Due to Trump sanctions and EU feebleness China and Iran Near Trade and Military Partnership.
Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military ambitions.
The partnership, detailed in an 18-page proposed agreement obtained by The New York Times, would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil over the next 25 years.
The document also describes deepening military cooperation, potentially giving China a foothold in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades. It calls for joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence sharing — all to fight “the lopsided battle with terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes.”
The projects, including airports, high-speed railways and subways, would touch the lives of millions of Iranians. China would develop free-trade zones in Maku, in northwestern Iran; in Abadan, where the Shatt al-Arab river flows into the Persian Gulf, and on the gulf island Qeshm.
Another Loss For Trump Tariffs and Sanctions
Chalk up another loss For Trump tariffs and sanctions. This is potentially the biggest yet. And for what?
Obama worked out a nuclear deal with Iran, and it was a deal that all of our allies signed off on.
I consider that deal to be the only major achievement of Obama in eight years. Trump took that deal and smashed it to pieces saying he could do better.
At the same time, Trump engaged in a ridiculous and very counterproductive trade war with China.
No jobs returned to the US. Instead, Trump made new global enemies, especially in the EU.
Trump Tweets “Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win”
Anyone recall Trump Tweets “Trade Wars are Good and Easy to Win”?
But four years have nearly passed and Trump has not won any deal nor have sanctions succeeded in Iran, China, Cuba, Venezuela or anywhere else.
USMCA is a Proven Failure
USMCA, Trump’s NAFTA replacement. was supposed to bring auto manufacturing jobs from Mexico into the US.
Instead, rather than move production to the US, Japanese auto companies elected to triple Mexican pay.
The result is no new US jobs just higher prices for US consumers.
For details, please see Trump’s New Nafta is a Proven Failure Already
Trump Scraps Deal With China
On July 11, Trump Threw in the Towel on Phase 2 Deal With China.
Trumpian Madness
All we have to show for Trumpian madness is higher prices, angry farmers, a NAFTA replacement that just backfired, poor relations with all our trade partners, and a trade deal with China that Trump just scrapped.
The icing on the cake is Trump just drove Iran into the arms of China.
One Word Synopsis
There is only one word that describes these events.
We call this “Winning”.
Mish
Difficult to see any upside for Iran. China loans Iran huge sums for unnecessary infrastructure improvements which Chinese companies build with huge cost overruns. China buys cheap oil from Iran which it could buy on the open market for almost the same price. In the end, not much changes in Iran other than local Iranian businesses are bankrupted competing with more efficient Chinese producers. Russia appears to be the big loser in this deal. Loss of influence in Iran and loss of oil revenue to China. The balance of the deal is sheer fantasy. Refer to Pakistan to see how that deal worked out for China. Massive loan write-offs as Pakistan reneges on debt to China. Iran needs better road not fantasy high speed rail projects which dictators from Mussolini to Stalin to Xi Jinping love. Whole post overstated, go inside, stay out of the sun.
All empires die the same way, by going broke supporting their military.
Most of you think that all of this is a sudden occurrence. It is all part of a world wide chess match that has been playing for decades. What is going to happen will be slowly maneuvered into place all by design, so no need to get your panties in a wad.
Just wait ’till Iran goes to use all that military equipment – finds out just what “Made in China” quality really is!
Mush you hate Trump so much why not live in Russia to get a taste of what’s to come
Since we are going down the disrespectful path only idiots support the stupid stuff the leaders they support do. Or political hacks. Which one are you?
Yeez what a stupid comment of yours, swami
Russia? Trump’s buddy and best customer? And why would he want a taste of Putin/Trump in advance?
“The document also describes deepening military cooperation, potentially giving China a foothold in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades.”
…
Good. Let THEM have their turn in the meat grinder called the Mid East. The politicians might not care, but the citizens of the US and Russia know all too well the costs.
The Chinese will not be invading uninvited.
Did the US try to build a subway in Teheran?
No. They spent their time subverting democracy and making enemies of the peoples of Iran.
Think of how much influence they could have gotten by helping Iran to develop.
They might even have succeeded in subverting the implacable political enmity. People in general have been quite open to the West, as long as it is on their own terms.
China will ratchet up its influence —> leading to restless natives.
Mish, please stop reading the New York Times as a source for “news”, haven’t you read Bari Weiss’s resignation letter?
Great article Mish, keep digging up info like this that the mainstream media barely covers!
Good, let the Chinese go bankrupt dealing with this corrupt country run by by so called revolutionary guards.
Wonder how history of the middle East would have evolved had not the United States had agreed to work with a democratically elected government instead of participating in a coup to overthrow an Iranian democratically elected government?
Not quite understanding your logic on China going bankrupt?
What a wicked web we weave?
“In a review of Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes, historian Michael Beschloss wrote, “Mr. Weiner argues that a bad C.I.A. track record has encouraged many of our gravest contemporary problems… A generation of Iranians grew up knowing that the C.I.A. had installed the shah,” Mr. Weiner notes. “In time, the chaos that the agency had created in the streets of Tehran would return to haunt the United States.”[126]
The administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the coup a success, but, given its blowback, that opinion is no longer generally held, because of its “haunting and terrible legacy”.[18]:215 In 2000, Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, said that intervention by the U.S. in the internal affairs of Iran was a setback for democratic government.[127][128] The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the “pro-Western” Shah and replaced the monarchy with an “anti-Western” Islamic republic.[129]
“For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhanded methods to overthrow a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests”, the Agence France-Presse reported.[130]
United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who visited Iran both before and after the coup, wrote that “When Mosaddegh and Persia started basic reforms, we became alarmed. We united with the British to destroy him; we succeeded; and ever since, our name has not been an honored one in the Middle East.”[131]”
Read deeper. Much of Iranian elite and Mullahs were happy to see Mossadegh overthrown.
They won’t go bankrupt. Iran has too much poorly managed oil reserves, ripe for picking. On account of all the sanctions, you probably couldn’t design a better place for a budding, but currently inexperience and a bit backwards oil service industry to grow into an internationally competitive one, than Iran.
Instead, what the Chinese likely will do, is develop an oil service industry competitive with near anyone in the world. Offering every tinpot which is currently sending a fortune to Houston to get “his” oil out of the ground, the opportunity to cut his bill in half.
Hence why the closer-to-home No-We-Can’t(-do-anything-at-all-anymore) idiot brigade, just put on their latest display of childish tantrum-theater; mindlessly shutting down the Chinese Houston consulate. Oil service has long been easy enough pickings that it has been lucrative in the US, even if effectively taxed at over 80% in order to keep idle idiots in the FIRE rackets in unearned splendor. But being forced to fight with that much of their arms tied behind their backs, makes them very viable targets for even less-than-cutting edge Chinese upstarts. And the Chinese will only get better at it. Something which the poor saps being stuck feeding ever more glutenous leeches are going to have a much harder time at.
Your point about the PRC bankrupting itself, is more relevant to Xinjiang and other mountainous territories. Where the possible payback from resource extraction is less likely to cover the cost of keeping fundamentally non-Chinese populations subdued.
As a long time investor in oil and natural gas stocks, I do not see low price petroleum being to the benefit of Iran or the Chinese. The Saudis have a first class oil infrastructure and so does the U.S. If anything the Chinese will export the oil of out Iran and process it in China. Where is the benefit to Iran? All Iran will receive is overpriced and unnecessary rail infrastructure and huge unpayable debt to China. Much ado about nothing. As for Houston Consulate, good riddance, the Chinese intelligence community has been working overtime in the U.S. for decades. As for Chinese expertise, my direct experience with Chinese Students in US is that they are hard workers but no smarter than other foreign students. Also a deep acceptance of cheating to gain grades which translates into Chinese companies also using every nasty trick in the book to gain business. The good times are over for the Chinese.
China benefits from low priced oil. They’re an industrial, construction and infrastructure superpower.
Iran obviously not, in absolute terms. But Iran does benefit from being able to sell oil to the world’s biggest and most stable, growing oil consumer, as opposed to being banned from selling to anyone.
No doubt the Mullahs would much prefer to sell to Americans without having to sell out to China in the process, but that’s not, thanks to an ignorant US administration blindly following in the footsteps of a bunch of Neocons on the path to ruin, an option on the table for them. So, China it is.
More worryingly for American oil service firms, which are some of America’s far and away “best” employers, is the protected waters this provide their currently rather backwards Chinese counterparts to learn the ropes.
Due to the massive capital investments required, oil service is one of the last remaining seedcorn left from back when America was the undisputed number one industrial, engineering and technological power. Most other seedcorn from the golden era, have already been handed to FIRE idiots and been burned, as America’s lack of “good,” world leading, real (non-makework) jobs can attest to.
Oil service is still an American stronghold. In every corner of the world. But, true to form as a financialized dystopia ran by and for rank idiots and rank idiots only, we’ll throw that one away, too. “Making up” for it, by mindlessly printing Washington’s head on a few more pieces of paper, so the twiddledumb, -dumber and -dumbest can “make money off my home!”
Sounds like standard CCP troll malarkey , or as I prefer to say CCP propaganda swill: a barrage of nonsensical attacks on the U.S. and nothing but sweet loving praise for the CCP State.
Trump’s lack of a coherent foreign policy is pushing the US into dangerous territory. Escalating tensions with China and Iran courtesy of a supposedly easily winnable trade war and his misguided decision to undo the nuclear accord forged by Obama. He has been played by North Korea’s Kim, Erdogan, Putin and a Saudi regime that stinks to high heaven. We urgentLy need some grown ups to lead this country.
After years of submission, a different foreign policy no doubt comes as a shock. Perhaps you can explain how, exactly, the Obama foreign policy was so much better? Not banalities and broad generalities, specifics that deal with realities!
Meanwhile, I am sure closing the Houston PRC consulate is unnecessary and warmongering in your eyes.
Pretty sad that the standard Republican supporter’s response in defense of Trump criticism is Obama was no better or Biden would be worse. Also the dangerous escalation is much more than just closing the Houston
“Only I can fix it” should have tipped you off to the essential con-man nature of the speaker, the speaker’s bottomless egotism and ignorance. Further, it should have spoke loudly to the fundamentally un-democratic nature of the speaker.
Remember how Make America Great Again was all about a strong, masculine, beefy, red-blooded, double-wide, camo-clothed and fully loaded King Dollar as the signifier that the USA was back? Well, that’s not actually how things are playing out right now. link to thereformedbroker.com
The US dollar is at the same place it was in 1997, 2003 and 15% higher than it was in 2014. What’s your point?
Not measured against houses in San Francisco. Nor much else of relevance.
Make up a sufficiently dumb, pointless and stilted up “metric”, and it can, no doubt, in Newspeaktopia, be tortured into being “in the same place.”
Just as Men and Women now are the exact same thing. Interestingly enough, the more they are the same in some country, the more of both seem to die of covid….
If the dollar is going to be continually falling investing in foreign markets makes sense. If you had read the article.
“Here’s the German stock market doubling the performance of the S&P 500 over the last 90 days, as it became apparent that one region had its act together and the other was using the virus as just another set piece to continue fighting its Culture War”
“If” the dollar is going to be continually falling is a big assumption, I did read the article, maybe investing in the DAX 90 days ago was the right move.
Yes I did.
I agree with your statement “Make up a sufficiently dumb, pointless and stilted up “metric”, and it can, no doubt, in Newspeaktopia, be tortured”
It’s all over this site
On the second comment, I have no idea what you are talking about.
I grew up in an America that ruled the world, that every kid in high school had a car parked out in front of it, and multiple job offers out of college. This was 20 to 25 short years ago, when first it was America Online and then this funky thing called the World Wide Web came on scene. Seems like yesterday. My Dad grew up with even more freedom, in the glorious late 70’s Americana.
I don’t care if we have to build 19 more Aircraft Carriers to try and maintain that for future generations, then so be it. I would rather be dead than live in a world where we are less than.
THINGS CHANGE MY FRIEND, 2 WAYS ADAPT OR DIE ,AND THEY ALL UP TO YOU CHOOSE ONE.NEW SUPER POWER IN TOWN THIS HAPPENS EVERY FEW HUNDREDS YEARS ,GOD WATCHING US RACISM LYING STEALING WE CAN DO ALL THE BAD THINGS BUT WE ARE BEEN WATCH YOUR Dad grew up GREAT freedom
BUT THEIR WERE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE LIVING IN POVERTY RACISM AND MARGINALIZATION
Pathetic white people always trying to lord over other people. No one needed American leadership. No one asked for it.
Thank God this country is blowing apart. There’s justice in this world after all.
It’s easy to live large, for awhile, from reaching into cribs and stealing from other people’s children. Sooner or later, those kids are broke, though. And, since all you then know how to make a living from, is robbing those kids, then so will be you.
In 1971, the last vestiges of any possibility of America being anything but a complete and utter dystopian wasteland, was removed. For good, it now seems. Absolutely every single moment since, has been one of straight decline. Every.Single.One. No ups and downs. Just down, down, down.
What you pine for, is no more relevant than some dutch guy throwing tantrums over no longer being able to live large, by being handed a handful of tulip bulbs stolen from someone else.
19 sitting duck aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers are only to project power abroad against nations that cannot defend themselves.
What if we make them invisible?
Sudden acute cases of lead poisoning and not enough social distancing at funeral home in Chicago yesterday and I bet nobody was wearing masks, either.
You push the 2nd amendment and the right to own guns without restriction, and you’re surprised/outraged by this?
Live with it.
Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, criminals don’t follow laws
Exactly. Which is why gun possession should be made illegal in all forms with very serve 1st offense penalties. If you want to go hunting, use a bow, spear, knife or your bare hands.
And I thought Trump vs. Hillary was a no win situation and didn’t vote for either. As far as i’m concerned it’s over. Im hunkering down for whatever insanity comes this way. Most of my friends are republicans and are constantly on me about not letting the dems in due to socialism and guns. I’m like half the contry is behind them to think you’re keeping them out forever is ludicrous. As far as i’m concerned my as well deal with it as there’s no stopping it.
Trump apparently and based on reality,…doesn’t get that the world is NOT a game show and he is not the host,…nor does any sane individual(s) even consider him a candidate for that position.
Trump does win at one matter,…He fights for his limitations and wins every time.
When I think of Trump a statement comes to mind that perfectly describes his inability and total lack of self-actualization,..”What you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say!”
You know he was a yuppie asshole long before the TV show, right?
Oh yea,…his stench permeated everything he touched. Mary Trump nailed Trumpalina ! Now Michael Cohens book will further the education of his base,..if they have the courage to lean in. He’s toast. Can’t wait to see him hauled off in silver bracelets to match the fake silver spoon in his mouth.
To all those who championed and voted for Trump in 2016, even though they knew he had no real political experience and was a business failure – Payback’s a bitch, eh?
But only a handful of districts in a handful of states put him in office. 2016 was more about Hilary losing then Trump winning. People will not take it for granted in 2020 no matter how high the stock market goes.
C_O, you are correct. Most people seem to miss that point. Trump won the anyone-but-Hillary vote — even Trump missed this point. And, honestly, he might win the say-no-to-Biden vote, which in actuality is simply a vote against the Democratic Party vote.
I believe you have it reversed, Hillary only won a handful of districts in a handful of states.
He didn’t start the wars in the middle-east and has pretty much toned it all down. Iran was never going to trust US,
historic and also regarding US ties with Israel/”Israel”/occupation , has long been closer to China. Might as well thank a whole load of other people. The story on enrichment is not clear, there are different versions, so I cannot judge based on that approach.
Ain’t the internet great? Your post illustrates that no matter how bad a politician may be, there will always be at least one positive thing they can be singled out for. And sadly, a lot of people vote focusing on that one or two things that resonates with their worldview.
Hillary’s a Bitch!
This is fantastic news. The nations of the world are starting to unite to destroy American hegemony. Once there is a coalition that supersedes the USA, America can begin the long, painful road of rediscovery and moral reckoning. Relieved of the yoke of world domination, attention can finally be paid to the health and welfare of all its citizens and the national infrastructure.
Best thing that can happen, is the whole shitshow collapsing sufficiently that the junta is no longer able to pay nearly as much attention to either American, nor other countries’, citizens. Get out of the way and stay there, is what once made America great. And the only way it will ever be made great again as well.
Meddling classes produce nothing, add nothing, serve no purpose and are nothig but boat anchors around the ankles of productive humanity. All thy do is make it more expensive and harder for potentially productive people to produce something. They should, all, be flushed down the drain, and nothing but.
Ah yes because the would-be future Hegemons are going to be so much better than the USA and then we can all sing songs together and toast to our newfound liberated wealth with unicorn pee.
Eventually, The Taliban will liberate “us.” Not in my time, I suppose, but at an 8-to 1.5 demographic productivity ratio vs both us and Chicomstan, and something akin to a 100-1 advantage in de facto individual freedom, as well as a society built around something as quaint these days as an actual rule of some law, it’s only a matter of time. Thank goodness.
I dgaf about future hegemons. I want my country back. I want MY tax money to improve MY life. The US was never intended to be world cop. Eff the rest of the world, let them work for it free of US oppression.
For the U.S to pay attention to the welfare of its citizens, and address its infrastructure, it must have great global trade relations, which in turn benefits it’s economy. The South Pacific Regional Trade & Economic Co-operation arrangement was a tactical move against growing Chinese economic and trade influences. Trump maybe be anti-socialist, but he certainly isn’t a bonafide capitalist, rather he is an opportunist. He has only succeeded in alienating America’s traditional trading allies and forcing potential allies into China’s economic orbit. The U.S is too important a power to experiment with neophytes in power.
Iraq also signing deal with China… and the whole reason we spent all that time in Afghanistan was to block the old silk road project. Fail. fail, fail. The next failure will be israel who sucked the US dry and has no further use for us. link to timesofisrael.com
It’s untenable for any country to overpay too gravely for the same service, if Chinese providers can do the same thing for a whole lot less.
And as financialization theft in the West keeps growing, even a Communist Party sucking up half of value add via indirect bribes and mindless meddling, still provides a better climate in which to grow a competitive business, than a bankster kleptocracy where 80+% of value add is sucked up to fund idle half literates producing nothing sitting around “making money off their home”, off “finance” and off ambulance chasing.
Historical inertia and resistance t change can carry you for a while, and let you get away with being slightly worse than an unknown upstart. But if all you do is keep getting worse, eventually the discrepancy becomes too big, and people are willing to switch providers. Sadly, “we” are now reached the stage of decay into a theft-for-the-benefits-of-idle-iditots-and-nothing-else-dystopian-dump, where we are that much worse than something as patently not good as a bunch of commies. And it’s all self inflicted. One cash-out-refi, frivolous lawsuit, hedge fund bonus and upward move of the Dow at a time.
Yep, we’ve basically forced China, Iran, and Russia to team up if they want to resist Uncle Scam. We could probably add nearly all of the central Asian countries to that list too, all the way south to Pakistan.
Who could have foreseen that using our post-Soviet global hegemony to focus only on enriching bankers and the MIC could backfire? /s
It will be interesting to see if Chinese firms get directly involved in the Iranian oil sector. Sinopec is a bit of a backwater compared to Houston, but at least for now, China has proven to have no shortage of quick-study engineers.
Oil service is a huge, high margin industry in the US and Europe. While it’s not always necessarily “easy money” for the companies involved (high capital requirements and rather cyclical), if you add up the sheer amount of high salaried, “good” jobs it underpins, it has very much been “easy money” for the West as a whole.
If every other industry the Chinese have gotten involved in is anything to go by, Having to compete directly with the Chinese in the not-too-distant future, will require some changes.
Only thing is quality of the oil.
The fault line is once more Mid East with Saudi-Israel-US vs Iran-Russia-China.
Wasted money and lives in Iraq.
Iran will run their own oil industry not the Chinese.
The oil industry, likely. But not the oil service one.
Iran doesn’t even have remotely the industrial nor engineering capacity to do that without outside help.
And with Trump and his idiot army banning one of America’s increasingly few industrial/technological world leading sectors from competing, someone else will step in. Seemingly China, as they seem to be the only ones big and confident enough to treat the has-been schoolyard bully with the disregard his current position warrants.