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Joined June 2024
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China just restricted the machines America uses to build tunnels, mines, and drones.
Beijing already controls large parts of the global market for this equipment. The new rules, starting next month, turn that dominance into a tool that can delay or deny what US projects still need. First the materials. Then the magnets. Now the machines themselves. The leverage keeps expanding.
China is imposing export controls on more drones and machinery, as the world’s second-biggest economy flexes its industrial muscles. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Russia ran short of diesel. Turkey is about to get a share.
Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries left Moscow restricting its own fuel exports. Now a deal with Trump puts Russian diesel back on the market, and Turkey says it will take some.
Turkey already buys energy from Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan, and it’s trying to add the US. It’s also building its own supply, with a second Black Sea gas platform due in 2028.
One country, four suppliers, and both Washington and Beijing courting it.
pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/…
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
thebureau.news/p/from-elbows… Countering Beijing’s Northern Trojan Horse Play- ‘From Elbows Up, to Shoulder-to-Shoulder’
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
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Nuclear power plants and nickel: a breakthrough in reducing dependency
The need: Nuclear reactors heavily rely on nickel-based alloys for their high corrosion resistance. However, nickel is expensive, difficult to transport, and often sourced from geopolitically unstable regions.
The solution: The US Argonne National Laboratory has developed a new framework to replace thick nikal components with cheaper substrates, like stainless steel. These materials are then coated with a highly corrosion-resistant, ultra-thin layer that matches or exceeds nickel's performance.
Using advanced multi-physics modeling and the ATLAS accelerator system, the team can test and validate these new coatings in just days rather than decades. This breakthrough lowers costs, secures the supply chain, and accelerates the licensing of next-generation reactors.
Source: @NSEnergyNews
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
NEW!! Rubio tells Central Asian nations they are “unique, sovereign, independent states” as he addresses the C5+1 ministerial in Samarkand, pledging deeper U.S. ties on critical minerals, energy, trade and technology
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BREAKING: China and Iran’s influence networks are now openly partnering inside the United States.
Newsweek reports that a Tehran-based group tied to the Iranian government is collaborating with a US tax-exempt nonprofit funded by a Shanghai-based American millionaire. The partnership has directed donations through sanctioned Iranian banks linked to the IRGC.
A House committee is already investigating the nonprofit for using America’s tax code to advance foreign interests. The same networks sit inside the broader “red-green” ecosystem of radical left and Islamist groups active on US campuses and in politics.
Foreign adversaries coordinating influence operations through US nonprofits is not abstract. It is happening in plain sight.
This should be ringing alarm bells in Washington. I would not be surprised if the U.S. government is already investigating or will soon be investigating this.
newsweek.com/exclusive-china…
BREAKING: China just confirmed its newest nuclear submarines can launch ICBMs.
The missile fired July 6 landed in the South Pacific during a US-led naval exercise. Beijing now says a third-generation Changzheng submarine launched it.
China is on track for about 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to US estimates. Submarines are the part of a nuclear force that can’t be found and destroyed first.
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
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North Korea’s low birth rate is affecting its economy
UN estimates show a gradual decline in North Korea’s fertility rate. However, research based on defector interviews suggests a sharper drop: from 1.91 in the 1990s to 1.38 in the 2010s.
Key effects
- In the 2010s, fewer children per household improved living standards (more food, better clothing, more living space per adult).
- From the mid-2010s, military manpower shortages appeared. The government lowered recruitment standards and increased female enlistment.
- Since 2020, the working-age population has declined by nearly 1% per year. This has led to labor shortages in farms and mines, forced youth assignments, and greater mobilization of married women.
- Markets (jangmadang) have stagnated as the number of people in their 20s and 30s shrinks, reducing demand and innovation.
Source: @38NorthNK by Jooyung Lee
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
If Macron isn't careful, this could become a Kerfuffle of epic proportions - maybe even break out in to national shenanigans.
China’s rare earth strategy: control the supply chain today, compete for the seabed tomorrow.
Beijing already dominates rare earth processing and magnet production. Export controls have shown how that industrial advantage can become strategic leverage.
Now the South China Sea could acquire another layer of significance as seabed minerals enter the critical minerals race.
The resources aren’t commercially viable at scale yet. But the strategic question is already emerging: who gets to map, govern and eventually exploit the seabed?
China’s advantage is that it can think about mineral security and maritime power together. Its competitors need to do the same before the two become inseparable.
thediplomat.com/2026/10/chin…
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
This is a big small first step. Rather mind boggling coming out of COVID nothing was done to improve medical and pharma supply chains. Long long way to go but if you want to go after Trump criticize for not doing a lot of things like this
France’s streets are burning over alleged grievances. Russia is working to make them burn brighter.
NewsGuard says Russia is using the unrest to spread false videos, because France backs Ukraine.
China runs the same playbook elsewhere. X found a bot farm of roughly 200,000 suspected Chinese accounts amplifying America’s data center backlash.
Two rivals, one method. Neither needs to start the fire. They wait for one.
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
China’s Weakening Economy Is Creating a Lost Generation
Young people were taught hard work guaranteed a bright future. They feel burned out and betrayed as good jobs become harder to get and the milestones of adulthood slip away. apple.news/AkfnirGERTOuvS8FR….
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
Chinese Commerce Ministry Spokesperson He Yadong said that China is willing to continue approving rare earth licenses to Europe.
Won't be the first time I said that EU has been the biggest beneficiary in this geopolitical situation.
They've had fairly unrestricted export controls flows for critical minerals.
But we don't know how long that will last.
China indicates rare earths will keep flowing to EU, regardless of U.S. trade deal expiration cnbc.com/2026/10/15/china-ra…
Nathan Pellerin retweeted
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China’s exports/imports to Latin America have surged
Bilateral trade has grown dramatically over the past two decades (billions of USD):
China’s exports to Latin America: Climbed from near zero in the early 2000s to nearly $275 billion by 2025, with a sharp acceleration after 2020.
China’s imports from Latin America: Also rose strongly, reaching roughly $230 billion, but the trade balance has tilted more heavily in China’s favor in recent years.
The data underscores China’s deepening economic presence in Latin America, shifting from a more balanced relationship to one increasingly driven by Chinese manufactured goods exports.
Source: General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China, @AmerQuarterly by @MyersMargaret
China’s plan for world domination: sell everyone a really good, really cheap car.
Rishi Sunak says it’s working. BYD took 31.1 percent of China’s EV exports in September alone.
His fix is for allies to stop going it alone and act together, which would be news to the allies. A UK minister has reportedly signaled openness to matching EU tariffs.
America shut Chinese EVs out with its own tariffs. Its allies are still workshopping it, Britain needs to grow a spine.
Spare us the lectures about China, Rishi.
Your government backed a £67m fluoridation programme while Britain was importing huge quantities of fluoride compounds from China, then pushed compulsory folic acid into flour too.
We do not need politicians spending our money importing chemicals, then putting them into our water and staple food whether we want them or not.
China is apparently a threat, unless Whitehall is buying the chemicals and all the MPs are getting the kickback.
America’s defense industry can’t build what America’s car industry could.
Palmer Luckey says the fix is to design missiles that can be made in car factories. We did it before: in 1944, Ford’s Willow Run plant built a four-engine B-24 bomber every hour, more than 8,600 in three years, using auto assembly-line methods.
Car plants, tractor plants, and industrial equipment makers are the factories America still has. Design the weapon for the factory, and the factory can build it at scale.
Palmer Luckey warns America must rebuild its defense industry to compete with China: “We need to design missiles that can be made in car factories.” 🇺🇸🇨🇳
“If we’re going to compete with China, we need to start designing weapon systems that can be manufactured by the industrial base we actually have in this country.
Namely, automotive factories that make cars, factories that make agricultural equipment, and factories that make certain industrial equipment. That’s all we have left. We’ve sent almost everything else overseas.
We need to design missiles that can be made in car factories. We need to design aircraft that can be made in tractor factories.
We did this in World War II. We designed tanks that could be made in car factories and aircraft that could be made using car manufacturing techniques.
We designed weapons that could be made by the machines, the people, and the talent that were already making cars. I think we need to start doing that again.”