United States

Submitted by Valentin Schmid vai The Epoch Times,

President-elect Donald Trump talks tough on China and has appointed trade hawks Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro to key positions in his administration. He has threatened to slap a blanket tariff on Chinese goods, and he has spoken directly to Taiwan’s president, something previously regarded as a major diplomatic offense.

According to “Road to Ruin” author James Rickards, this is Trump’s way of opening the negotiations with China to reach a mutually beneficial trade relationship.

"When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is done today, then any act of honor or restitution has to be hidden underground."

-Ragnar Danneskjold

Submitted by Darius Shahtahmasebi via TheAntiMedia.org,

Notable American foreign policy critic and linguist, Professor Noam Chomsky, has stated numerous times that the United States’ power has steadily been declining since the end of World War II. As Chomsky notes, in 1945, the United States had “literally half the world’s wealth, incredible security, controlled the entire Western Hemisphere, both oceans, [and[ the opposite sides of both oceans.”

US oil rig counts have now risen for 30 of th elast 32 weeks (up 4 to 529 today) - the highest in a year...

Following lagged oil prices and leading US crude production higher...

While the market continues to ignore this data (for now), we note that if the codependence remains, then OPEC will need to slash output further to balance the market as US shale output is not dropping any time soon.

As we reported yesterday, Lithuania confirmed the presence of U.S. special forces inside its territory, stating the deployment’s purpose is to train local forces and act as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Supposedly, the move is in response to a "escalation" by Vladimir Putin, who has been deploying nuke-ready missiles in the Russian province of Kaliningrad located in the heart of central Europe. This move has prompted the neighboring Baltic states to become “highly concerned” about Russian military activity.