Eyck Freymann

So let's let's take the hard facts head on.

In the last couple of years, we have learned some very important things about what is and is not possible when it comes to breaking our critical dependencies on China.

Everyone knows that we have these critical dependencies, which

strike at the very heart of our lives and livelihoods.

We depend on China for the active pharmaceutical ingredients that save lives every day in hospitals.

We depend China on the supply chain to build any drone in the United States.

We depend China on China for legacy chips without which we can't make cars.

There is no Ford.

There is no Stellantis.

I think that's crazy.

I think it's crazy.

I think it opens up the United States to economic blackmail.

And frankly, the fact that our allies have the same dependencies opens them up to blackmail too.

So it's a no-brainer that we should start to break these dependencies on China in the same way that China is trying to break its dependencies on us because they don't want to be blackmailed.

So what is dangerous is that China would be able to de-risk their economy largely from ours, but we couldn't do that in a symmetrical way.

But if a crisis happens over Taiwan, whether that's tomorrow or 18 months from now or five years from now, it will be an, oh, shoot, I guess we should have done all of that five years ago.

But that will be yesterday's problem.

And the question for today's problem is, how do we deal with the situation we face?

And it's very possible that that situation would be in the context of a crushing recession and stock market correction, because as we mentioned at the beginning of this conversation,

The whole equity market is being held up by an AI trade where seven tech companies that are priced for perfection make up 40% of the S&P.