Explosion Rocks Northrop Grumman Solid Rocket Facility In Utah

Northrop Grumman's mission to design and build the world's largest and most advanced solid rocket motors may have been derailed last week after an explosion rocked its Promontory, Utah, facility.

Local media Fox 13 reported that one of the aerospace and defense technology company's buildings at the Promontory test facility was destroyed in an explosion last Wednesday morning. When emergency responders arrived at the incident area, they found one building destroyed. 

"Initial reports indicate that there are no injuries or fatalities at this time. However, as with all ongoing investigations, details may change. There is no further information available for release at this time.  We advise the public to avoid the area," the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office wrote on a Facebook post hours after the explosion. 

Northrop Grumman told Fox 13 that the building destroyed was used to "produce an ingredient in solid rocket motor propellant and is one of many in its production network," adding that no solid rocket motors were destroyed or damaged in the blast.

Here's more context on the explosion and its potential impact, via Space.com:

Northrop Grumman's Utah facility manufactures and tests solid rocket engines, like those used to launch NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis Program. Their campus spans over 10 miles (16 kilometers) of Utah desert, northwest of Promontory, with two central hubs of facilities.

Wednesday's explosion destroyed a building in the northwest portion of Northrop Grumman's northernmost collection of site infrastructure, about 8.5 miles (13.5 kilometers) north of the company's test stand for the SLS solid rocket boosters. 

Northrop Grumman did not provide insight into what caused the explosion at the solid rocket motor factory.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 15:45

The Numbers Behind The Government's Anti-Misinformation Explosion

Authored by Greg Collard via Racket News,

You likely already know from reading Racket that the Biden administration was very active in targeting misinformation and disinformation, even as it engaged in those practices.

Illustration by Daniel Medina/Racket News

Racket’s Twitter Files and other reporting have extensively documented many of the anti-disinformation and misinformation programs and organizations that the federal government supported, like the Election Integrity Project, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI League), and the Center on Narrative, Disinformation and Strategic Influence at Arizona State.

But the number of grants? We didn’t know that. Now we do.

The Free Press reports that since 2017, the federal government has awarded about 800 grants to counter mis/disinformation — and the Biden administration is responsible for more than 600 of them. The 800 grants amount to more than $1.4 billion.

The findings by reporters Gabe Kaminsky and Madeleine Rowley are based on a new database of anti-mis/disinformation programs. The database was created by the free speech advocacy group liber-net.

“A large number of these projects cynically employed the ‘misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation’ framework to counter their political adversaries, with U.S. government funding making it possible,” liber-net’s director, Andrew Lowenthal, told the Free Press.

President Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office that accused the Biden administration of violating free speech rights “under the guise” of combatting misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.

But Kaminsky and Rowley found that several of the programs were continuing under the Trump administration — at least until they started asking about the grants, as Kaminsky explains to Racket.

We reached out to agencies to understand if these programs would continue under President Trump. What we found was a groundswell of federal officials taking the information and letting us know that they were either terminating the programs, investigating them, or adjusting internal policies as to how they characterize some of these programs to ensure alignment with the President's executive order on “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” that he signed on his first day in office. Some agencies, however, didn't respond, or, in the case of the National Science Foundation, declined to comment.

In one example the Free Press cites, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya sent an email marked “URGENT” to employees to investigate grants and contracts related to “fighting misinformation or disinformation.”

The Free Press found several dozen grants that have since been canceled, such as $683,000 awarded to UC-Irvine in December. The money would have gone toward studying the influence of social media and “misinformation on vaccine acceptance among black and Latinx individuals.” The study would have done that by enrolling 500 people who follow vaccine-hesitant influencers on X.

Although most mis/disinformation grants occurred under Biden, they started with some regularity during the first Trump administration. Here’s a graphic from liber-net that shows how the number of grants ballooned from Trump to Biden:

The organizations that receive grants typically dole out portions of the money to other organizations. Kaminsky explains how they work:

Gabe Kaminsky: Like many federal programs, there are often subgrantees or subcontractors. So, while Maddie Rowley and I found that the Biden administration had awarded north of 600 grants and contracts to outside organizations, that number only accounts for primary awards. Take the $2 million that the Department of State awarded in 2023 to the Vermont-based NGO World Learning to, in its telling, “support the Armenian media sector's overall resilience to disinformation.” For that program, which ended in February 2025, World Learning dished out a sub-award of $275,219, or 13% of the primary award, to the Poynter Institute.

And for Poynter, that's nothing new. For example, I reported last year that Poynter had received a sub-award from the State Department's since-shuttered Global Engagement Center—which Republicans accused of censoring conservatives in the United States. Poynter received the GEC funding via the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a London-based entity.

Greg Collard: Although most grants were during the Biden administration, they were also awarded during the first Trump administration. Was there a difference in the types of grants that were awarded?

GK: Post-2017 is really when these programs were kicked into gear, speeding up dramatically under Biden. The same grantees and contractors that ended up receiving large amounts in funding under Biden often had initially received some during the first Trump administration. As to why that was is I think a mix of Republicans being in the dark as to the programs, and—as was evident broadly across the first Trump administration—there being agencies that sort of operated how they desired irrespective of Trump's stated policies. Trump did not know how Washington worked.

However, I would say that the descriptions of programs on federal documents under Biden was a notable difference—as some appeared to more specifically align with the ideological priorities of the Democrats: using terms like “racial equity,” “Latinx,” or other left-leaning terminology championed by the Biden administration. Under Trump 1.0, in other words, the anti-misinformation circus quietly gained a foothold in the U.S. by advertising itself in broad strokes that, in theory, many might agree with: countering extremism or online harassment, for example.

But in practice, the programs were far more complicated and often partisan.

Active Grants

Although many anti mis/disinformation programs have been shut down, many remain active — including the largest grant: a $979 million award to military contractor Peraton, courtesy of the Department of Defense. Peraton landed the grant in 2021 to help the U.S. Central Command “counter misinformation,” liber-net’s Lowenthal writes in a Substack post about the database.

That grant alone easily makes the Defense Department the largest funder of mis-disinformation grants from 2016 to 2024. USAID was the second-largest funder at $149 million.

Smaller grants also remain active. One the Free Press cites is $6.8 million in multiple grants to the University of Washington for literary resources that help “rural communities and black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities” identify misinformation. The grant description says misinformation is a “growing threat to American democracy,” and that “Solutions must not only provide the public with skills for determining the truthfulness of claims, but must also provide resources for addressing the social and emotional impacts of misinformation.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 11:40

LA County Quality Of Life Index Stuck At A 10-Year Low; New Survey Finds

Los Angeles County residents have plenty to worry about amid a wildfire recovery effort, federal immigration crackdowns, and persistent homelessness, but what most concerns them is the cost of living, according to an annual UCLA survey released on April 16.

The 10th Annual Quality of Life Index (QLI) survey polled 1,400 county residents between Feb. 23 and March 9, and found widespread frustration with the high cost of living, including increasing prices of groceries and household items.

The survey, conducted by UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, found that concern over the high cost of living has kept the QLI at a lowly 53, the same as last year. 

That number represents the lowest level in the survey’s history. In 2016, the QLI came in at 59.

“Meanwhile, the salience of [the cost of living category] has risen to its highest-ever point in this index, and is joined by a growing concern about jobs and the economy,” said the survey, which was prepared by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3 Research). 

“The combination represents fundamental bread-and-butter issues that are the biggest explainers of the longer-term lukewarm attitudes toward life in Los Angeles County.”

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, more than two-fifths of respondents claimed to know someone who lost a home or business in the January wildfires. 

An additional 23 percent, including those who live relatively far from the burn areas, such as the northern part of the county and the South Bay, claimed to know someone affected. Meanwhile, 14 percent of respondents said they lost significant income due to the fires, while another 13 percent said they incurred a nonsignificant loss.

More than half of respondents said they wore a mask to avoid smoke, volunteered or donated to help victims, and feared having to evacuate.

“While the percentage of residents who lost income is lower than the percentages of those who experienced other impacts, it still represents millions of Angelenos,” said the survey, which found that Latinos, younger residents, lower income earners, and those working part-time jobs were disproportionately affected.

Eighty-nine percent of county residents agree that homeowners who lost their property in the fires should be permitted to rebuild at the same locations. In 2019, when residents were asked the same question in the wake of the Woolsey Fire near Simi Valley, 76 percent agreed.

“Both numbers are high, but suggest that the geographic breadth of the [January] fires, the extent of the destruction and the collateral impacts they had on a wide swath of the county significantly influenced this year’s results,” the survey said.

The Palisades and Eaton fires this year destroyed more than 16,000 structures; the Woolsey fire destroyed 1,600, according to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Fifty-two percent of county residents said they would generally be OK with increased taxes for improved wildfire response. Younger residents, Latinos, and Asians were most open to the proposal. Whites and African Americans were evenly split on the idea, which did not include specifics.

Attitudes toward the Los Angeles mayor were affected by the wildfires, the survey said.

For example, just 37 percent of respondents view Mayor Karen Bass favorably, with 49 percent viewing her unfavorably. That’s a reversal from 2024, when 42 percent viewed her favorably and 32 percent unfavorably.

“The wildfires that raged in Altadena and Pacific Palisades in January are the story of this year’s survey,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Luskin School’s Los Angeles Initiative.

“These catastrophic events have left devastating physical and psychological impacts in their wake,” said the former county supervisor.

“Although the primary victims are those who lost their lives, homes and possessions, millions of other Angelenos have been touched by these terrifying events in myriad ways. These impacts cross geographic, economic and racial lines that can only be described as a shared trauma across Los Angeles County.”

Cost of Living

The county’s high cost of living has become a major source of frustration for residents. Three-quarters of respondents chose it as the most important category affecting their quality of life. Among the subcategories, the cost of housing remains the leader, but the costs of groceries and household items rose in importance, as did taxes.

“The overall satisfaction score on our QLI index is stuck for one main reason—the impact of the high cost of living,” said Paul Maslin, a public opinion and polling expert with FM3 Research. 

“Those concerns were the highest in terms of importance of any category we’ve measured in the last decade. And cost of living continues to be the lowest rating category in terms of satisfaction.”

Immigration and deportation

Forty-four percent of county residents fear that a member of their family or a friend could face deportation by federal authorities.

In 2017, 37 percent expressed such a fear at the start of Trump’s first administration.

Latinos are most likely to feel this way at 54 percent. By age group, residents aged 18-29 and 30-39 are the most likely to fear a member of their family or friend could be deported at 57 percent and 52 percent, respectively. They are also most likely to believe that the city and county governments should not cooperate with the federal government’s current deportation policies.

“The new administration in Washington has once again brought the question of immigration and deportation to the fore,” Yaroslavsky said. 

“This is very much an issue that is front and center on the minds of a large part of our county’s population.”

Homelessness

Homelessness remains at or near the top of concerns for residents, though for the first time in a while, the portion who believe the homelessness problems are worsening has declined by 8 percentage points. In 2024, 60 percent thought the problem was growing worse. In the 2025 survey, 52 percent thought so. Yet only 10 percent believe the situation is getting better. That number was the same in 2024.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 11:05

The Family Home: From Shelter To Asset To Liability

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable.

With the rise of financialized asset bubbles as the source of our "growth," family home went from shelter to speculative asset. This transition accelerated as financialization (turning everything into a financial commodity to be leveraged and sold globally for a quick profit) spread into the once-staid housing sector in the early 2000s. (See chart of housing bubbles #1 and #2 below).

Where buying a home once meant putting down roots and insuring a stable cost of shelter, housing became a speculative asset to be snapped up and sold as prices soared.

The short-term vacation rental (STVR) boom added fuel to the speculative fire over the past decade as huge profits could be generated by assembling an STVR mini-empire of single-family homes that were now rented to tourists.

Now that housing has become unaffordable to the majority and the costs of ownership are stair-stepping higher, housing has become a liability. I covered the increases in costs of ownership in The Cost of Owning a Home Is Soaring 11/11/24). Articles like this one are increasingly common:

'I feel trapped': how home ownership has become a nightmare for many Americans: Scores in the US say they're grappling with raised mortgage and loan interest rates and exploding insurance premiums.

The sums of money now required to own, insure and maintain a house are eye-watering. Annual home insurance for many is now a five-figure sum; property taxes in many states is also a five-figure sum. As for maintenance, as I discussed in This Nails It: The Doom Loop of Housing Construction Quality, the decline in quality of housing and the rising costs of repair make buying a house a potentially unaffordable venture should repairs costing tens of thousands of dollars become necessary.

Major repairs can now cost what previous generations paid for an entire house, and no, this isn't just inflation; it's the result of the decline of quality across the board and the gutting of labor skills to cut costs.

Here's the Case-Shiller Index of national housing prices. Housing Bubble #2 far exceeds the extremes of unaffordability reached in Housing Bubble #1:

Here's a snapshot of housing affordability: buying a house is now an unattainable luxury for those without top 20% incomes and help from parents.

The monthly payments as a percentage of income are at historic highs:

Property taxes are rising in many locales as valuations bubble higher and local governments seek sources of stable revenues:

Home insurance costs vary widely, but all are skewing to the upside.

As I often note, the insurance industry is not a charity, and to maintain profits as payouts for losses explode higher, rates have to climb for everyone--and more for those in regions that are now viewed as high-risk due to massive losses in fires, hurricanes, wind storms, flooding, etc.

All credit-asset bubbles pop, and that inevitable deflation of home valuations will take away the speculative punchbowl. What's left are the costs of ownership. As these rise, they offset the rich capital gains that home owners have been counting on for decades to make ownership a worthwhile, low-risk investment.

The deflation of asset bubbles and higher costs are foreseeable, but the magnitude of each is unpredictable. The ideas that have taken hold in the 21st century--that owning a house is a wellspring of future wealth, and everything is now a throwaway destined for the landfill--are based on faulty assumptions, assumptions that have set a banquet of consequences few will find palatable.

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Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 10:30

The Global Safe Haven Is Slowly Breaking: Why Central Banks Are Turning To Gold

Authored by Alex Deluce via GoldTelegraph.com,

The global financial system is not just shifting, it is starting to breakdown.

On April 1st, I wrote: “The erosion of trust: the times are changing.”

That warning has since become a headline.

What was once dismissed as contrarian commentary by many is now being echoed by mainstream media across the world: the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency is no longer unquestioned.

For years, I’ve documented the growing dangers of the West’s overreliance on financial warfare:

• Sanctions

• Reserve freezes

• The weaponization of SWIFT

These weren’t strategic tools of diplomacy. They were early signs of something deeper: desperation, fragility, and a crumbling world order.

In just the past year, the U.S. dollar has lost over 35% of its purchasing power against gold, driven by record central bank gold buying. This isn’t a trend, it’s a signal.

Meanwhile, the BRICS nations are growing more coordinated, even as fractures widen among traditional Western allies.

Across Europe and Asia, leaders are reassessing their exposure to a system that no longer feels stable.

Increasingly, nations are recognizing that true sovereignty begins with one principle: zero counterparty risk. That path leads directly to gold.

These developments aren’t isolated, they are symptoms of a deeper monetary fracture.

With trust evaporating, gold is no longer just a hedge. It’s becoming the foundation of a new system.

That’s why my recent conversation with Matthew Piepenburg, Partner at VON GREYERZ, couldn’t have come at a more important time.

His perspective on gold, debt, the BRICS realignment, and the unravelling confidence in U.S. Treasuries offered rare clarity in a world clouded by confusion and revealed what many are only just beginning to understand.

Let’s break it down.  

The Treasury Market’s Safe Haven Status is Eroding and Gold is the Refuge

For decades, U.S. Treasuries have functioned as the cornerstone of global finance, seen by investors and institutions as the ultimate safe haven. That narrative is now fraying.

“There is a liquidity crisis,” Piepenburg told me. “There’s simply not enough grease to keep this system going.”

Rather than providing stability during periods of volatility, U.S. government bonds have started to behave more like risk assets. In recent market turmoil, yields rose when they typically would have declined, highlighting the growing fragility of the system.  

“Yields have actually been going up, not down, in times of stress,” he explained. “Why isn’t the U.S. Treasury acting like a safe haven anymore?”

The answer, he says, lies in debt, which has buried the American economy.

With over $37 trillion in federal debt and more than $100 trillion when household, corporate, and long-term entitlement obligations are included, the system is buckling under the sheer weight of its own promises.  

“Santa Claus can’t solve a liquidity crisis when you’re buried under this much debt,” Piepenburg warned. “There’s not enough grease to keep those debt wheels spinning without bazooka money, without debasing the currency.”

That’s why, he added, gold is being quietly re-monetized by central banks around the world, not as a hedge, but as a foundational reserve asset.

“Gold is now a Tier 1 asset. Central banks are net settling in it. They’re moving away from Treasuries,” he said. “This isn’t about getting rich. It’s about not getting poor.”

The Rise of BRICS and the Global Move Away from the Dollar

The de-dollarization trend, long discussed in policy circles, has become an observable reality in the wake of U.S. sanctions against Russia. What began as an assertion of geopolitical power has accelerated a multipolar financial realignment.

“Since the weaponization of the U.S. dollar in 2022, 45 countries are now trading outside of it,” Piepenburg told me. “Thirty countries have repatriated their physical gold. That’s not a coincidence, it’s a reaction.”

He pointed to the critical shift that occurred when the U.S. froze Russian central bank assets. For many governments, that action shattered the illusion of the dollar as a neutral global reserve. “When you weaponize the world reserve currency,” he said, “you undermine the very trust it depends on.”

Nowhere is this shift more evident than among the BRICS nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

While rumors of a BRICS currency circulate around the world, Piepenburg clarified the group’s actual intention: “They don’t trust each other’s fiat currencies either but they trust gold.”

The BRICS plan, he noted, isn’t to launch a single currency, but rather to use a settlement system backed 40% by gold and 60% by local currencies kept in escrow.

“This isn’t about replacing the dollar overnight,” he said. “But it is a definitive move away from it.”

Fort Knox: The Taboo That Exposes the System

No discussion of gold’s resurgence would be complete without addressing America’s own reserves.

The United States claims to hold over 8,100 tonnes of gold largely stored at Fort Knox.

Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at Fort Knox in 2017

Yet, a full, independent audit hasn’t been conducted in over six decades. Now, calls for transparency are gaining momentum. The President of the United States Donald Trump and Elon Musk have floated the idea of a livestreamed audit of Fort Knox.

But according to Piepenburg, transparency carries risks. “Be careful what you ask for,” he said. “I wouldn’t go into combat unless I knew how many bullets I had. And I wouldn’t want to show my hand unless I knew what was there.”

He believes the U.S. may not be as dominant in gold holdings as it claims and he suspects that China’s reserves are vastly underreported.

“I’m fairly confident China has at least ten times more gold than the World Gold Council says it does,” he said. “And probably more than the United States unless we’ve been hiding a best-kept secret.”

What’s at stake is more than optics. “Gold is the ultimate BS detector,” Piepenburg told me. “It’s a mirror held up to the system and that’s why they don’t want to talk about it. Because it holds its value while everything else melts.”

A Moment of Reckoning

We are not witnessing the end of the U.S. dollar but we are witnessing the end of its unchallenged supremacy.

The petrodollar framework is fracturing. Gold is being quietly repurposed as a strategic reserve asset. And U.S. Treasuries the once untouchable cornerstone of global markets are being reassessed by the very institutions that once depended on them.

The implications are profound. Central banks are no longer being quiet about what they doing… they are moving quickly and deliberately toward gold.

The real question isn’t whether gold will rise, but whether the public will grasp what’s driving the move.

WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION:

GOLD TELEGRAPH CONVERSATION #7
MATTHEW PIEPENBURG

“I'm confident that China has at least 10x more gold than the WGC says it does… I also think they have a lot more than the United States.”

Matthew is a prominent voice in global finance. He began as a transactional attorney and… pic.twitter.com/m1PIAG0oJq

— Gold Telegraph ⚡ (@GoldTelegraph_) April 12, 2025

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 09:20

Americans Are Searching "USA Products" Like Never Before

Tariffs are designed to shift consumer demand toward domestically produced goods. As foreign products become increasingly expensive, driven by levies such as the Trump administration's 145% effective tariff rate on Chinese imports, consumers are starting to take notice.

Faced with rising prices for foreign goods, some consumers have turned to the internet to determine which products are still made in the United States. 

Google Trends data shows "What products are made in the USA?" reached record highs by mid-April, with data going all the way back to 2004.  

These related search queries are in "breakout" territory:

With an effective tariff rate of 145% on all Chinese goods, Beijing signaled on Wednesday that it is open to trade talks in the near term. In the tit-for-tat tariff war, China has imposed 125% duties on U.S. goods.

In recent weeks, President Trump has paused reciprocal tariffs for countries that chose not to retaliate following "Liberation Day" in early April. The White House announced this week that the administration is in talks with 75 countries to secure new trade deals. Trump held discussions with Japan overnight, calling the talks "big progress."

Even as trade deals are expected in the coming weeks and months, the broader objective of the tariff strategy is to reshore critical supply chains essential to national security and to position the United States for dominance in the 2030s. Early internet search trend signs suggest that the tariffs are already influencing consumer behavior - this is a great start. 

 

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 08:45

Europe, You Can't Sit On The Sidelines Anymore

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via The Daily Signal,

I’d like to talk today about the role of China, the United States, and the European Union, or just Europe in general, in the context of these tariffs and the so-called trade wars.

Right now, President Donald Trump has given a 90-day reprieve from high tariffs. I think that 10% tariffs are still in existence. And they are negotiating with a number of European countries and particularly, Asian dynamic economies, such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. In addition to that, they are targeting China with tit-for-tat tariffs. And we are maybe on the brink—nobody wants it, but we might be on the brink of a trade war, which we’ve addressed in earlier videos.

But here’s my point.

What is the attitude of Europe? 

Roughly, China has a $1 trillion deficit with the world. We have about a $1 trillion deficit in trade with the world. But here’s the ratios. About a third of our deficit is with China, which makes up a third of their surplus. In addition to that, Europe makes up about a third of their surplus.

So, China has called on Europe to join forces with it to prevent all of the retaliatory tariffs that the United States has threatened Europe, which has a $200 billion surplus with us, and China, which has a nearly high $300 billion, maybe even $400 billion, who knows?

It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it, that these illiberal apparatchiks in China would think that a Western democracy would want to join them against the United States?

I don’t think that’s gonna happen. 

But the European Left is very angry at the Trump administration.

So, Choice One might be, “Well, we don’t like the Chinese and we are an ally of the Americans, who subsidize our defense, but we detest the Trump administration. So maybe, (wink and nod) we’ll either be quiet or hope China wins that trade war and the United States, under the Trump administration, backs off all tariffs.”

That would be a big mistake given their vulnerabilities they have with the United States vis-a-vis security.

The second attitude might be the Europeans will just say, “We’ll lay low. We won’t say much at all. We’ll kind of drag out our tariff negotiations with the Trump administration. And we’ll let the Chinese and the United States battle it out. And if Trump should win and he lowers the amount of trade with China, maybe that will be an opening for us to replace China as the United States chief importer.”

That is something that I don’t think will happen.

The third scenario is what I would suggest for the Europeans. They should say the following: “Despite our disagreements with the Trump administration, the United States is an ally. And we know that we have been as victimized by Chinese mercantilism, high tariffs, cheating on patents, copyrights, dumping, financial money manipulation—all the things the United States complains about, we do too. In fact, we as Europeans in a whole have about the same deficit with China as the United States does. So, we are kindred spirits. So, what we will do is, even though we have disagreements on our surplus with the United States and their efforts to reduce it, we will ally with the United States.”

And that would represent about two-thirds of China’s total trade action or monetary value. And especially, if Japan and our allies in South Korea, Taiwan would join, then China would find out that about 85% of its trade is in a block. That is, they are united. And they have common complaints against China. And China would not be able to say to the United States, “We’re going to cut deals with Vietnam and Japan and Taiwan and South Korea and the EU and leave you out in the cold.”

Instead, the Europeans and, to a lesser extent, the Asian powerhouses would join the United States and say, “You know what? We’ve been quiet. We’re afraid of China. They’re bullies. But now that you’ve stood up, we’re embolden ourselves to air the same complaints as you are and hope that you win. And maybe a byproduct of reduced trade with China from the United States will open a door. So, even though we might have to lower our tariffs, there will be more opportunity in the American market with a less prominent Chinese trade profile that we can then be welcomed in as a kindred ally.”

So, Europe has two or three choices in this proposed Chinese-American trade standoff. Nobody wants a trade war with anybody. No one wants it with China. But this is long overdue. And Europe has to decide what course they’re going to take. And for everybody’s sake, let’s hope they choose wisely.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 08:10

Cocoa: The Global Trade Of "Brown Gold"

Last year, a cocoa shortage drove up prices for European chocolate makers and consumers. 

This was largely due to an exceptionally wet rainy season as well as a viral cocoa disease that severely impacted the 2023/2024 harvest in West Africa. However, the situation is expected to improve this year, according to industry experts.

In a note published at the end of February, the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) estimated that the 2024/2025 harvest is expected to show a surplus, after three consecutive years of deficit.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, the global cocoa market relies heavily on harvests in the Gulf of Guinea for its supply. 

Nearly 65 percent ​​of the world's cocoa is harvested in just four West African countries: Côte d'Ivoire (38 percent), Ghana (12 percent), Nigeria (7 percent), and Cameroon (7 percent). 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

South America comes in a distant second place for volume, with Ecuador and Brazil as the main producing countries, accounting for 10 percent and 4 percent of global production, respectively.

The vast majority of the world's cocoa is then exported to Europe and North America, where it is processed into chocolate and primarily consumed. 

The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium, for example, together import approximately 25 percent of the world's cocoa beans. This makes the European Union the world's largest importer of cocoa, accounting for 60 percent of global imports. 

The United States and Canada, for their part, together import the equivalent of approximately seven percent of global production.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 07:35

Germany Deploys Troops To Lithuania In First Permanent Foreign Deployment Since World War II

Authored by Sarah Kuehberger and Wilson Beaver via The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation,

Germany has activated its first permanent foreign troop deployment since World War II, establishing a 5,000-strong armored brigade in Lithuania. This decision follows Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ announcement in 2023 to bolster troop presence on NATO‘s eastern flank in response to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War.

The deployment demonstrates Germany’s willingness to take a leading role in the conventional defense of Europe with Brig. Gen. Christoph Huber emphasizing, “We’re not only moving toward operational readiness; we’re taking responsibility.”

According to the Bundeswehr, the brigade will consist of three major combat units—including a mechanized infantry battalion, a tank battalion, and the multinational enhanced Foreign Presence Battle Group Lithuania—and will be complemented by combat and support elements. The brigade aims to be at full operating capability by 2027.

Addressing a NATO Vulnerability

The need for additional NATO forces in Lithuania is largely due to its geographical location between Russian-allied Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad, an isolated port city, was once part of Prussia and was ceded to the Soviet Union after World War II under the Potsdam Agreement. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region was incorporated into the Russian Federation and now hosts the country’s Baltic Fleet, as well as troops, fighter jets, and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.

The narrow corridor between Lithuania and Belarus, known as the Suwalki Gap, is widely regarded as NATO’s most vulnerable point. Should Russian forces launch an attack on Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia, which are all NATO member states, they could potentially sever their supply lines from Poland by linking Belarus and Kaliningrad through an offensive. Stationing permanent NATO troops in the three Baltic states serves as a long-term security guarantee.

Germany’s New Policy of ‘Zeitenwende’

Due to its historical responsibility following World War II, Germany has traditionally maintained a cautious and restrained military stance. Massive defense cuts in the 1990s and 2000s further weakened its defense capabilities. In response to new geopolitical challenges, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced in 2022 the Zeitenwende—a “turning point”—in German security policy. This new strategy aims to strengthen defense capabilities, increase military spending to meet NATO targets—which Germany achieved for the first time in 2024 by reaching the 2 percent mark—and enhance European security cooperation. The recent deployment to Lithuania serves as its flagship project.

Germany has made meaningful progress, and a clear shift in thinking within the German defense establishment is evident, particularly through initiatives like the creation of a special fund for defense spending to kick-start military investment.

Europe Needs to Step Up So US Can Shift Focus to Indo-Pacific

In times when European politicians express concerns that the U.S. is indifferent to Europe’s fate, it’s important to remember that the current administration is encouraging allies to step up and ensure they are able to deter potential dangers on their own terms. This is a task that all sovereign nations must undertake.

The United States needs to shift strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific to deter China, and steps like this one taken by Berlin are critical if Germany and other European NATO members are to take primary responsibility for their own conventional defense. Washington should applaud the new German base in Lithuania and encourage other wealthy Western European nations to follow suit with bases in Latvia and Estonia.

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Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 04/20/2025 - 07:00