Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Beijing embraced RCEP in 2012 as a counterweight to TPP, but most governments preferred the U.S.-led pact. That’s because TPP sought not only to eliminate or reduce tariffs on 18,000 categories of goods, but also to curb nontariff barriers to trade, including subsidies for state-backed firms and theft of intellectual property. This would have spurred economic reforms in Vietnam and Malaysia, opened up Japanese farming and services to competition, and enhanced America’s engagement in Asia. “Long-term its strategic value is awesome,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

RCEP is different. With participation from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, the deal covers 30% of global GDP and half the world’s population. But its liberalizing effects will be limited mostly to lower tariffs on goods. That’s progress as far as it goes, but trade in services and investment—and non-tariff matters such as subsidies and property rights—will see little improvement. With China dictating the rules, RCEP will be a safe space for statism and cronyism.

A country like Vietnam can expect RCEP to facilitate increased manufacturing investment from firms in Japan, South Korea and China. But modernizers in Hanoi won’t have the leverage TPP would have provided to drive systemic change, such as curbing handouts to inefficient state enterprises. Japan can expect easier access to labor in India. But RCEP’s lower market-opening standards mean leaders in Tokyo will have a harder time facing down domestic cartels that prefer less competition and higher consumer prices.

TPP included the US and excluded India and China.

If this is true (and I've never known jax to post a falsehood...), why would the American Congress even consider it?

Quote from: WSJ

Beijing embraced RCEP in 2012 as a counterweight to TPP, but most governments preferred the U.S.-led pact.

Quote from: WSJ

RCEP is different. But its liberalizing effects will be limited mostly to lower tariffs on goods.

The purpose of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to remove the regulatory differences between the US and European nations. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. But I left out the most important issue: the remarkable ability it would grant big business to sue the living daylights out of governments which try to defend their citizens. It would allow a secretive panel of corporate lawyers to overrule the will of parliament and destroy our legal protections.

Vimeo is also auto-embedded if you use the regular link.

A special train possibly belonging to the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has been spotted at a resort town, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Kim’s health and whereabouts.

On Thursday the US president, Donald Trump, played down reports that Kim was ill. “I think the report was incorrect,” Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.

Trump has met Kim three times in an attempt to persuade him to give up a nuclear weapons programme that threatens the US as well as its Asian neighbours. While talks have stalled, Trump has continued to hail Kim as a friend.

North Korea's Kim Jong Un appears in video after 21-day absence

Video footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending a fertilizer plant opening has been released by state media outlet the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The footage follows KCNA reporting that Kim cut a ribbon at the event on Friday, ending three weeks of speculation about his wellbeing.

The video footage, which emerged on Saturday, shows the leader of the secretive East Asian nation in an all-black suit. He appears relaxed and healthy while he claps, talks and cuts a red ribbon in front of the factory. He is surrounded by functionaries — most of who are wearing facemasks.

The video footage has not yet been independently verified, but it is thought to be from Friday.

[...]

Media interest is often stoked by the notable absence of the country's leading figures from key events. In 2014, Kim disappeared for nearly six weeks before reappearing with a cane. South Korea's spy agency later said he had a cyst removed from his ankle.

They had been evidently given the wrong impression. They have not learned the lesson: You must have nukes or else...

As always, ersi takes the wrong lesson.

... -I think- Trump recognized that America should not be the world's cop... (For which belief many still call him an Isolationist! A pejorative term, among the neo-conservative gaggle...)

The Ayatollah leading Iran claimed to believe in an apocalyptic war as his duty!

(Yeah, I know you say "Zionism" but I'm not fooled.)

(Note: he won't pay any attention to how Russia and China react.)

The [congressional] approval of the war means that Trump has war powers, which means he has no obstacle to cancel or steal elections and declare himself a third term.

What the Words Are Hiding
In geopolitics, what governments do almost always matters more than what they say. It is obvious, very obvious, but it is worth repeating at moments like this.

Indeed, public statements during a conflict rarely function as transparent windows into operational military plans. More often, they become part of the conflict itself. Leaders speak to signal resolve, reassure allies, manage escalation, and just as importantly, to confuse their enemies. Treating statements from figures such as Rubio, Hegseth, or Trump as straightforward indicators of operational intent, thus, risks producing a deeply misleading picture of events.

It’s a 101 Clausewitz rule: “The deceiver by stratagem leaves it to the person himself whom he is deceiving to commit the errors of understanding,..”

A better approach, I think, is to step back to a moment before the pressures of active conflict began shaping public messaging. In this case, I believe that moment was May 13, 2025, when President Trump addressed the Saudi–United States Investment Forum in Riyadh. The speech did not receive the attention it deserved at the time. Yet in retrospect it stands as one of the most consequential statements delivered by an American president in the region in recent years. One passage in particular was revealing:

“I want to make a deal with Iran. If I can make a deal with Iran, I’ll be very happy. We’re going to make your region and the world a safer place. But if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors, then we will have no choice but to inflict massive, maximum pressure: drive Iranian oil exports to zero, like I did before. They were a virtually bankrupt country because of what I did. They had no money for terror. They had no money for Hamas or Hizballah. And take all action required to stop the regime from ever having a nuclear weapon. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The choice is theirs to make. This offer will not last forever. The time is right now. One way or the other, make your move.”

(source/more)