Tim Joslin 🇺🇦
@TimMJoslin
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Economics, politics, geopolitics, climate change, chess. Independent thinker blogging at https://t.co/NzKfnbJ45M . Likes, follows, even RTs, don't imply endorsement.
🇬🇧🇪🇪🇪🇺
Joined March 2020
Labour are backtracking on a plan to help save birds: by blocking a new rule that would make developers put a £35 nest brick in every new home. They think it'll help win them votes - we need to show it would do the opposite. Sign the petition
act.38degrees.org.uk
Swifts have lost more than half their population in 20 years. A simple £35 brick in new builds could help save them. Labour used to support this – now they’re planning to backtrack. Sign the petition...
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Long 🧵I am not a Romanian or a Romanian citizen, but I address you as a fellow citizen of the EU. I want you to think back to the year 1990. Your families must remember better than anyone else the impact of Ceausescu, the hardship, the empty shelves, and the hunger. 👉
🟢 Prin votul românilor de ieri s-a încheiat o epocă politică și un mod de a face politică. 🟢 Fac apel la politicienii partidelor ca în aceste două săptămâni să elibereze spațiul mediatic pentru ca dezbaterea societală între oameni să aibă loc acum. 🟢 Sunt foarte optimist
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(3) Ukraine should be free to agree with Russia the mediators for any future settlement (and choose its own interlocutors in the meantime). 17/18
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(2) Ukraine's European and other allies should continue to be free to provide arms and assistance to Ukraine. If not gifted, any further US materiel and assistance should be at agreed prices and paid for by future mineral revenues. What's already gifted was gifted. 16/18
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This can start now. Mining activities in Ukraine have not ceased during the war. If the US also invests in Russia 🙄, there's scope for a deal for neither Ukraine nor Russia to attack specified sites. Or the US could simply tell Russia what's off-limits in Ukraine. 15/18
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(1) As I wrote previously 👇, Ukraine should allow the development of its mineral resources on condition they are put on the open market - maybe through exchanges controlled by UK 😉(rather than US or EU) authorities. 14/18 https://t.co/erLOZMinhu
Companies from all Ukraine's partners (i.e. the EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan etc) should be eligible to tender to develop resources, funding reconstruction, with conditions including commitments not to impose any forms of export control, additional levies etc. 8/8
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Broadly, the deal would be US access to critical minerals in return for maintaining some support and allowing Europe to help Ukraine end the war when it chooses and on terms it agrees to. A little more detail: 13/18
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Instead, I still think @Keir_Starmer, @EmmanuelMacron and maybe @_FriedrichMerz should head to the Oval Office to thrash this out. There's a deal to be done: 12/18 https://t.co/pRJXy1smEG
It seems Pope Francis (to whom my best wishes) was the only person in Europe who did sleep well last night. A short 🧵with a few points I was thinking about. Yesterday's fiasco in the Oval Office will only prove to be a disaster if we let it be. 1/8
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So in this Trumpian dystopia there'd clearly be conflict with Europe for access to Ukraine's critical minerals. 🤦♂️ 11/18
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But the plan makes zero sense in the market context. (1) Ukraine will be in the EU. Trump implies its mineral resources would not be! (2) And he also implies the White House would decide who private mining companies could sell to - i.e. US, not e.g. German buyers! 10/18
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So when Vance says a US security non-guarantee is worth more than European actual security guarantees, he presumably means the US would, if necessary, militarily defend its access to the actual assets, the critical minerals. 9/18
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I've noted previously👇that Trump's proposed deal makes no sense. There wouldn't, for example, be 1000s of US workers in Ukraine, just a few managers and engineers. The vast majority of the workforce would be Ukrainian. 8/18 https://t.co/fPt0ajcjZC
As for the so-called minerals agreement, it makes no sense even on its own terms. What matters for the US (and Europe), I suggest, is that Ukraine's resources are developed and minerals etc put on the market and not controlled by potentially hostile powers. 7/8
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To hedge their bets, though, they want a deal with Ukraine too. And on top of that they want the war over, believing (erroneously?) that nothing can happen before then. 7/18 https://t.co/augF0H0ANu
carnegieendowment.org
All the ideas for developing rare earth metals that have issued forth from Moscow and Kyiv in recent weeks appear to be aimed purely at obtaining tactical advantages that can later be exchanged...
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Hence, I suggest, the MAGA brainboxes want a "deal" with Russia and are prepared to give an awful lot of Ukraine and influence in Europe etc to get it. Hence they're already talking about normalising with Russia, seeing China as a rival for Putin's affection. 6/18
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(2) One thing worse, in fact much worse, than import controls (tariffs etc) is export controls. If you can't source the inputs for a vital product you need, you have no alternative but to import that product, whatever the cost. And... 👇 (from the Yahoo! article). 5/18
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We need to be very clear on a couple of points: (1) We're in a bipolar world with 2 rival superpowers, China and US - @RoryStewartUK is quite right 👇 Russia is, though, an important provider of natural resources. 4/18 https://t.co/eEOgSyMSJz
1/ Trump has been conned by Putin. Russia isn’t a global superpower—its GDP (~$2 trillion) is smaller than Italy’s and about 1/15 the size of the US. 🧵
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Maybe something like this map 👇from the Yahoo! article is on the wall in the West Wing. Note the blobs over Greenland and "Russia". 3/18
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Consider this thread to be me thinking out loud... There's no single cause of the US position, but maybe the most important one is their desire for access to critical minerals and "rare earths". Here's some background. 👇2/18 https://t.co/zFEDHFlTJG
uk.finance.yahoo.com
On Tuesday President Donald Trump teased efforts to produce more critical minerals required for everything from semiconductors to aerospace and defense.
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Still losing sleep trying to understand what's going on. It seems Ukraine and Europe are being betrayed by the US. Why? A🧵 Team Trump are definitely smart (though prone to porkies), so must realise the cost, not least to Musk's businesses. An indication of sentiment👇1/18
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