WHO LOST CANADA?
It was obvious that China/Canada would happen. Here's how it happened, and what may happen next.
(1) First, in early 2025 it looked like Canadian conservative Pierre Poilievre was a straight shot to win Canada. Instead, all the MAGA posts about annexing Canada undercut Pierre, boosted left nationalism, and turned what looked like a sure thing into an epic defeat. The result was Mark Carney:
(2) Carney is on the left but is far more intelligent than his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. He's also the former governor of the Bank of Canada, and understands that the G7 (including Canada) is in the midst of sovereign debt crisis. And the Canadian dollar is going the way of the US dollar, which is to say that it's going to zero. Canada needs access to hard goods and will trade natural resources to get that. Hence, China. Carney's Canada may become a sort of North American Russia, trading oil and lumber to China for cars and electronics.
(3) Who lost Canada? The fundamental reason this happened is that MAGA ironically doesn't understand its own self-interest. Even the term "America First" is misconceived, because it groups a Blue American like Elizabeth Warren together with a Red American like JD Vance...when in reality the Red American and the Red Canadian (like Pierre Poilievre) have much more in common. All the "joke" posts on annexing Canada managed to needlessly put Red Americans at odds not just with Blue Americans and Blue Canadians, but also with Red Canadians.
The Greenland thing will have exactly the same effect, as it'll end up pushing Western Europeans to China. That's actually why most ultranationalist movements fail: they're just so shortsightedly tribal that they're terrible at building coalitions.
(4) Anyway, while Carney is the first to be this explicit about aligning with China, expect many other Western leftist leaders (like Newsom and Walz) to line up with China over time. The reason is that while Democrats really did fight Communists from ~2021-2024 over the question of who'd run the world's most powerful state, Democrats lost. All the chip sanctions and isolation tactics that somewhat worked on Russia, and frankly might have worked on almost any other country, just didn't work on China...because China had enough internal economic scale to essentially be their own autarkic civilization, and build whatever they needed.
(5) So: the anti-China Biden Democrats have been replaced by the China-curious Newsom Democrats. And now the China-aligned Carney Canadians. With Carney making the first move, you should expect many more blue state Democrats to align with China, particularly those on the West Coast like Newsom.
(6) It's simple coalitional math. Democrats are the ingroup, Republicans are the outgroup, and Communists are the fargroup. So, for Democrats: the enemy of their Republican enemy is their friend. And there is much for them to admire in the Chinese political system. After all, Democrats and Communists both built one-party states:
(7) Newsom in particular is likely the next shoe to drop, because even in 2023 he was reaching out to Xi. He's also spoken in Xinhua (Chinese state media) about becoming China's "long-term, stable, and strong partner." Newsom posts images of himself shaking Xi's hand, while also posting images of Trump in handcuffs. It's clear which President he's more comfortable with:
(8) The California wealth tax is also worth mentioning here. As M. Guimarin correctly pointed out, the net effect of the wealth tax is for blues to drive tech out of the state. That's not an unintended consequence: the purpose of the wealth tax was to either rob or deport the sole remaining political opposition to Democrats in California, namely technologists.
(Side note: Democrats are historically much better at mass deportations than Republicans, as they take a whole-of-society approach to it, and persist with it over decades, and do it silently and nonviolently. That's how Republicans were pushed out of university faculties, media companies, and California itself. It was once a dark red state, and now it's deep blue.)
(9) Anyway, with the technologists pushed out of California, Newsom's blues can welcome in the Chinese, who won't be subject to the same wealth taxes as they aren't US citizens.
(10) There is also an obvious geostrategic aspect to this: Chinese Canada is a bridge across all the blue states, from the West Coast to the Northeast. So as blue states like Minnesota and California engage in more "soft secession", they can all link up with Canada, and get supplied by China.
Decades ago, this map was made as a joke.
Perhaps it becomes all too real.
@RyanWatkins_@RyanWatkins_ do you still think your SOL thesis is running ? Or do you the L1 models has been overturned by models similar to HYPE that might have a clearer value proposition?
Nic seems in your essay that you prefer investing in the pick and shovels like data center owners (APLD etc.), power and cooling companies (vertiv etc,), networking (Arista, Broadcom etc) and semis, as those might dictate the pace. Do you think that have the same upside as CRWV that might have a premium du to scale ?
@Ancrath_WB@irbezek Hi Willem, wonder if you’ve got any thoughts on the development of Llanogrande ? I go to Medellin a lot as my wife’s family settled there a few years back. I love the Oriente Antioqueño but seems to me that there is to much offer for limited demand at current price ?
How about the following?
The United States helps Israel finish the job with some B-2s and some GBU-57s.
Israel ends the Gaza war in exchange for the return of the hostages, a commitment for a new civilian government in Gaza, and reconstruction overseen and funded by the Saudis and the Gulf States who monitor and guarantee security with oversight from the U.S. to ensure no more tunnels and no more terrorists.
Gaza becomes a beautiful place to live and work. There are real benefits to planning and building a new territory with new cities from a blank sheet of paper using modern technology, energy resources, and modern approaches to design and sustainability.
The Abraham Accords expand to include Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East. An economic boom emerges in the Middle East.
@realDonaldTrump gets the Nobel Peace Prize for restoring peace and security in the Middle East.
@leon_is_awesome@JosephFuisz@BowTiedColombia Not particularly well-versed in that subject, but if Petro has the loyalty of narco groups or paramilitaries, this could make up for the lack of military backing? Do the narco groups control the military in the end? Buy them out?