patrick.net

Fortwaye says

How the hell is this average calculated? I’m paying 3.50 a gallon in Idaho. In blue states it’s even higher.

$2.75 here at several places in coastal Virginia.

For a short time, it fell below $4 rotgut regular, but it's back up to 4.25 in my hoods.

I think every time gas prices drop in California, it regarded as an opportunity to increase the gas taxes, and they do.

These strikes are increasing in frequency:

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/national/25570472.six-dead-us-forces-launch-airstrike-suspected-drug-smugglers/

The US military has conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday.

The strike on the boat, believed to be operated by the Tren de Aragua gang, left six people dead in the Caribbean.

In a social media post, Mr Hegseth said the strike occurred overnight, and it marks the second time the Trump administration has tied one of its operations to the gang, which has its origins in a Venezuelan prison.

The pace of the strikes has quickened in recent days from one every few weeks in September, when they first began, to three this week.

This might make a real difference in the availability of fentanyl, if that's what they're shipping in. One boatload is an awful lot because the stuff is so potent.

There are going to be a lot of pissed off withdrawing homeless in Santa Cruz, and a vacation for the paramedics ambulancing around to give them their narcan.

@WhiteHouse
HISTORIC PEACE BETWEEN THAILAND & CAMBODIA.

President Trump and Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim hosted the Prime Ministers of Thailand and Cambodia for the signing of the ‘Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords’—a historic peace declaration.

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1982325597234966664

CHINA JUST SURRENDERED. 48 HOURS. $3 TRILLION GONE.

Treasury Secretary Bessent: “China is ready to make a deal.”

Translation: Beijing capitulated in 48 hours.

The 100% tariff dies November 1st. But China paid a price that will echo for centuries.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED:

October 24: Trump activates economic doomsday … $300B in Chinese exports face extinction.

October 26: Bessent emerges from negotiations.

October 28: “China is ready.”

Two. Days.

The second-largest economy on Earth folded faster than a CVS receipt.

THE TRAP NOBODY SAW:

While analysts debated “trade war escalation,” four things happened simultaneously:

Malaysia rare earth pact .. signed in darkness.
Thailand processing rights … secured.
Australia $13B refinery … operational.
Cambodia extraction deals … finalized.

China’s nuclear option … their 80% rare earth monopoly … got circumvented across four continents in 72 hours.

Beijing walked into negotiations holding a gun.

America had already stolen the bullets.

THE MATH THAT ENDS EMPIRES:

China 2018: $758B trade, 90% rare earth control, manufacturing dominance
China 2025: $578B trade, 80% rare earth control, supply chains hemorrhaging
China October 28: “Ready to deal”

$180 billion in trade evaporated. Not destroyed. Relocated. ASEAN up 20%. Every dollar that left China bought a vote against Chinese leverage.

WHY 48 HOURS:

Phase 1 deal (2019): 18 months of negotiation
Phase 2 “deal” (2025): 48 hours of surrender

What changed? Trump already decoupled the dependencies.

The October mineral pacts weren’t reactions … they were ammunition pre-positioned before war was declared. China entered talks already encircled. The 100% tariff was never meant to fire. It was a countdown forcing Beijing to accept terms before their last leverage expired.

WHAT CHINA JUST BOUGHT:

Not tariff relief. Survival.

The deal isn’t removing the 100% tariff. The deal is China accepting they will never again have the leverage to resist American terms.

Rare earths: Worthless. Alternative supplies operational.

Agricultural leverage: Dead. $20B soybeans resume because Beijing has no choice.
Tech sovereignty: Finished. Software curbs withdrawn because China has nothing left to negotiate with.

THE SENTENCE THAT REWRITES HISTORY:

“China is ready to make a deal.”

Not “both sides reached agreement.”
Not “productive negotiations concluded.”

*China is ready.*

One side. Capitulation. Semantic surrender.

WHAT HAPPENS TO $3 TRILLION:

The AI infrastructure buildout … $350B American, $3T global … just became a Western monopoly. China’s 7nm chips. Their LLM ambitions. Their tech sovereignty dreams.

All required rare earths they no longer control exclusively.
All required American software they can’t replace.
All required market access they just traded for survival.

THE GEOPOLITICAL DETONATION:

Taiwan: If trade leverage is dead, military options narrow to suicide.
Russia: China can’t buffer Moscow without American permission.
Global South: Just watched their alternative to US hegemony fold in 48 hours.

BESSENT’S ACTUAL MESSAGE:

Not to markets. To Beijing.

“You’re ready to deal” means “you have no alternatives left and we both know it.”

The 100% tariff vanishes November 1st.

But the framework that forced capitulation in 48 hours? That’s permanent.

THE TRUTH THEY WON’T PRINT:

This wasn’t negotiation. It was sentencing.

China didn’t make a deal. They accepted terms.

America didn’t win a trade war. They ended the concept of economic bipolarity.

Globalization isn’t dead.

It just became a protection racket.

And China just made their first payment.

https://x.com/shanaka86/status/1982416833526546604

Wow, that's amazing. Giving away the industrial farm to China was a Globalist move to weaken and destroy our country, along with NAFTA and all the other City of London Rhodes Freemason Club of Rome crap (expedited through Kissinger and Clinton).

Trump musta had the planning for this for a while. China can't pull the pins on their grenades any more.

Remember Trump saying he could wreck China, but he wouldn't? I wonder how this bodes for the CCP capture of the West Coast and Canada? CCP were investors and major players in the IPO for the election frauds here (and not just here, 72 other countries) along with Venezuela, Cuba, Serbia and our own beloved CIA under Casey's tutelege.

The CCP forged the mounds of fake ballots distributed for the 2020 election fraud through our own Post Office.

You should have to have a doctor's note with a low BMI to collect.

HeadSet says

Fortwaye says

How the hell is this average calculated? I’m paying 3.50 a gallon in Idaho. In blue states it’s even higher.

$2.75 here at several places in coastal Virginia.

You guys got it made.

Python Foundation rejected for $1.5M NSF grant - refuses to comply with "No DEI" rules. Org begs for donations instead.

https://x.com/Grummz/status/1983057224403694008

Trump's anti-DEI policies are having an impact

Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO) trafficking narcotics in the Eastern Pacific.

The four vessels were known by our intelligence apparatus, transiting along known narco-trafficking routes, and carrying narcotics.

Eight male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessels during the first strike. Four male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the second strike. Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the third strike. A total of 14 narco-terrorists were killed during the three strikes, with one survivor. All strikes were in international waters with no U.S. forces harmed.

Regarding the survivor, USSOUTHCOM immediately initiated Search and Rescue (SAR) standard protocols; Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue.

The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.

https://x.com/SecWar/status/1983164355999883548

EastPac = Mexico = Alcapulco = Chinese Fentanyl run?

Let's see how far this one goes. Is it Godzilla, or a disappearing dancing fawn?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/10/breaking-house-oversight-committee-deems-all-biden-autopen/

Trump/GOP popularity UP during Shutdown, CNN shocked.

I normally parody this magazine, but I post this as food for thought...

Trump's greatest accomplishment...

Starving out the Cloward Piven strategies during the shutdown.



https://rumble.com/v70yf42-illegal-aliens-are-making-more-money-than-most-americans-.html

Will he or won't he? Only the warring gaming computers know.

UveBeenNudged1 says

Trump's greatest accomplishment...

Looks like another stabbing in the Yookay.

DemoralizerOfPanicans says

Yookay

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/crowning-achievement-thursday-october

While in South Korea (neutral ground slightly tilted toward the US), Trump and Xi held the long-advertised meeting, prompted by China’s surprise move to cut America off from hard-to-get industrial magnets, which apparently are a much bigger deal than you would probably think. Trump had responded by jacking up China’s already-high tariff rates and launching a withering fusillade of social media commentary, all of which tricked the Democrats into believing that Trump had finally stumbled into a trade disaster.

Instead, according to this morning’s Times, China not only agreed to delay any changes to its magnet (“rare earths”) policies by a full year (by which point nobody will care), but also committed to yet more fentanyl-reducing policies. More tangibly, China agreed to buy “massive amounts” of American soybeans and other unnamed farm products.

For America’s part, Trump agreed to lower China’s tariff rate from 57% to 47% and to postpone special fees that he threatened to levy against Chinese ships docking in US ports —again, both were leverage Trump created from literally nothing— and agreed to consider loosening export controls on Nvidia’s AI chips (which he just ‘encouraged’ to move from Taiwan to Arizona).

In other words, the “looming trade disaster” was quickly resolved, purely using free leverage that President Trump created all by himself. ...

To me, the most fascinating bit of reporting appeared in CNBC’s story. It was right in the lead sentence: “Many people in China cheered the meeting Thursday between President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.”

In other words —and terrifying Democrats more than anything else— everyday Chinese are also learning to love the American President. CNBC reported that the most-viewed hashtag on China’s social media platform Weibo was about the two leaders’ summit meeting. ...

In short, President Xi just dashed Democrat dreams that China would defy Trump and break his unbroken winning streak. Now all they have is the government shutdown, and you know how that unfortunate blunder is going for them.

original link

US-Argentina SWAP LINE (not Loan) turns Profit for USA

The treasury secretary ended the post with a fiery postscript, bashing the Biden administration's "autopenned efforts to bankrupt the US government."

"P.S. I am happy to inform you both that the Argentine economic bridge has now turned a profit for the American people," Bessent wrote. "While ‘profit’ is a private sector word that you may both be unfamiliar with, I would urge you to look past your previous experience working alongside the Biden Administration’s autopenned efforts to bankrupt the US government."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/treasury-secretary-tells-dem-senators-stop-sending-him-incoherent-letters-argentinian-aide-profiting

Calls Chief Many Feathers Warran a Peronist
https://x.com/SecScottBessent/status/1983050547340161268

How much profit? I would appreciate a brief explanation. I did not find any in the linked article.

yawaraf says

How much profit? I would appreciate a brief explanation. I did not find any in the linked article.

https://patrick.net/comment?comment_id=2219412

I was wondering what the mechanics of a swap line are, and in this particular case, what the profit is.

yawaraf says

I was wondering what the mechanics of a swap line are, and in this particular case, what the profit is.

Don't expect any cognizant answer.