Musings of the Day, 8/3/25: “Salami Slicing” is Geopolitcal jargon for two techniques that China has historically dominated at the expense of the US and its Allies. It is a central tenet of China’s Unrestricted Warfare that I have written at length about: 1. Achieving a larger Geostrategic objective through a series of small, incremental actions that individually may not provoke a strong response but cumulatively result in a significant shift in power dynamics. 2. Chipping away at adversary alliance structures by exploiting Gray Zones in international law or response doctrines, thereby creating conflicts and rifts among allies. If you want to understand the Trump 2.0 Playbook, you need to stop evaluating its Trade Policies from a traditional Multilateral Treaty standpoint that is particularly vulnerable to Salami Slicing by China and start understanding that it’s time to Fight Fire With Fire (had to throw in a Metallica reference). 🔥 🤘 Stop and take the time to read my new piece:

The other way I'm thinking about this is that traditional Multilateral Trade Agreements often suffer from a "Lowest Common Denominator" dynamic that gives Salami Slicers like China ample attack surfaces to exploit. Another Star Wars Mental Model is apropos: The Traditional Multilateral Trade Agreement is like the Death Star in the sense that it aggregates Economic Power. However, its size presents a large, porous attack surface that even small, one-man X-Wings were able to penetrate and exploit its vulnerabilities. As Vader aptly put it, “We’ll have to destroy them ship to ship. Get the crews to their fighters.”

OPEC+ (really Saudi Arabia) continues to unwind Unilateral Cuts in the face of weakening Demand. I believe it is at the behest of Trump, who wants Oil in the $50’s. As for sanctions on Russian Oil? History has shown that Trump doesn’t close one spigot without opening an even bigger one. If you don’t remember the Trump Rug-Pull of Q4’18, here’s a refresher: