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Bulletins and News Discussion from May 19th to May 25th, 2025 - The Beginning of the End of the Monroe Doctrine

Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you're a little more pessimistic.

Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.

While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.

Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.

It wouldn't really be correct to say that Latin America is "siding with China over the US" - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump's bizarre economic strongman routine won't make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What's significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.

As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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792 comments

  • AI likely to cause rolling blackouts across USA

    With soaring summer temps ahead, AI data centers could strain electricity supplies in the Mid-Atlantic

    Forecasts for scorching temperatures across the Mid-Atlantic this summer could result in a higher-than-usual demand for electricity — at a time when federal regulators are warning that the margins between supply and demand are shrinking.

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s 2025 Summer Assessment of electricity reliability from June through September says while all areas of the country will have enough supply, regional electric grids could be stressed by rising temperatures and a demand that is expected to outpace the previous four summers.

    While FERC’s annual assessment anticipates an adequate supply of electricity under normal conditions, Chairman Mark Christie said the loss of available electricity is happening “at a pace that is not sustainable and we are not adding sufficient equivalent generation capacity.”

    The Mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM Interconnection, which coordinates the transmission of electricity for 67 million commercial and residential customers in all or parts of 13 states and Washington D.C., recently announced that while it expects to have enough supply to meet demand this summer, for the first time, its supply may fall short in an “extreme planning scenario.” The need for more than 166,000 megawatts of electricity would tip the balance, which is enough to power about 133 million homes.

    The biggest increase in demand comes from the enormous amount of energy required to power artificial intelligence and data centers, said Dave Souder, PJM Interconnection’s executive director of systems operations.

    “We’re seeing a lot of electrification and or data center loads, with all the AI and computer requirements,” Souder said. “We’re seeing less capacity. We’re seeing generators retire before we have enough replacement generation come online.”

    Souder said many of those retirements are coal plants. And while new solar and wind sources are increasing, they haven’t kept pace.

    Who could have seen this coming literally 20 years ago

792 comments