Mango Mussolini is afraid he will suffer at the US midterm elections, hence bullying Europe to use thier stratigic reserves (during a war he started!) to help lower diesel prices in the USA.
I'd predict the same but france had partial fuel shortages recently (maybe still?) and there's a limit to what they can do without torches getting lit.
European economies are suffering (and have been since COVID), and russia is a much bigger threat to deal with, so the EU is always trying to take the big boy role and be friendly to get as much as possible. Confrontation would be disastrous for us, and it would be cutting our noses to spite the orange guy who wouldn't get it anyways. When red lines were about to be crossed (Greenland), there was a strong response, but for the rest it's easier to handwave
Meanwhile more strategic autonomy is being built up, but it will take years; when one of Trump's sons is president, we'll be in a better position to properly stand up.
I mean... He joined ww2 on a rush schedule because he thought he was going to miss the fall of france, when most of the italian merchant fleet was not at home and ended up being seized or sank by the royal navy. Later on, the lack of shipping was critical.
I guess you could make the case that he wasn't trying to serve his masters, and it was just greed?
In France, we see a move to buy second hand EV, which up to now were a very hard sell on the car market. When a liter of petrol costs up to €2.3, it is pretty obvious that people will think twice in keeping their thermic car any longer.
Entirely off-topic, but in British english the usual term would be combustion vehicle, or more commonly just Petrol/Diesel.
A thermic vehicle sounds delightfully whimsical to my ear, like some sort of victorian steam car.
For some reason the form thermic is almost never used in English, instead preferring Thermal with only one exception I'm aware of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance
I'm always a little surprised that France never took the next step of the Messmer plan by electrifying road transport earlier. But I suppose it's so contingent on the 21st century battery tech.
> History will remember this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values. Right when the US needs allies.
Time fixes everything. Give it a few generations and the world will be inhibited by new humans who will carry on doing what life demands of them, unfazed by today's events.
If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.
Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.
Wait, this is not true? Tell me that Germany is no longer involved in world economics because of the events in the 1940's. Or the Usa in 45, or Mongolia terroritial claims during the Khan era, or any other world event in the past that is no longer relevant.
Buffoonery of Trump is not a surprise at this point but I am really struggling to understand Scott Bessent in this administration.
I've been reading that he has broadly been considered a pretty competent (if not vicious) candidate for the Treasury, but this statement and that silly "Todo: buy Yen" note childish stunt I'm getting the impression that he's either some gang boss side guy that whisper macho sounding dumb ideas to the boss, or just a Trump doormat, or some 5D finance chess player that I'm just too uninformed to understand.
The US has become a very short-term individual interest focused country. There is no long term vision for the country, there is no care for their own citizens, only today's president's interest matter. Tomorrow doesnt exists. screw-the-future is their warmongering motto.
This goes beyond the price of diesel. It is an attack on basic survivability of the nations that may depend on that reserves in the future.
I think it's mostly Germany and Hungary? It's a shame that so many countries are/was dependent on Russian oil and gas. I'm happy to live in a country (Sweden) where we are independent and produce clean energy from NUCLEAR and hydro.
When Strait of Hormuz was blocked prices increased for everyone, even if these countries did not import any oil from Gulf States. This is because oil is a global market. If a large exporter becomes unavailable - prices increase for everyone.
Sweden is part of the same global market in petroleum products as every other country. In particular, Sweden imports a bunch of crude from Norway (SEK46.2B), United States (SEK13.6B), United Kingdom (SEK10.9B), Guyana (SEK9.04B), and Denmark (SEK3.82B). https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/crude-petrole...
If Germany loses access to one source of oil and pays a premium to substitute Norwegian oil instead, guess what? Sweden has to pay the same higher price for Norwegian oil as well.
This interconnection of global markets is why Trump is trying to increase diesel supply in Europe in order to lower prices in the US in the first place.
As far as I understand, the US produces more Diesel than it consumes. A blanket export ban would mean that refineries would have to shut down because they can't get rid of all the Diesel they produce. But since refineries produce more than one product, this would affect other oil products as well. That doesn't sound like a situation you want.
But this is based on my simplistic understanding of how this works, I'm really not sure about the details.
> Why doesn't he ban exports right away, forcing Europe to use their stockpiles anyways?
Because big oil doesn't like that.
And as others said, diesel is just one product. If you want to keep producing the other products you'll have to sell or store that diesel. The capacity is too much for the US alone and storing all excess capacity isn't feasible. So if he does it, there will be a surplus which means big oil will lose a large amount of money.
If he bans exports the EU is screwed over. It will destroy what little good will the EU has towards the US. It will cause the EU to double down on Chinese partnerships and you will see the EV transition happen faster ESPECIALLY in the Semi Truck space.
No, the US is screwed over. From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup. And the market disruption caused by an export ban would wreak complete havoc in those regions and cause significant price spikes starting from diesel and then rippling out to anything reliant on it.
This is why he hasn't done it yet. Everybody in the US with money at stake called him and told him it was a stupid idea.
> From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup.
Why? Why is that good? What if supply stays low and prices stay high? What if the stockpile is still depleted in two or three years, and Russia takes the chance to invade while Europe has nothing to power their industry and tanks?
Why must the energy transition be "move fast and break everything" while the industry and households suffer under the strain of high prices?
It could have been so smooth, it could have gone so well, but the world went mad...
But he, his clan and all sycophants made a ton of money already. What more?
Make everyone's life even more miserable?
Gold plate even more useless stuff?
Can they just sodd off to a remote island with a golden palace?
/Mars/ would be a good place. "One way ticket" playing as part of the OST.
Shoot the whole clique with a lot of gold bars to the red planet.
Every day I wake up, open the news, and let out a slightly louder breath out of my nostrils at the latest boutade from Trump. Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.
> Every day I wake up, open the news, and let out a slightly louder breath out of my nostrils at the latest boutade from Trump.
Agreed with you there, and it leaves me ever more exhausted.
> Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.
Unfortunately, when the US sneezes, Europe gets hit by a tornado. Ever since this godforsaken war against Iran, gas prices were unpredictable and unsustainably high.
It would have been one thing, had the US properly conducted the war - aka, had they prepared their allies in the region, had they asked us to join the fun, and committed ground troops. But they didn't, they caught all of us off guard, completely botched the execution, and we had to deal with the fallout.
The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war. There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.
Committing ground troops would be necessary to actually achieve objectives here. But that would lead the US into a very different, probably even larger shitshow.
> The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war.
I think it would have been possible... had it been prepared many months earlier.
The biggest and, to make it worse, completely avoidable issue IMHO was that there was no advance deployment of anti-drone defense across the region. Iran-made Shahed drones have been a thing in Ukraine ever since 2023, it boggles my mind that no single MENA country other than Israel had built up any AA defense and thus they all (including the US) were forced to waste millions of dollars worth of missilies against a glorified lawnmower on wings.
The second issue was that no allies were involved in this at all. Everyone got caught completely off guard, so there was no way to, say, silently build up stockpiles of oil and oil products - and as a result, oil prices skyrocketed.
And the third issue was timing itself. By the time the Iranian regime slaughtered tens of thousands of protestors, it was too late. The US could have used the momentum - Iranian exilants and the people in Iran all but screamed for external intervention. But since there was no planning done at all, it took the US far, far too long, and so there was barely any inner support in Iran to take out IRGC.
The fact that the US and Israel botched target selection and coordination - the US bombed a girl's school and people that Israel would have been fine with as an ersatz regime for the Mullahs - just puts the icing on the cake. A good idea in theory, no love for the Mullahs from my side, may they rot in hell - but an execution botched so horribly it puts the incompetent warmonger Bush to shame.
> There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.
Partially it also was because the US general public was sick and tired of constant wars that (seemed to) only serve the interests of the MIC, with barely any incentive for actually bettering the lives of the people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The early war phase was won fast, but it was completely obvious no one ever drafted plans on how to lead both countries on a path to actual prosperity.
Mango Mussolini is afraid he will suffer at the US midterm elections, hence bullying Europe to use thier stratigic reserves (during a war he started!) to help lower diesel prices in the USA.
The USA has lost the plot.
Europe hasn’t grown some balls yet and I am afraid they will roll over again.
I'd predict the same but france had partial fuel shortages recently (maybe still?) and there's a limit to what they can do without torches getting lit.
European economies are suffering (and have been since COVID), and russia is a much bigger threat to deal with, so the EU is always trying to take the big boy role and be friendly to get as much as possible. Confrontation would be disastrous for us, and it would be cutting our noses to spite the orange guy who wouldn't get it anyways. When red lines were about to be crossed (Greenland), there was a strong response, but for the rest it's easier to handwave
Meanwhile more strategic autonomy is being built up, but it will take years; when one of Trump's sons is president, we'll be in a better position to properly stand up.
This is very insulting to Mussolini, who loved his country and never put its economy in jeopardy to serve a shadowy cabal.
Apart from unnecessarily joining WW2 and getting the country flattened, when he could have sat it out like Franco?
Of course everybody looks bad when compared to Franco.
I mean... He joined ww2 on a rush schedule because he thought he was going to miss the fall of france, when most of the italian merchant fleet was not at home and ended up being seized or sank by the royal navy. Later on, the lack of shipping was critical.
I guess you could make the case that he wasn't trying to serve his masters, and it was just greed?
In France, we see a move to buy second hand EV, which up to now were a very hard sell on the car market. When a liter of petrol costs up to €2.3, it is pretty obvious that people will think twice in keeping their thermic car any longer.
Entirely off-topic, but in British english the usual term would be combustion vehicle, or more commonly just Petrol/Diesel.
A thermic vehicle sounds delightfully whimsical to my ear, like some sort of victorian steam car.
For some reason the form thermic is almost never used in English, instead preferring Thermal with only one exception I'm aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance
I've also seen them described as ICE cars (internal combustion engine)
I'm always a little surprised that France never took the next step of the Messmer plan by electrifying road transport earlier. But I suppose it's so contingent on the 21st century battery tech.
Diesel can even cost 3 €.
Also, 50 000 "leasing social" cars will soon appear on the 2nd hand market.
Probably harder to set on fire outside schools as well.
History will remember this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values. Right when the US needs allies.
I dunno .. they're doing a marvelous job encouraging EV adoption.
> History will remember this administration as a traitor to Europe and its values. Right when the US needs allies.
Time fixes everything. Give it a few generations and the world will be inhibited by new humans who will carry on doing what life demands of them, unfazed by today's events.
If you think the USA will ever be trusted again as they were post-1945, you are very sadly mistaken.
Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.
Wait, this is not true? Tell me that Germany is no longer involved in world economics because of the events in the 1940's. Or the Usa in 45, or Mongolia terroritial claims during the Khan era, or any other world event in the past that is no longer relevant.
Please elaborate.
Buffoonery of Trump is not a surprise at this point but I am really struggling to understand Scott Bessent in this administration.
I've been reading that he has broadly been considered a pretty competent (if not vicious) candidate for the Treasury, but this statement and that silly "Todo: buy Yen" note childish stunt I'm getting the impression that he's either some gang boss side guy that whisper macho sounding dumb ideas to the boss, or just a Trump doormat, or some 5D finance chess player that I'm just too uninformed to understand.
Anyone that could enlighten me here?
The US has become a very short-term individual interest focused country. There is no long term vision for the country, there is no care for their own citizens, only today's president's interest matter. Tomorrow doesnt exists. screw-the-future is their warmongering motto.
This goes beyond the price of diesel. It is an attack on basic survivability of the nations that may depend on that reserves in the future.
Never vote for a death cult.
Also never vote for anyone who
- is incapable of apologizing
- has a history of abusive behavior
- doesn't have a sense of humor, especially at their own expense
"How to spot an idiot": https://youtube.com/watch?v=i2Lo8ChhOKU
What about people with alzheimers?
much better candidates
We're a colony.
Is this a temporary pause on issuing new tariff threats?
Yeah, he is just going to ban it anyway a month from now. So EU will be at the mercy of USA/Russia.
Diesel is a middle distillate and the United States themselves depend on Canadian heavy crude for their refineries.
I think it's mostly Germany and Hungary? It's a shame that so many countries are/was dependent on Russian oil and gas. I'm happy to live in a country (Sweden) where we are independent and produce clean energy from NUCLEAR and hydro.
When Strait of Hormuz was blocked prices increased for everyone, even if these countries did not import any oil from Gulf States. This is because oil is a global market. If a large exporter becomes unavailable - prices increase for everyone.
Sweden is part of the same global market in petroleum products as every other country. In particular, Sweden imports a bunch of crude from Norway (SEK46.2B), United States (SEK13.6B), United Kingdom (SEK10.9B), Guyana (SEK9.04B), and Denmark (SEK3.82B). https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/crude-petrole...
If Germany loses access to one source of oil and pays a premium to substitute Norwegian oil instead, guess what? Sweden has to pay the same higher price for Norwegian oil as well.
This interconnection of global markets is why Trump is trying to increase diesel supply in Europe in order to lower prices in the US in the first place.
Non-Paywalled article: https://politicstoday.org/us-presses-france-and-germany-to-r...
Why doesn't he ban exports right away, forcing Europe to use their stockpiles anyways?
Is it that he can't? So the entire threat is moot?
Is he thinking of using the Graham bill to threaten +100% tarrifs for buying Russian gas?
As far as I understand, the US produces more Diesel than it consumes. A blanket export ban would mean that refineries would have to shut down because they can't get rid of all the Diesel they produce. But since refineries produce more than one product, this would affect other oil products as well. That doesn't sound like a situation you want.
But this is based on my simplistic understanding of how this works, I'm really not sure about the details.
> Why doesn't he ban exports right away, forcing Europe to use their stockpiles anyways?
Because big oil doesn't like that.
And as others said, diesel is just one product. If you want to keep producing the other products you'll have to sell or store that diesel. The capacity is too much for the US alone and storing all excess capacity isn't feasible. So if he does it, there will be a surplus which means big oil will lose a large amount of money.
If he bans exports the EU is screwed over. It will destroy what little good will the EU has towards the US. It will cause the EU to double down on Chinese partnerships and you will see the EV transition happen faster ESPECIALLY in the Semi Truck space.
No, the US is screwed over. From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup. And the market disruption caused by an export ban would wreak complete havoc in those regions and cause significant price spikes starting from diesel and then rippling out to anything reliant on it.
This is why he hasn't done it yet. Everybody in the US with money at stake called him and told him it was a stupid idea.
> From what I've read, many areas in the US are completely reliant on imports because of how the current logistics and production/processing chain/infrastructure is setup.
Which areas are you referring to?
Oh my, by all means please do!
Why? Why is that good? What if supply stays low and prices stay high? What if the stockpile is still depleted in two or three years, and Russia takes the chance to invade while Europe has nothing to power their industry and tanks?
Why must the energy transition be "move fast and break everything" while the industry and households suffer under the strain of high prices?
It could have been so smooth, it could have gone so well, but the world went mad...
Since when is bullying other countries alright? Those are strategic reserves for real emergencies. To keep the show going _at all_.
What a fucking narcistic war monger clique.
But you don't understand, the midterms are an emergency!
But he, his clan and all sycophants made a ton of money already. What more? Make everyone's life even more miserable? Gold plate even more useless stuff?
Can they just sodd off to a remote island with a golden palace? /Mars/ would be a good place. "One way ticket" playing as part of the OST. Shoot the whole clique with a lot of gold bars to the red planet.
> Gold plate even more useless stuff
Bingo! Dragon fever knows no bounds. I truly think there is no bottom in the pit of depravity.
Lol. Have you never heard of the EU? It bullies members and non-members on the regular.
Isn't that basically the whole point of an economic union?
So when Trump attacks individual countries like this, there can be a union level response?
This is the real heart of the problem.
Trump literally CANNOT admit he made a mistake.
Nixon may have been a corrupt sleaze ball but he knew he had to get out of Vietnam because it was destroying America and so he did.
I thought the press lost the war.
Since there has never been a time in history when this hasn’t happened
Every day I wake up, open the news, and let out a slightly louder breath out of my nostrils at the latest boutade from Trump. Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.
> Every day I wake up, open the news, and let out a slightly louder breath out of my nostrils at the latest boutade from Trump.
Agreed with you there, and it leaves me ever more exhausted.
> Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.
Unfortunately, when the US sneezes, Europe gets hit by a tornado. Ever since this godforsaken war against Iran, gas prices were unpredictable and unsustainably high.
It would have been one thing, had the US properly conducted the war - aka, had they prepared their allies in the region, had they asked us to join the fun, and committed ground troops. But they didn't, they caught all of us off guard, completely botched the execution, and we had to deal with the fallout.
The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war. There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.
Committing ground troops would be necessary to actually achieve objectives here. But that would lead the US into a very different, probably even larger shitshow.
> The Iran war is a particularly stupid shitshow, but there was no way to "properly" wage this war.
I think it would have been possible... had it been prepared many months earlier.
The biggest and, to make it worse, completely avoidable issue IMHO was that there was no advance deployment of anti-drone defense across the region. Iran-made Shahed drones have been a thing in Ukraine ever since 2023, it boggles my mind that no single MENA country other than Israel had built up any AA defense and thus they all (including the US) were forced to waste millions of dollars worth of missilies against a glorified lawnmower on wings.
The second issue was that no allies were involved in this at all. Everyone got caught completely off guard, so there was no way to, say, silently build up stockpiles of oil and oil products - and as a result, oil prices skyrocketed.
And the third issue was timing itself. By the time the Iranian regime slaughtered tens of thousands of protestors, it was too late. The US could have used the momentum - Iranian exilants and the people in Iran all but screamed for external intervention. But since there was no planning done at all, it took the US far, far too long, and so there was barely any inner support in Iran to take out IRGC.
The fact that the US and Israel botched target selection and coordination - the US bombed a girl's school and people that Israel would have been fine with as an ersatz regime for the Mullahs - just puts the icing on the cake. A good idea in theory, no love for the Mullahs from my side, may they rot in hell - but an execution botched so horribly it puts the incompetent warmonger Bush to shame.
> There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.
Partially it also was because the US general public was sick and tired of constant wars that (seemed to) only serve the interests of the MIC, with barely any incentive for actually bettering the lives of the people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The early war phase was won fast, but it was completely obvious no one ever drafted plans on how to lead both countries on a path to actual prosperity.
it all comes down to if they have Epstein files on the powerful people running Germany and France
And the question is: Who cares ?