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Alan Beattie

@alanbeattie.bsky.social

33K followers 1.4K following 7.9K posts

Opiner for Financial Times in London. Globalisation, econ, snark. RT≠👍. Views own. [email protected]. Sign up to my FT Trade Secrets newsletter https://subs.ft.com/spa3_tradesecrets?segmentId=357afa03-959c-93ed-0842-58e2115025d4.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · Jan 7

OK, it's well past time to start a thread.

Welcome to Donald Trump's trade policy. Nobody. Knows. Anything.

1/n

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The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 6h

Things are happening at Portland's ICE facility tonight.

Read more of our protest coverage here: www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 12h

You mean at the same time? Don’t they have one each?

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcc.bsky.social · 15h

Higgledy piggledy
Timothée Chalamet
Has a name meriting
Endless design

Much like his forerunner
Benedict Cumberbatch:
Hexasyllabically,
Easy to rhyme

tweet from childish branzino @absflora:
timothée chalamet is the new benedict cumberbatch in the sense that you can say ANYTHING and we know who you mean. tiffany chevrolet. timpanogos charlemagne. symphony cabernet. jiminy castaway.

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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 14h

Scott Bessent has really nailed the US to the mast of Argentina’s peso policy today - not just confirming the $20bn swap line, but that the US directly bought pesos today. He has also declared the current band “fit for purpose”: x.com/secscottbess...

x.com

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

Well indeed - it's the idea that the UK is likely to be blockaded by a navy that stops it importing food that's loopy.

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Tootlefish @tootlefish.bsky.social · 17h

Samuel L Jackson saying The number of people incorrectly conflating food security and food self sufficiency is too damn high.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

Did you come up with that? Genius if so.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

That's a story on the same subject as the one I copied round...I don't think the answer is for every country to try to expand their productive capacity in all types of agriculture.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

"Suppose there's another war!"

"Against a sea power that's going to do a naval blockade of Britain but leave all the oil pipelines untouched because that would be unsporting?"

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 17h

And this, class, is why aiming at agricultural self-sufficiency rather than spreading risk across different countries through international trade is a *really stupid idea*.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 18h

Infrastructure week

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 19h

It's the old gag: say what you like about Hitler, but he did do one thing that lots of other people wanted to but failed to do and which helped to usher in a new era of world peace, which was to shoot Hitler.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 23h

This is like the widespread belief in France that their voice doesn't get heard in EU policymaking.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

The King’s Head on Lower Bridge Street in Chester, with some of the cool kids getting served in the weird “wine bar” Claverton (“Clavs”) across the road.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

I’d also like to bring back the grand old tradition of having one quasi-official police-designated under-age pub in every town, where the drinkers had a strong incentive to behave and the bar staff not to let them get too lairy.

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Worth remembering that Labour MPs sat on their hands as the British Government basically did the same to our international development ministry at around the same time - what little money is still in the "international aid" budget is overwhelmingly spent in the UK

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 1d

The direct address straight to the camera at the end of this is 100% right out of professional wrestling. Finally.

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 1d

If you come for my people, you come through me.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Yep, as do WTO rules. Standard element of trade.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

They aren’t normal tariffs - they’re for supposed emergencies, in this case a massive surge in imports or threat of it.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Not all assumptions wear capes.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

I took the "blue and gold" position, which I think was the equivalent of EFTA membership in being a middle ground that annoyed everyone.

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 2d

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

2015. COINCIDENCE? I think not.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress

The dress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Yes - actually "denial" wasn't the right word for me to use there but as you say, some sense of relativism regarding the Clearances etc which the leadership does a good job of not letting spread.

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed. TBF I believe the SNP leadership itself are actually perfectly sensible on the matter and clamp down on slavery denial in the party.

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