There are 2 things they are trying to do here IMO:

• They are using tariffs to bully weaker countries into worse deals and to interfere in our politics. Here in Colombia the media (all right wing lapdogs) keep talking how president Petro needs to bend the knee and just acept whatever Trump wants to do because it would be so bad for Colombia if we get extra tariffs. And they keep spewing propaganda making it sound like Petro is the one being crazy to kill any remaining support he has (not that he needs any help jajajaja, he has been a really mediocre president on his own and the extreme right is going to get an easy win next election anyway). They are not wrong of course, a trade war between Colombia and USA would hurt Colombia so much more than the USA just because of the relative size of our economies. And Trump and the rest of the republican assholes are using this to bully us and the rest of latin american countries.
• They want to reshape the tax collection in USA to remove taxes from rich people and collect more from poor people. At the end of the day, blanket tariffs on all products is just another regressive sales tax that will fall mostly on poor people. They want to reduce wealth taxes and income taxes which are collected mostly on rich people and instead replace them with regressive taxes like tariffs instead. I mean, his recemt tax changes shifted a huge amount of the tax burden away from the rich and to the poor and middle classes. If you want to put a conspiracy hat, they also think this will create a population boom in the USA. Research shows that people under worse economic conditions have more children, so they want to make life harder to poor people to get more and cheaper workers. At the very least the Musk rat has spoken openly about this, so it’s not crazy to think this is part of their stupid plan.

Long term, the USA is royally fucked because of this. They are killing any good will the USA has with the rest of the world and they are screwing the poor people that actully generate the wealth of their country. But short term rich people will make bank with all this and the rest of us will pay for it.

I think my reply to your other comment applies here (https://lemmy.world/comment/14037207). And in fact the situation is not as bad as I thought, so Ibstand corrected.

Yeah. My point was that without US support their resistance radically changes from the stalemate they have now to an occupation and resistance from the Ukranians. And in case of an occupation the resistance groups don’t get a seat at the table so to speak.

But some other commenter has also shown me that the europeans are actually masively ramping up their aid to Ukraine which will more than cover the missing aid from the US. So, assuming they deliver (which I assume they will), the situation is not as bad as I thought. So I stand corrected.

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/. As of today the split is around 40% US. But the europeans are indeed promising a large increase of aid which can more than cover what the US will stop contributing, I wasn’t aware of that. I really hope they deliver, then Ukraine may maintain the stalemate without US support. So the situation is not as bad as I thought jajajaja, nice.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/ my man, US alone is more than 50% of total aid. You are just arguing from vibes lol.

Yeah, I hope they can ramp their support to replace what the US will stop contributing. But I don’t see this happening sadly. They have had years to ramp up their support, and as you said, every incentive to do so. So I assume they are already giving close to what they can/want. But I’m a random dude jajajaja, I hope I’m wrong.

Again, in practice yes. The choice Ukranians will get is accept whatever the US negotiates or continue their resistance without US support. In the second case there is simply no. way they don’t get steam rolled, and then there is just no negotiation, just occupation.

No, I get that. And I really wish they make the Russian invaders suffer. The point I’m trying to make is that without the material support they have been receiving from the USA I don’t see a way for Ukraine to keep fighting toe to toe with Russia for long (I hope I’m proven wrong, I really do. But I don’t see how).

Of course this doesn’t mean that Ukranians are going to roll over and accept this without fighting. But if they decide to continue the resistance, the nature of the conflict will change dramatically. I just don’t see how Ukraine can maintain the current stalemate without the huge material support they are receiving today. But if they decide to keep fighting (which I hope they do), this will become an asymetrical conflict like Afghanistan or Vietnam.

Obviously I may be wrong, I hope I’m wrong. But it seems naive to assume nothing is going to change without USA support.

EDIT: Turns out that the Europeans are dramatically ramping their aid to Ukraine (https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/). So the situation is not as bad as I thought, they may be ok without the US. Keeping the original comment below anyway.

Unfortunately yes in practice. Ukraine can’t sutain their defense from Russia without all the external support they are getting, in particular from the USA (and NATO in general). So in practice, the USA can absolutely negotiate with Russia and then force Ukraine to accept whatever they negotiate. And given that the Americans picked Trump as president this has a good chance of happening.

Not saying this is right or anything like that. It sucks for the Ukranians and of course I would like for this to be different, this should be up to the Ukranians. But this is the reality of the situation, turns out that puting a traitor in charge of the biggest super power in the world has world reaching consequences even if americans didn’t think about that when voting.

And what do you think we should do about that? Because all your points seems to boil down to just do nothing and feel superior, the usual centrist. Funny how that just happens to support Israel’s position and enables them to continue with the genocide. Fuck off, you are a disgusting person.

Come on people. Stop enaging these obvious trolls/propagandists/retards. Look the way they respond, “nope” and that’s it, really? Grow up or fuck off dude, you should be ashamed of yourself. People are trying to have a conversation and people like you just come here to distract people with obvious trolling. If you are a paid propagandist you should be fired for incompetence. And if you are not you should be ashamed of yourself.

Thanks! I will check it out.

Sorry for the late response, busy day hahaha. A few things:

1. Please don’t get hung out on the particular examole I picked. I just googled Monsanto seed lawsuit and picked the first example. But there are so many many more examples.

2. I mean, you don’t see that’s the problem I was pointing out exactly? Again, I’m not against GMOs themselves (though again, totally unneducated opinion). My concern, as someone from a third world country, is precisely with the laws and economic pressure these companies use to exploit people in our countries using this technology.

Let me explain how this works in my experience:

1. Monsanto or any of these companies create a new GMO. This GMO is usually actually better at something than traditional crops. Though here better is usually economically better, as in cheaper to produce.
2. These companies start preassuring every farmer in our countries to use their seeds and crops. Usually this is done through economic preassure. That is usually they price their seeds so they are cheaper to use than traditional crops (on it’s own, not terrible). There is usually some preassure thorugh laws anf marketing to force people to switch too.
3. The farmers using these new crops will outperform, in an economical sense, the farmers that keep using the traditional crops. They will produce better crops for less money for a while. Usually the ones who survuve this are the big farmers, most family farms can’t compete here. After some time of this we end in a situation where all the crops are replaced with the new GMO, patented crop, giving these companies a monopoly over our food.

If things ended here it would be okish, though I wiould still hate it hahaha. But we all know that companies will always exploit their monopoly positions as much as possible. So this usually ends with even more hunger in our countries even though we now technicslly have better crops. So yeah, I think you are wrong. If our onky options are to continue using old “inneficient” crops, or this shit, I prefer the traditional crops. So good on Greenpeace for blocking this.

Thanks for a nice response! My main problem with checking news sites is that it’s quite a bit of work and I’m very lazy hahaha. Specially because of what I said, for me this is mostly about my curiosity, so I can’t invest the time required to properly inform myself this way. Plus there is the issue of bias, I only speak spanish and english, so my sources are biased that way by default (fuck Putin just in case anyone mistakes this for support for that prick lol).

In my naivety I was hoping to get a few websites with like a minute to minute of the developments. I remember seeing several beautiful sites like these for the Syrian civil war, and I assume there are some for this conflict too. Obviously, as you pointed out, these sites will surely be biased (some to one side, some to the other) and incomplete. But if I have a few of these, I can at least go and take a look at them everytime I see a headline like this and create my own uneducated opinion lol.

I mean, you are probably right, I have no clue lol. But this entire thread is exactly what I was NOT asking about. And you guys get mad with me for pointing this out lol. I was literally asking about a place to check “raw” data about the conflict. Thankfully, some dude actually shared a site like this in a different reply. Obviously, I will have to check it to decide how reliable it’s. But that was what I was asking about, not this …

Thank you man! This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

Guys, I mean this what I’m talking about lol. I guess the answer to my question must be in another thread hahaha. Have fun

I posted a reply by accident lol.

I’m not sure man. You make it sound like crazy conspiracy theories, and they are to some extent. But Monsanto has absolutely sued people for planting their genetically modified seeds, for example https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/business/monsanto-victorious-in-genetic-seed-case.html.

I agree with you (and other posters) that Greenpeace is overblowing the dangers of GMO (though I’m not an expert, not even close, so take this as the uneducated opinion it is). But I still think it’s good they blocked them in this case. To me it’s a fact that these companies will try to use these new crops to exploit the farmers. Because that’s literally the business model of Monsanto and all these fucking companies. And long term that’s worse for the food security of the people in third world countries, no matter what neo liberals say.

Honest question here, any website that’s accurately tracking the current reality in Ukraine? Within reason of course, it’s an unstable situation by definition. I see a lot of headlines that make it sound like Russia is winning, and then some articles claiming Ukraine is kicking ass hahaha. So I honestly have no idea what’s going on because of the flood of propaganda.

Just in case, I really really have no horse in this race. I’m from latin america, so this only affects me via globalization. But I would love to be able to track the situation there just for morbid curiosity.