Trump bullies world into disastrous Opium Wars 2.0

Anna Chen – 30 May 2026, Opium Wars

Can China trust the USA or is Trump laying a trap?

In a lively conversation with Jeff Rich about the American elite’s ultimate goal, we discuss Trump’s visit this month to China and his meeting with Xi Jinping. What did the Trump circus achieve? Why did Xi mention the Thucydides Trap? Where are all the women?

Why is the Trump administration seemingly defying logic and starting wars, destabilising the world and threatening to wreck America’s own economy?

There are three imperatives dictating why America’s elite will never reverse now they know how much destructive power there is in the economic Armageddon they aim to bring on.

It’s no good just saying they’re mad, amoral or complete fash. They have a super-objective and they are following it blindly as if in a dream. Drunk on power, hypnotised by wealth, careless of consequences to others, this feral pack’s dream is our nightmare.

The US elite have no incentive whatsoever to stop.

i) They think they can repeat the enrichment of the Opium Wars in the 19th Century that financed the British in India, the East Coast dynasties and their industrial revolutions.
ii) They welcome the collapse of the global economy so they can buy up everything at fire-sale prices.
iii) They think they will sit out wars that get too close and too hot in their luxury nuclear bunkers. They even plan deadly drone strikes from the gold ballroom roof in case their own people rise up.

It is not in their interest to be well informed or wise – those are diversions from the path to “winning”. No wonder they hate experts and are happy to demolish 400 years of science-based Enlightenment.

But this impulsive behaviour has real world repercussions. Even without taking the Iran conflict into consideration, the global economy could tank 36 percent if Europe carries on targeting Russian refineries and oil infrastructure in the Ukraine war (MacGregor). The Great Depression saw a drop of 20 percent.

The start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 shot prices up to over $120. Attacks on Russian oil infrastructure have now knocked out an estimated 13-17 percent of its oil refining capacity. So, how is the oil price still hovering at around $90 to $105? Desperate to keep the oil price down to placate the voters, Donald Trump is using up US reserves to manipulate prices. At this rate, he’ll run out by July or August.

However, as if that’s not bad enough, the Iranians have threatened to remove a further 25 million barrels a day from the global market if the US and Israel resume attacks. That could mark the end of us. Yet still they think they’ll teach Iran a lesson — big joke. Oblivious to the risks, America and Europe think they’ll recapitalise their battered system in the ultimate clash with China, as was done in the 19th century Opium Wars. If only they realised that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train speeding down the tracks.

There’s still Cuba to come.

And, yes, they are mad, amoral and complete fash.

Sorry for repeating myself but the US elite, along with their feral sidekicks, have sheared off from the rest of society. This being a class war, the surplus labour (that’s us) isn’t included in the party.

Talk about always crashing in the same clown car. Trump can’t even keep his allies on board. In an amusingly cynical exploitation of unverified western claims of forced labour of Uyghurs in China, Trump has hoisted competitor economies by their own petard. He probably thinks this is a masterful martial arts reversal but it’s more like Joker handing a snapped pool cue to his economic rivals and telling them to fight to the death for survival. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Of course, the US has nearly 2 million incarcerated felons. That’s the fifth biggest prison population in the world behind Rwanda, El Salvador, Cuba and Turkmenistan, 40 percent of them Black. They happen to be forced to make goods for the privatised prison system. The 13th amendment allows slavery for prisoners so that’s all right, then.

Video discussion originally published at The Burning Archive Substack

And The Burning Archive YouTube

The Steampunk Opium Wars in the belly of the beast, 2012: groundbreaking theatre at the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich, home of the Royal Navy.

The Opium War by Julia Lovell: book review by Anna Chen, 2012. Western academia’s rationalisation of the coming war on the rising superpower resorts to victim blaming and defence of the narco-capitalists who carved up China in the 18th century Opium Wars.

Shakedown: America’s 21st century war on China. The Opium Wars on steroids