“Trump agreed to stability” is a hilarious claim actually

"'constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability' is not a slogan" is in fact the kind of thing you say about slogans

Today, we’re launching our first paper from the Green Planning Commission — Economic Coordination and the Limits of Markets — as an analytical foundation for why the next progressive agenda must be built around public coordination. 🧵 www.common-wealth.org/publications...

I think a number of people are exaggerating the chances that things they oppose will happen at the Trump-Xi summit because "this is very unlikely to happen but just in case here is my 2000 word argument for why Trump shouldn't do it" is a less appealing read

US Chamber of Commerce calls for coordinated G7 action to respond to competitive threats from China Of course under Trump the opposite is happening www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

So the Trump administration is not only going after Chinese scientists, they are now going after Americans who defend them. Who would have thought?

I agree with Bessner's point about ideology here. But he envisions the US allowing China to claim a sphere of influence in E/SE Asia. I don't think that's realistic because of the tremendous consequences for competition between US and Chinese capitals www.theideasletter.org/essay/power-...

I looked at how much the New York Times covered different countries in 2025, compared to those countries' populations. The bars for many lower-income countries are functionally invisible—much like their citizens are to readers of The New York Times

I’ve seen like a half dozen TikToks freaking out about hantavirus and not one addressed the R0 and there is just no excuse for that

dems should explicitly pitch "reducing" US international aid to only 5% of GDP, a reasonable proportion that the median voter would approve of

"Lack of financing is one of the biggest barriers to moving away from fossil fuels... Experts say the problem is rooted in how the global financial system is structured." apnews.com/article/clim...

"We may have, in fact, reached 'peak competition' under the last administration, as a senior Biden official put it in one of the private roundtables we hosted this spring." @jessicacweiss.bsky.social www.sinicapodcast.com/p/transcript...

Morgenthau's inaugural address at Bretton Woods: "Economic aggression can have no other offspring than war.... We know now that economic conflict must develop when nations endeavor separately to deal with economic ills which are international in scope."

Have been very slowly reading my way thru The Making of the English Working Class and I think Thompson’s take on the Luddites is lovely. Here he responds to the accusation that they were reactionary and driven solely by nostalgia

We need a Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Economic Weapons

Rumors of the death of Chinese open-weight AI have been greatly exaggerated. My latest after the release of DeepSeek V4. herecomes.transpacifica.net/p/death-of-c...

US political thinking overwhelmingly cannot accept the rise of China. The EU is in danger of following. What stops this becoming a bigger crisis is that companies are by and large ignoring governments. But that of course brings its own problems. www.ft.com/content/abde...

“Once a driver of stable employment, jobs in the arms sector have declined even as military spending soars.” @tkbarnes.bsky.social exposes the broken relationship between the Pentagon’s soaring budget and secure jobs. transitionsecurity.org/labor-of-the...

War is creating a global south food and fuel crisis exacerbated by major cuts to foreign aid by top global north donors made in part to fund rearmament in preparation for more war

This is totally on brand for Stoller because the return of the small business (which will never be Big and therefore Bad) is the return of the family business is the return of the good father

Global economic apartheid

The coming global food crisis ft.trib.al/hZg0yxi

David Brophy responds tempestmag.org/2026/04/dism...

i think vance’s great asset is that the press likes him and sees him as one of their own

Mercifully few takes on the Cheng-Xi meeting on here

Sen Slotkin (D-CIA), who trashed Bernie’s Fighting Oligarchy tour not even a year ago, is pivoting to left populist messaging

We're now open for pitches for issue #4 of the @the-breakdown.bsky.social: the China issue! If you have ideas for essays or pieces on any aspect of China's relationship with the climate crisis, at home or globally, then let us know. Full details here: break-down.org/pitching/

Antidote to stupid takes

here's another one. spent lots of space proving "there's no mass killing", a big strawman, and the rest talking about economic development. Of course, reeducation camps became "vocational centres" and forced labour transfer became development policies. Of course, no mention of the hundreds of

Fascinating ingredients in this TACO, can't wait to learn more

Any sign that Dems might be open to taking war crimes seriously this time?

A viral Chinese meme imagines Americans one mishap away from ruin, while American influencers fantasize about China as a frictionless techno-utopia. Each reveals less about reality than about shared economic anxieties.

DC desperately wants third countries’ support against China, but it always fails because it doesn’t actually care about them. The US could “compete”, but ironically only if people for whom geopolitical conflict is irrelevant or unwanted were in charge. carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

Progressive internationalism usually doesn't directly address the issues that are most salient to the majority of people but Trump is doing his very best to solve this problem www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

feeling like we're in some of those weeks where decades are happening

Chinese government bonds emerge as lone war haven ft.trib.al/elDzXLR

Exciting new adventures in FAFO?

As dumb as Trump’s execution has been, let’s not forget that a big chunk of the foreign policy elite spent the last decade baying for war with Iran. They got to be Very Serious People all those years even as they were calling for something that would likely cause Hormuz closure and economic chaos

Pentagon preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, Washington Post reports reut.rs/4bEv17L

The centrist attack on Hasan Piker might create some temporary headaches for progressives but I would bet it will just end up backfiring. Have they thought this through?

I cannot stress enough how these are PTA moms and soccer coach dads and I can best describe the vibe as “festively bloodthirsty”

This narrative has been thoroughly debunked and people like Burns should know better by now but they just can’t give it up www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Progressive International is promoting this article on twitter again and I cannot overstate how terrible it is progressive.international/blueprint/cb...

UAE pushes for international force to reopen Hormuz ft.trib.al/fVr8lbL

it's quagmire season now we've got a reason to get a big war I need a big war give me a big war

Starting to feel like quagmire season

Breaking: The Pentagon is weighing sending an additional 10,000 ground troops to the Middle East.

One of the most important figures in US and global finance just dropped an exciting new prowar capitalist argument: The war on Iran must escalate to regime change, which would yield "abundance and growth", otherwise we're doomed to a lengthy global recession www.businessinsider.com/blackrock-ce...