Dear Reader,
Today I want to talk about something that’s being very underreported…
That shows us why war with China is more likely now than it has been at any point in our lifetime, or at least since the Korean war. No doubt about it.
So what happened, which again, is very underreported, is that the U.S. State Department removed a statement on its website that said it does not support Taiwan independence.
This after decades, based on Kissinger’s 1972 Shanghai Communiqué, of saying in our agreement with China that we do not support Taiwan independence.
Every administration has had that policy.
And Trump has just removed it.
It’s almost like we’re looking for a fight.
On February 14th, The Wall Street Journal reported on China’s rehearsals for a blockade of Taiwan.
I recommend reading it.
The head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Sam Paparo, warned about Beijing’s plans…
He said China’s “aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not ‘exercises,’ as they call them. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland.”
This is a complicated situation.
It may be the reason Trump is rushing to settle the Ukraine war, perhaps not in the best way.
It probably telegraphs to Xi Jinping, depending on the deal Trump cuts with Putin, how well tolerated a move on Taiwan would be.
Again, almost like we’re picking a fight with China.
We’re certainly picking a fight with our NATO allies and with Ukraine while making nice with Russia.
But it’s almost adversarial – dropping that statement saying we don’t support Taiwan independence.
Basically asking China to make a move.
We’re talking about over 50 years of agreement and understanding between the U.S. and China that the U.S. does not support Taiwan independence.
And Trump removed that from the State Department website, which is really mind-boggling.
So it’s understandable why from China’s perspective they’ve got to really rehearse a blockade of the first island chain.
The problem for the U.S., that most people don’t understand is, in all the war games scenarios, China blocks the first island chain, which of course includes the Philippines and Japan.
Now, we are not going to let the Philippines and Japan get blocked without us doing something. That’s not going to happen. So there will be a war if China moves on Taiwan.
There’s just no two ways about it.
Japan and the Philippines are our treaty allies and if we don’t support treaty allies, then our word means nothing.
You’ve got to support your treaty allies – period.
The problem for us is that every time we move our ships in these war games scenarios to try to punch through China’s blockade, their mainland sends 20,000 drones to attack each of our ships.
Even the USS Gerald Ford class carrier.
And these cheap, $2,000 drones fly over and get our ships to shoot out all our ammunition – bullets, missiles…
And once we exhaust our ammunition, our ships are sitting ducks.
This is their aim.
And it’s what our Pentagon refers to as “the depth of the magazine problem.”
So this is a problem for us.
And it’s why we lose catastrophically in war games scenarios…
We lose 40,000 people in 5-to-10 days.
It’s unbelievable.
In 13, 15 ships, aircraft carriers, we just run out of bullets.
Trying to defend against all these drones.
So, how do you solve for that?
One way is to put lasers on these ships, which is what they’re rushing to do right now.
Because when you fire projectiles at these drones, some of them cost a million dollars a shot.
But if you put lasers on your ships, you never run out of ammo.
And each shot costs $1.
So they’re rushing to get these systems onto our ships.
They’re rushing to get them into the Middle East where drones are making it very expensive for our military, expending all our bullets.
So what we want to be invested in is companies focused on laser warfare.
This is where it’s going, ladies and gentleman.
This is like Star Wars stuff.
A great power competition, and conflict.
Let us pray it doesn’t spill into an open fight between the U.S. and Russia.
There would be no winners there – just survivors; degrees of losing.
In a draw, the U.S. would be the loser.
China’s the challenger, we’re the champ – in a draw, we lose.
You can’t imagine what it would do to our capital markets if the United States were no longer seen as the world’s number-one dominant power.
I have a lot of concerns.
In some ways it looks like we are aiming for a fight with China…
At the exact time we’re alienating our allies – the most powerful assets we have.
Trump’s a super smart guy and I’m sure he has a bigger plan.
But a lot of super smart guys in the world have gotten their butts kicked, so we will see how this plays out, and we will pray for Trump and for the United States.
“The Buck Stops Here,”
