Robert Pape

So this is the future here that we're going to contend with.

We're still basically stuck in equipment, in basing structures that are 20 years out of date.

With COVID, there was a hinge.

And China used COVID to jettison ahead in AI, not inventing a single product, but in diffusing this and integrating this across whole sectors.

This could be Iran in the coming years.

Yeah, so a couple of points.

First, notice that Trump is the master of sleight of hand like a magician.

That stat that you just said is not false.

but it's out of the larger context.

He doesn't want you to focus on like a magician.

The bigger context is China has been weaning itself off of oil over the last decade.

Only 20% of its energy needs now, 20% are met with oil, and only 38% of that come from the Persian Gulf.

So last summer when I was visiting the

those electric, those advanced industries, the business people were telling me in the dinners that, yeah, they may suffer a percent or two here or there loss of GDP.

But the fact of the matter is their whole business plan is built around Asia.

It's built around, this will create opportunities for them to buy things and get deals on the cheap.

They're more likely to jettison ahead as a result of this while America is

get sunk here.

And what you are seeing is we just keep getting spun by Trump's rhetoric here, and we're missing big pictures.

Some of it's because we just don't go to China.