Wolf Street Economics

Published by Wolf Street Economics Serious Economics. No Hype. Just Signals A Soundbite and a Signal Donald Trump's recent declaration, in the context of his dramatic tariffs, "The United States wants nothing from China," made for a great headline. It was the kind of line tailored for the MAGA audience, a social media loop, or a populist narrative that paints U.S. self-reliance as already complete. But, behind that soundbite, something else was unfolding. At the same time, in the hushed corridors of a London hotel, senior American and Chinese officials were meeting to discuss an urgent matter: rare earth minerals. These talks weren't about broad tariffs or currency manipulation. They were about the industrial minerals at the heart of the 21st-century economy, and the deep dependency that still binds the United States to China. This isn't a story of decoupling. It's a story of entanglement, contradiction, and geopolitical theatre layered over logistical depende...

Published by Wolf Street Economics Serious Economics. No Hype. Just Signals. Why did the U.S. freeze Russia's central bank reserves? Why did China hit Australia's wine exports with a 200% tariff? And why is the U.S. banning AI chips to China? These aren't just trade disputes or diplomatic spats. This is geoeconomics, the modern battlefield where money, not missiles, is the primary weapon. What Exactly Is Geoeconomics? Coined by strategist Edward Luttwak in the early 1990s, geoeconomics refers to the use of economic instruments, like trade, finance, currency, and technology, as tools of national power. If geopolitics is war by other means, geoeconomics is peace by coercion. It's the merger of markets and strategy; where sanctions, supply chains, export bans, and tariffs serve the same role as aircraft carriers once did. Tools of the Geoeconomics Arsenal Governments today use an expanding toolkit to exert pressure or project power: Sanctions and financial blockades Tariff...