Quote of the Day: “One thing is very clear to me: Trump despises weaklings”– Guenther Oettinger, EU Budget Commissioner

From an article in today’s Guardian.  It seems that large European companies are quickly pulling out of Iran in response to the re-imposition of sanctions by the US, abrogating the anti-nuclear accord.  Angela Merkel warned that companies should have “no illusions” that the EU could protect them from US sanctions, despite attempts to protect “medium and smaller companies” with laws that prevent foreign economic sanctions from affecting EU nations.

Iran has not reacted other than to complain as yet, although they could conceivably announce that they were restarting work on a nuclear weapon since the agreement has been breached.

The result, intended or not, of the US pulling out of the Iran agreement, is chaos for the Iranian economy.  Oil exports will be greatly affected, reducing from about 2.5 million barrels a day to 1 million.  This will probably increase oil prices, although other countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia will be able to fill in the shortfall easily.  In combination with the moves last year to levy tariffs on solar products,  this is an indirect attempt to shore up the oil and coal industry and fight the advance of solar power.  Dramatically lower prices on solar panels has led to a building boom for the solar industry, and even the tariffs enacted by the US last year will not stop it, especially in China.  In combination with the increases in production of electric cars, this means that China is likely to outpace the US in renewable energy soon.

We can surmise that, in his heart of hearts, Trump loves China and hates Europe (for its effeteness and appeasement of Iran).  China is the ultimate bully and will soon be the strongest country on the planet.  Trump is busy weakening the United States government so that China will have less competition.  He may soon weaken the US further by actually going to war against Iran, particularly because economic pain will not lead to regime change in Iran, only a hardening of their attitudes.  War against Iran would be the ultimate diversion from the Mueller investigation.