washington’s intensifying trade war.

Xi’s stop in Malaysia, part of a week-long tour of Southeast Asia, came in the wake of Washington’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on goods from the region, ranging from 24 to 49 per cent. Although these measures were subsequently suspended for 90 days, they have raised serious concerns about future access to American buyers.

During his stop in Kuala Lumpur – his first since 2013 – Xi oversaw the signing of dozens of agreements with Malaysia, including deals on railway and aviation cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as partnerships in technology and energy.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3306890/chinas-xi-wraps-malaysia-visit-jet-chip-deals-heading-cambodia

🇨🇳🇰🇭 China’s leader Xi Jinping holds talks in Cambodia to wrap up his 3-nation Southeast Asia tour

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Cambodia on Thursday for a two-day state visit that serves as an opportunity to further strengthen China’s already robust relations with its closest ally in Southeast Asia.

China is presenting itself as a source of stability and certainty as Southeast Asia; where Trump’s tariffs threaten the region’s export-oriented economies whose largest markets are generally the United States.

https://apnews.com/article/xi-jinping-hun-manet-ream-naval-base-cambodia-china-f477b79fd3bb2a08455e95b66acff53c

🇨🇳 "In 'cold war' of modern exchange rates, 'digital currencies from reserves are used'. However, when 'hot war' of major default does begin, 'nuclear weapons of GOLD' are deployed!"

-ANOTHER (THOUGHTS!), 5/21/98

🔗 Luke Gromen