Skip Navigation
news @hexbear.net
SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him] @hexbear.net

Bulletins and News Discussion from January 27th to February 2nd, 2025 - Tariffs in Trump's Imperium - COTW: Colombia

Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.

Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ending slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]

It's still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden's, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several "allied" nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they'd do. I suspect we'll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.

I'll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump's administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It's funny how that works.

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

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

588 comments

  • The US Secretary of the Interior, Kristi Noem, has announced that the agency has revoked the extension of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans who have fled Nicolas Maduro's regime. As a result, Venezuelans can be deported.

    If it is not possible to apply for another visa, Venezuelans, now without protection status, could be deported, according to Donald Trump's new migration policy. The TPS had been renewed on January 17 by Joe Biden, but now that it has been revoked, it will not be extended.

  • Gustavo Petro fires his foreign minister and swears in a new one following the curfuffle with the U.S. (preceded by a curfuffle with Venezuela). Two weeks ago, a Venezuelan official penned an article saying Luis Murillo answers to the State Department and Juan Manuel Santos.

    Laura Camila Sarabia Torres (born March 20, 1994) is a Colombian political scientist. During the 2022 presidential campaign, Benedetti offered his work team to collaborate in Gustavo Petro's campaign. There Sarabia and Petro met and worked together. Petro noticed Sarabia's work capacity, so once he was sworn in as president he offered him the position of Chief of Staff, a position that was later reformed and officially became known as Chief of the Presidential Office.

  • A host at a German public broadcaster allegedly had visceral reaction of disgust, when a guest, an Israeli-German cyber-security professor, said her name was "from Israel". First of all, there is no such thing as being "from Israel", and what's an Israeli name anyway?

    Only a Zionist would answer this way, I thought, and yeah, she has written an article about how "Israel must also defend itself on the Internet".

    The host is probably going to get fired, she's Turkish-German so they'll count that against her.

  • @SoyViking@hexbear.net The news coming out of the US these last few days - News of mass raids, tariffs, cutbacks and funding freezes, as well as the announcement the UAW is possibly organising a national strike for 2028, has made me think about unions and worker action. Especially I've been thinking about the Nordic Model.

    I've been wanting to hear some thoughts on the Nordic model, but most Danes/scandis in my life are libs or about as informed as I am, so not really great wells of insight. You, being a resident newsposter and our "man on the inside" in the reclusive monarchy "Denmark" (field of the Danes in their own tongue) leads me to believe you could give valuable insights. It might not be fitting for the newsmega, but what's your take on the Nordic Model? Is it a viable method of unions getting stuff done or is it just a pacifier that slowly traps them in a state-controlled "no fun allowed" box?

    Tl;dr me recently learn of Nordic model for unions. Me want hear from smart person what smart person think of model. Me would appreciate much.

  • Plane and helicopter collide in the air in Washington D.C. The aircraft exploded and crashed into the Potomac River, which runs through the US capital.

    The American Airlines aircraft was bound for Kansas. The helicopter, according to sources, was a Black Hawk. Reagan Airport is closed and flights have been suspended.

  • NBC Jan 27: ICE makes close to 1,200 arrests in one day https://archive.is/UPHrs

    This seems to be the highest so far for Trump. If you are wondering how to know an exact count of ICE arrests per day, you don't have to look any further than the terror of ICEs twitter: https://xcancel.com/ICEgov

    This is the day mentioned in the article:

    "Detainers lodged" seems to refer to people who were arrested for other things, but ICE believes to be undocumented.

    Unclear how many of these turn into deportations rn. I assume a lot. Trump is moving fast, and ICE is bragging on twitter. Not good.

  • This is pure speculation but I'm 90% sure that the NVidia drop had nothing to do with Deepseek R1 and was actually insider trading on the "news" that Trump was considering a tariff on Taiwanese chips.

    First, R1 was released on the 20th, 5 days before the stock dropped. It wasn't at all a secret, basically it was the talk of the town that whole week and their capabilities claims were shown to be solid very early on by many many people running independent benchmarks. But the market didn't react.

    Second, the big AI companies want all the compute they can get, they aren't satisfied with training 10 or 100 or 1000 times more quickly, this is why they're talking about trillion dollar data centers with nuclear reactors. Also of note, R1 was trained on Nvidia TPUs with the same amount of vram as the H100s. You couldn't cheaply train such a model on any other brand of hardware, demand for Nvidia products isn't going anywhere.

    Third, if anything it's the AI software companies that would take a big drop, they're the ones who are supposedly spooked and scrambling to replicate R1 internally. The major software only players took only a small hit but recovered quickly, that would be Microsoft and Meta. Google is also a hardware company, they're trying to move some of their chip fabs to TMSC but their TPUs are made by Samsung. They took a small hit and have not yet recovered. AMD is a hardware company, they have fabs all over including sourcing from TMSC, same story. Intel, a similar company, no change whatsoever, they don't use TMSC at all. Nvidia took the big one, and they get ALL of their chips from... TMSC. All the action happened about simultaneously in after hours weekend trading.

    Fourth, when the tariff news dropped the market seemed to be unaffected almost as if it had already been priced in over weekend trading.

  • Milei has announced that he will build a fence on the Argentina-Bolivia border and that he may plan similar decisions with Paraguay and Brazil.

    For Brazil, Argentina plans to intensify its “border control” with Santa Catarina, more specifically between the cities of Bernardo de Irigoyen (AR) and Dionísio Cerqueira (BR). Although no fence has been announced, the Argentine government is not ruling out the possibility. For Paraguay, the measure is planned for the borders of the Argentine provinces of Chaco and Salta. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said that “within our border we do what we want. We are putting a fence around our house, our homeland”.

    Lula please send your Super Tucanos and bomb Buenos Aires, the people yearns to be free from this Ancap demon

  • France: The General Confederation of Workers (CGT) donated medical materials and supplies to three pediatric hospitals in Havana, Cuba, including the William Soler University Pediatric Hospital.

  • In July 2024, Panama president José Raúl Mulino said his country was formally applying to join Mercosur as an associate member. In January 2025, Panama joined Mercosur as an associate member.

  • The CELAC extraordinary meeting of Heads of State and Government called for Thursday has been cancelled. The Pro Tempore Presidency says Honduras has received systematic opposition from Member Countries on the issue of Haiti and concerning the issue of migrants.

    The statement by the Pro Tempore Presidency (Honduras), says that certain Member Countries have privileged other principles and interests different from those of the unity of the Latin American and Caribbean region as a Community.

    Some progressive governments are evidently on a short leash and simply not prepared to take the plunge and oppose the empire Moments ago, President Xiomara Castro announced the enactment of the national emergency strategy for the protection of Honduran migrants. It includes an action program for Hondurans in an irregular migratory situation in the US, as well as those in transit & returned to Honduras.

    President Xiomara says she'll instruct institutions of the newly created Migration Governance Council to immediately carry out in the next 72 hours, a technical mission of verification and support to migrants on the southern border of the US and the northern border of Mexico.

    President @XiomaraCastroZ: "The displacement of people either within or outside [Honduras] has worsened with the implementation of a neoliberal economic model that deepened dependence, inequality, environmental degradation and violence." Deportations of Hondurans from the United States have decreased by at least 50% between 2000 and 2024.

    • 2022: 88,000
    • 2023: 58,000
    • 2024: 44,000

    There are an estimated 1.8 million Hondurans currently in the United States, of which Honduras has been informed that 261,651 have deportation orders and are not in the custody of the U.S. Immigration Service. 1,349 have deportation orders and are in custody. XC says the immediate expulsion of migrants from several Latin American and Caribbean countries, including Honduras, "undoubtedly generates a humanitarian and economic crisis in our nation" and reiterates willingness to maintain a close dialogue with the US on the matter.

    The decreed and enacted national emergency strategy for the protection of Honduran migrants includes an action program for: 1. Hondurans in an irregular migratory situation in the United States 2.Honduran migrants in transit 3. Returned Honduran migrants. The strategy includes strengthening of agreements w/governments of transit countries, Guatemala and Mexico, coordinating of voluntary humanitarian return flights for Hondurans in Mexico, new consular offices where Hondurans reside, passport/national ID issuance will be sped up.

    Camila - Kawsachuan News

  • Qassam has released quite a lot of footage of their operations against the IOF during the last month or so, before the signing of the ceasefire. All I can say is that despite 15 months of relentless bombing and a full blown ground operation, the Resistance's fighting capacity is still there. It's not untouched though because I believe the Resistance has suffered tremendously, but they are more than able to fight back and even determine the pace of fighting. In the latest series of videos released by Qassam, named "Ambushes of Death", the picture couldn't look worse of the "israelis".., scores of their soldiers are killed or seriously wounded in elaborated RPG, IED and sniper operations in the last few months. In one such operation, a Qassam Brigades team detonates a BIG IED under a Merkava tank and flips it over, tossing the turret away from the chassis in the process, resulting in multiple dead for the "israelis" as well as gravely wounded.

    Do check out Jon Elmer's twitter account if you haven't, it's a great archive of Qassam/PIJ footage that might be uh.. handy I guess.

    I have nothing but admiration for the military prowess of the Gazans, they're fighting in a small strip of land that is almost entirely flat and urban. There are no mountains or jungles to run away to, it's just a big city with smaller ones as satellites, the sea and the big border with "israel" and Egypt, completely at the marcy of their genocidal neighbors. Their only hope was to dig, dig and dig, study every single street and corner that exists and have a plan for each part of the city, strike only when necessary or when the enemy is completely distracted (like when these mfs just start posing for pictures or bulldozing buildings). Their way of conducting urban guerrilla warfare will be studied for generations, there have been urban guerrillas in the past but I think none is just as good as this one.

  • The merciless January counteroffensive against China watchers continues. Further thawing between India and China:
    https://xcancel.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/1884149054914888088

    India and China have tentatively agreed to restart direct flights between their countries, nearly five years after they were suspended due to the COVID19 pandemic and escalating political tensions.

    The announcement on Monday came after India’s senior diplomat visited Beijing, suggesting a potential easing of strained relations between the two most populous nations in the world.

    Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s visit to the Chinese capital is among the most significant official interactions since the deadly border clash in the Himalayas in 2020, which pushed relations to a breaking point.

    India’s statement further noted that China had agreed to allow the resumption of pilgrimages to a revered shrine dedicated to the Hindu deity Krishna, a tradition that had been suspended since the start of the decade.

  • Imperialist enforcer's feelings hurt after being subject of imperial coercion

    The Speaker of the Denmark's rubber-stamp parliament, Søren Gade, felt a "wrench in the gut" when he heard Donald Trump's threats about wanting to take over Greenland.

    He said this to Politiken.

    Gade, who is a former head of the Liberal Party-controlled Ministry of Defence himself, finds it particularly unfortunate in light of Denmark's consistent support for American military violence across the globe.

    "It hurts a bit when you have stood in the Pentagon and received praise for Denmark's efforts, the soldiers' efforts, and have been praised for punching above your weight, and whatever else has been said."

    "The praise wasn't for me, it was for Denmark and our skilled soldiers. That's why I felt a little wrench in the gut when I heard it," he says.

    When you dance with the devil, you don’t get to lead.

  • Danish Leader On Crisis Tour Of Europe Amid Trump-Greenland Crisis

    Danish leader Mette Frederiksen spent Tuesday urgently touring European capitals to rally support against U.S. demands to annex Greenland, following threats from American supreme leader Donald Trump, who told reporters this Saturday that Danish refusal to hand over the island would be “a very unfriendly act.”

    Meetings with German, French, and NATO leaders signalled common European support for border integrity. The French even offered to deploy troops to Greenland, although Denmark choose not to move forward with the idea.

    Even as Frederiksen spoke worriedly of a new kind of relationship between the United States and Europe she regurgitated the American Trump regime's talking points about Russian and Chinese bogeymen in the Arctic and signaled plans to ramp up military spending closer to 5% of GDP to placate Washington.

    This Sunday, in a similar display of unity, Frederiksen met with the leaders of Sweden, Norway and Finland in Copenhagen.

    The diplomatic efforts are being extensively posted by the Danish regime's social media team with texts in both English and Danish, intended to quell criticism at home that the regime is not being firm enough in its response and to show international observers, especially in Washington, that Denmark is not alone.

    The Danish regime is following a two-pronged approach of drumming up European solidarity to stand up to potential tariffs from Washington on one hand while groveling before their imperial overlords on the other hand, conceding to Washington's demands of exorbitant military spending in a hope that this will satiate the empire's hunger.

    Despite showcasing European and Nordic unity, the crisis highlights Western Europe’s vulnerability due to overreliance on U.S. military and economic ties, underscoring the fragility of the European political elite's reliance on perpetual American benevolence.

  • Update on the deportation flights situation: The fourth deportation flight using a US military aircraft took place today, and to a different country than before. Flight RCH141, a C-17 Globemaster military transport aircraft, left from El Paso, Texas; and landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The flight notably avoided Mexican airspace. Ecuador has become the lastest country to allow for the United States to conduct deportation flights using US military aircraft, and has given in to the US demands on this issue without any resistance.

    So for a general overview of the situation, I'll break it down into four categories:

    Countries that have allowed the United States to conduct deportation flights to them directly using US military aircraft without any resistance:

    • Guatemala
    • Ecuador

    Countries that allow the United States to use their airspace to conduct deportations using US military aircraft to other countries, but have not accepted US military deportation flights themselves:

    • Costa Rica
    • Nicaragua
    • Honduras
    • Belize (on a return flight from Guatemala towards the United States)

    Countries that put up resistance to deportation flights using US military aircraft, but appear to have given in to US demands on this issue according to the latest White House statement, though this remains to be seen:

    • Colombia

    Countries that do not allow the United States to use their airspace for US military aircraft deportation flights and have not accepted US military aircraft deportation flights themselves, but do allow the United States to use their airspace for civilian aircraft deportation flights to other countries:

    • México.

  • After the fight between Trump and Petro, Colombian deportees arrive in Bogotá: 'Dignified, without handcuffs'.

    The Colombian government had refused to receive military flights with Colombians deported from the US, but backtracked after the Trump administration announced tariffs and sanctions. The deportees were transported by two Colombian Air Force aircraft, sent to the United States after the Colombian government banned the entry of US military planes.

    The Colombian aircraft had taken off for the US cities of San Diego, California, and Houston, Texas, on Monday (27). The first flight, which arrived this morning, carried 110 citizens, according to the Colombian Foreign Ministry. “Our compatriots come from the US free, dignified, without handcuffs. We have structured a productive, associative and cheap credit plan for migrants. The migrant is not a criminal, he is a free human being,” said President Gustavo Petro, posting photos from inside the flights, after overcoming diplomatic tensions with Donald Trump's government.

    • Definitely not the full capitulation some here has said. Colombia was never going to deny deportees. But they denied unfettered US military access, and even better than that, are using their own planes instead of US passenger flights.

      • Those two Colombian military flights were sent to pick up migrants that were stranded after the US military aircraft were turned away. The real test will be in the future if/when the United States tries to send military aircraft again to Colombia. The White House statement says that Colombia will accept future military flights from the US, but the situation can change.

        It can be interpreted as a positive for Colombia as they used their own planes and ensure the human rights of their people are respected, but it can simultaneously be seen as a negative in Colombia being forced to pick up the tab, so to speak, after turning away the US military aircraft. We'll see what the future holds, I cannot see the Colombians sending their own planes for every single deportation flight to Colombia.

588 comments