UAE announced this week they might start selling oil in yuan so this doesn’t read like anything US aligned to me. If anything it reads like the opposite to me - a move away from traditional opec petrodollar system
I don't think there is any evidence that they actually need the dollar swap line - the dirham-dollar peg isn't at any risk and they have plenty of money for fiscal flexibility going into the foreseeable future. If you take financial reasons off of the table then it is clear it is just a political play for a bigger seat at the table with the US.
The Saudis did it to Biden in 2023, the UAE sees the opportunity to do it to Trump now.
exactly. this sounds like a third path where the UAE charts its own course, and that course increasingly looks paved in Yuan.
OPEC cartel membership didnt gain it access to Hormuz, and the US petrodollar promise to protect UAE states from aggression in exchange for trade in USD could not be upheld.
> the US petrodollar promise to protect UAE states from aggression in exchange for trade in USD could not be upheld
Well the war is still ongoing, and Iran's regime is already feeling the pain of the blockade [1]. Pricing oil in Yuan because, I guess, the US is somehow not protecting the UAE doesn't make sense because China won't be there to protect them either. The US can just say, well fine you can sell your oil in Yuan. But we'll just blockade the Straight and seize oil priced in Yuan or something. Who exactly does the UAE need protection from? Iran? China's ally?
I swear I read this same story over and over again. There's always just an accusation "thing happened, here's how the US is now in a state of being screwed" and there's just never any follow-up or perhaps imagination that the US could just do something too. Hypersonic missiles? US Navy is done for, no possible counter. Iran has drones? Boom. US is done for no way they can spend Patriot missile money on $30,000 Iranian drones. Nope, nothing anyone can do at all. Iran "closes the Straight", well the US can't do anything. Now they are "embarrassed" and "slammed".
> OPEC cartel membership didnt gain it access to Hormuz
> Pricing oil in Yuan because, I guess, the US is somehow not protecting the UAE doesn't make sense because China won't be there to protect them either.
It is an admission that US protection was always a paper tiger. Perhaps in the 1960s it meant something, but Iran has shattered the illusion that Washington has any credible defense of the country.
> The US can just say, well fine you can sell your oil in Yuan. But we'll just blockade the Straight and seize oil priced in Yuan or something.
The UAE primarily sells its oil to China, which is its largest export partner, followed by countries like India and Japan. the United States cannot do this without not only obliterating energy markets for an ally, but strengthening alliances between china and india. It is likely that should the US attempt such a move, China would respond with retaliatory technology tariffs and a reduction of agricultural trade.
> Who exactly does the UAE need protection from? Iran? China's ally?
the UAE did not "need protection" from any regional military threat until the United States used regional peace talks as cover to launch a surprise attack against Iran. the UAE would still likely be an OPEC member state had the US not unilaterally chosen to obliterate global energy markets for no consistent or clearly defined reason.
> there's just never any follow-up or perhaps imagination that the US could just do something too.
This conflict was well defined as geopolitical suicide for nearly forty years; its what kept the peace. All simulations and tabletop exercises predicted such an incursion would send global energy markets into panic, trade markets into recession, and produce no meaningful advancement of either regional security or regime change. Iran is backed by powerful allies and has shown numerous times it can meet each US escalation with yet more regional attacks. We have tried escalation and failed, burned through a decade of advanced missiles fighting cheap drones, and have no defined objective politically or militarily for this conflict.
> Iran "closes the Straight", well the US can't do anything.
Well, Iran closed the Straight and the world is facing biggest oil crises since 90ties. US was in fact incapable to prevent it. Even if the Straight opened today, harm already happened and will continue to happen for months. And I dont think it will open today.
The war did not had to start at all and is causing considerable harm already. Iran feeling pain does not mean surrounding states were protected - instead they were put into harms way.
> Pricing oil in Yuan because, I guess, the US is somehow not protecting the UAE doesn't make sense because China won't be there to protect them either.
At this point, China is more predictable and crucially, more likely to keep their word. Not exactly entirely predictable and not exactly truth teller, but the difference here is huge.
Yea there is some truth to that. The US is still in a wartime economy and cultural mode of thinking post-WWII (military budget, highway and infrastructure build, cultural characteristics around guns [1] and such). The downside is the degradation of quality of life, rage-bait, stress, those sorts of things. But if we have Americans constantly freaking out (and to some extent they should - being #1 is tough) about Chyna that does put pressure on the government to take these concerns seriously if they previously were not.
[1] Not a 2nd Amendment criticism, I’m a strong supporter. More so the folks who load up on ammo and “cool” gear and all that stuff.
Im not concerned with them selling with the yuan as China regularly screws around with its currency. The bigger issue is and other currencies which reduces the US impact.
On the backside I’m sure there will be lots of fun back door deals around all those interceptors and future anti drone technologies. Today though the US has been the impetus of a lot of the current issues.
That doesn't mean the warnings were frivolous. There was ultimately a change in course which averted it. How sure are you that will be the case this time?
Has the GCC been in an existential state of panic to the point where they’re seriously questioning their relationship with the US any time in the past 30 years?
Kuwait was “saved” by the US. The Iraq invasion was approved by the GCC, partly as payback for Kuwait, and anyways Iraq is not part of the GCC. The Qatar blockade was self-inflicted (and extremely stupid).
Problem is climate and ecosystem doesn’t give a fuck about some notional productivity or carbon intensity just the absolute number of pollution molecules going into the air
Yeah, though in this case the selling point is less about scale and more about data sovereignty. German companies are pretty touchy about storing data cross borders
There is also risk from a US regulatory side as recent drama around antrophic showed.
Don’t think it’s inconceivable that the clowns in power decide to limit api access out of the blue one day because someone whispered a conspiracy theory in someone’s ear. API blockade…
See also the constant flip flopping on what cards NVIDIA can export - no consistency in stance or coherent policy
The thing with Anthropic and the military was about whether vendors can tell the military what operations it's permitted to do. It has no bearing on the commercial sector, and isn't actually about AI.
The thing with NVIDIA cards is a continuation of how we've restricted tech exports for quite a while. You can find old news articles about game consoles being export-restricted over nuclear proliferation concerns. This AI-related one was about whether or not custom AI models are relevant to national security, and whether restricting graphics card sales can have a meaningful impact on them.
Any issue with selling chat tokens internationally would be more akin to the recent tariff shenanigans.
Changing your LLM inference provider is the easiest switch in technology I can think of. It's quicker than taking off the case of your phone and putting on a new one.
Enough hardware and good models exist now that if you do get blocked from one place that viable alternatives do exist.
> Changing your LLM inference provider is the easiest switch in technology I can think of.
Thats true right up until you’re working with confidential info in a corporate context. Then it’s a multi month cross discipline cross jurisdiction project not an edit in a config file.
Try Mistral-Nemo-2407-12B-Thinking-Claude-Gemini-GPT5.2-Uncensored-HERETIC_Q4_k_m.gguf. This 7.5GB model runs well in llama.cpp on my 2021 Macbook Pro and is good at both coding and business document analysis tasks.
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