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Jake Werner

@jwdwerner.bsky.social

1.3K followers 390 following 290 posts

Historian, director for East Asia @quincyinst.bsky.social, cofounder Justice Is Global. Previously @gdp-center.bsky.social, University of Chicago. Writing on US–China relations and global capitalism.

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · Nov 13

From the Quincy Institute, the Institute for Policy Studies, and Justice Is Global, my essay laying out a comprehensive progressive strategy for US policy on China.
quincyinst.org/research/a-p...
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A Program for Progressive China Policy

Foregrounding internationalism, global cooperation, and multilateral collaboration are essential to solving shared challenges like climate change, public health crises, and global inequality. This can...

quincyinst.org

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 11h

This is the third time this year we’ve gone through this absurd escalation–deescalation cycle. It’s so tiresome.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

Trump announces he's putting a bajillion percent tariff on China

It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them. This affects ALL Countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.

Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the U.S.A., and not other Nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying. Also on November 1st, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.

It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 12h

The first trip to China by members of the House since 2019, led by @adamsmith.house.gov, offers hope that Congress might be able to offer something beyond China panic. My latest for Responsible Statecraft.
responsiblestatecraft.org/adam-smith-c...

Lawmakers have an antidote for Washington's China panic

Rep. Adam Smith recently led a congressional delegation with a wild idea: Visiting Beijing and talking to Chinese leaders

responsiblestatecraft.org

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Reposted by Jake Werner

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 18h

The tech billionaire and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel says the antichrist is ... Greta Thunberg www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction

In leaked recordings of private lectures by tech billionaire Peter Thiel he argued that “the Antichrist” is likely to take the form of a critic of technology.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 13h

Great talking to @doughenwood.bsky.social‬ about fissures within Maga on China and how Chinese leaders view global order.

Doug Henwood @doughenwood.bsky.social · 1d

fresh audio product:

* Jake Werner on Trump’s creeping softness on China, and how that country sees its role in the world
• Jeet Heer @jeetheer.bsky.social on the slick but odious William F. Buckley Jr.

www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S...

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The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 1d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 1d

Firing workers in order to fly private. Our modern economy.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t think there’s enough discussion about how likely it is that the AI sector will collapse the global economy even before it cooks the planet www.axios.com/2025/10/08/o...

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Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 2d

WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 2d

Not to mention the end of prosecuting financial/business crime, and your pick of crypto solutions for money laundering

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 2d

Want to read about how a presidential regime confronts democratic backsliding in a diverse and unequal society? Want to replace Latin (E Pluribus Unum) with Sanskrit (Bhinneka Tunggal Eka)? Check out these papers in the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 👇

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Introduction to the Special Section on Presidentialism and Democracy in Indonesia - Thomas B. Pepinsky, 2025

The three articles in this special section on presidentialism and democracy in Indonesia analyse the state of Indonesian democracy through a careful study of th...

journals.sagepub.com

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Reposted by Jake Werner

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 2d

Reporter's notebook: I actually began working on this story shortly after footage of the incident showed up last month.

But by the time I finally got ahold of folks, the story grew: 2 *other* faith leaders I spoke with *also* reported being shot w/pepper balls while protesting this ICE facility.

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 3d

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 2d

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

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Jacob Silverman @jacobsilverman.com · 3d

It's pub day for my book, "Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley," which chronicles the rise of the tech right and their role in the 2024 election. Thanks to everyone who helped along the way.
linktr.ee/gildedrage

Gilded Rage | Linktree

A searing look at the rise of Silicon Valley's far right. Out October 2025.

linktr.ee

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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 3d

Shot a priest in the head with a pepper ball, just for fun.
There was absolutely no threat here.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 3d

Here’s video of the incident

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 3d

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

Second: Trump loves displaying power. But to understand how these attacks fit his politics, we need a wider view on the role of spectacular violence in Maga psychology.

It’s hard to make sense of war in this case as a means to an end. We get a better grasp on it if we see it as an end in itself.
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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

…for US social problems, and using that to mobilize state and popular violence behind unchecked power for the president.

But why that should develop so rapidly toward war is not immediately evident, particularly because war could undermine the domestic purge they’ve prioritized thus far.
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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

Two additional issues need more investigation:

First: we know Stephen Miller is at the center of this operationally. Obviously it’s connected to his wider program of dehumanizing immigrants, driving them out of the US, scapegoating them for…
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
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Stephen Miller takes leading role in strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats

Exclusive: Miller’s homeland security council has played a key part in coordinating operations, sources say

www.theguardian.com

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

Commentary hasn’t shed much light on the perplexing question of what is motivating the move to war. From ‪@edwardluce.bsky.social‬, a good start:

“Trump is so pleased with the optics of these apparently risk-free fireworks [i.e. the boat murders] that he seems to be developing a taste for them.”
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Edward Luce @edwardluce.bsky.social · 3d

"None — repeat none — of America’s fentanyl has been found to originate from Venezuela. Yet Trump and Pete Hegseth, his compulsively strutting “secretary of war”, insist that the country is fuelling America’s opioid epidemic." Me on Trump's wag the dog script. www.ft.com/content/5b3e...

Venezuela is Trump’s useful enemy

Despite the president’s claims, the South American country is nowhere close to being the US’s biggest drug supplier

www.ft.com

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

Huang’s larger argument is important. He rejected those who cast China as a scheming enemy and so seek to cut our connections.

He wants competition instead of exclusion, because “the future is so much greater. It doesn’t have to be all us or them. It can be us *and* them.”

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

Politico gathered denunciations of Jensen Huang from a long list of the usual suspects in the China panic industry.

I was very glad to be the lone voice against Chinese exclusion in our immigration policy and great power conflict in our foreign policy.
subscriber.politicopro.com/newsletter/2...

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Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

The weakest part of what they offer—the dialectic yet moves. But even there, they have an account of how the culture industry offers substitute satisfaction to the masses.

What is the gratification that people are supposed to be getting from CBS now?

Jake Werner @jwdwerner.bsky.social · 3d

People could relax about this stuff and focus on more important things, if they would just develop a suitably sophisticated materialist critique of ideology and mass consciousness.

Reposted by Jake Werner

Kye @gxldsociety.bsky.social · 4d

PAY ATTENTION: ICE is filing fake 911 calls in Chicago, weaponizing emergency services to provoke local police.

Ordinary citizens would be charged with a felony. ICE calls it strategy.

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