It's hard to see what the Trump administration is doing and not assume their preferred outcome is hot war with China.
Dugin envisions the fall of China. The People's Republic of China, which represents an extreme geopolitical danger as an ideological enemy to the independent Russian Federation, "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled". Dugin suggests that Russia start by taking Tibet–Xinjiang–Inner Mongolia–Manchuria as a security belt.[1] Russia should offer China help "in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam, whose people is already pro-Russia), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia" as geopolitical compensation.[9] Russia should manipulate Japanese politics by offering the Kuril Islands to Japan and provoking anti-Americanism, to "be a friend of Japan".[9] Mongolia should be absorbed into the Eurasian sphere.[9] The book emphasizes that Russia must spread geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
And what better way to facilitate the scapegoating of the US than having an incompetent aggressive fool in the Whitehouse.
--The Great Gatsby
You're going to start a hot war with China demanding....what? That they reload the container ships with Shein clothing?
[1] https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/29/mr-art-of-the-deal-str...
The other road is isolation, which I find much more likely. They'll just cut us off completely and deal with it.
But one can still hope that the economic "warfare" won't become a literal one.
I'm not saying that I can tell how likely a real military conflict between any of China, Europe, India, Russia, the US actually is.
What I can tell is that even fellow agnostics should... pray (or hope) that this isn't the most likely scenario.
In this regard, I don't care about globalization, injustice + capitalism.
I truly just hope for the lesser evil.
Regardless of the continent, political system, leaders.
The lack of stockpiling or any other preparations before issuing the shock to the markets makes me think this is a quick sell off of the country that only benefits a few investors at the top.