Further to our 5th of October comment…
Now comes a new twist in place of what would once be called Diplomacy. Hungary has reportedly been given a one-year exemption from US sanctions on importing oil and gas from Russia, after Viktor Orbán became the latest foreign leader to pay court at the White House. The transaction is akin to Washington’s granting of standby credit to Argentina, aimed at getting the South American economy out of a hole and which achieved success in fortifying the Trump ally president Javier Milei’s representation in his congress.
It does not look as though Orbán had to push very hard to be excused from going along with sanctions announced in October on the Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft. Trump’s justification for acceding to Hungary’s request was that it would be difficult for Budapest to source the oil and gas from other places: “They don’t have … the advantage of having sea. It’s a great country, it’s a big [sic] country, but they don’t have sea. They don’t have the ports.”
The quid pro quo is said to be a commitment by Hungary to buy US liquefied natural gas in contracts worth $600m. Thus, we see that energy business deals are around with Trump and the nations he wants to control, never mind Ukraine. Putin doesn’t back off. He has now 17,000 mercenaries from Africa, in addition to North Koreans.
Venezuela, Sudan, Nigeria and Panama are on Trump’s non-diplomacy list as is Greenland to the disquiet of the Danes. AND, AND think of the IMO fiasco manoeuvred by Washington: AllAboutShipping was ahead of everybody on cautioning on that one. ..
Remember the modus operandi of Don Corleone the Godfather was “Never threaten, always warn.” Does this ring a bell as drones cause disruption at Brussels Airport and many other places? If all that were not enough, beware the AI debt bubble that is about to burst all over Planet Ocean.
