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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56573.htm

G7: Desperately Seeking Relevancy

The upcoming G7 in Cornwall at first might be seen as the quirky encounter of “America is Back” with “Global Britain”.

The Big Picture though is way more sensitive. Three Summits in a Row – G7, NATO and US-EU – will be paving the way for a much expected cliffhanger: the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva – which certainly won’t be a reset.

The controlling interests behind the hologram that goes by the name of “Joe Biden” have a clear overarching agenda: to regiment industrialized democracies – especially those in Europe – and keep them in lockstep to combat those “authoritarian” threats to US national security, “malignant” Russia and China.

It’s like a throwback to those oh so stable 1970s Cold War days, complete with James Bond fighting foreign devils and Deep Purple subverting communism. Well, the times they are-a-changin’. China is very much aware that now the Global South “accounts for almost two-thirds of the global economy compared to one-third by the West: in the 1970s, it was exactly the opposite.”

For the Global South – that is, the overwhelming majority of the planet – the G7 is largely irrelevant. What matters is the G20.

China, the rising economic superpower, hails from the Global South, and is a leader in the G20. For all their internal troubles, EU players in the G7 – Germany, France and Italy – cannot afford to antagonize Beijing in economic, trade and investment terms.

A G7 rebooted as a Sinophobic crusade will have no takers. Including Japan and special guests at Cornwall: tech powerhouse South Korea, and India and South Africa (both BRICS members), offered the dangling carrot of a possible extended membership.

Washington’s wishful thinking cum P.R. offensive boils down to selling itself as the primus inter pares of the West as a revitalized global leader. Why the Global South is not buying it can be observed, graphically, by what happened for the past eight years. The G7 – and especially the Americans – simply could not respond to China’s wide-ranging, pan-Eurasian trade/development strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The American “strategy” so far – 24/7 demonization of BRI as a “debt trap” and “forced labor” machine – did not cut it. Now, too little too late, comes a G7 scheme, involving “partners” such as India, to “support”, at least in theory, vague “high-quality projects” across the Global South: that’s the Clean Green Initiative , focused on sustainable development and green transition, to be discussed both at the G7 and the US-EU summits.

Compared to BRI, Clean Green Initiative hardly qualifies as a coherent geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy. BRI has been endorsed and partnered by over 150 nation-states and international bodies – and that includes more than half of the EU’s 27 members.

Facts on the ground tell the story. China and ASEAN are about to strike a “comprehensive strategic partnership” deal. Trade between China and the Central and Eastern European Countries (CCEC), also known as the 17+1 group, including 12 EU nations, continues to increase. The Digital Silk Road, the Health Silk Road and the Polar Silk Road keep advancing.

So what’s left is loud Western rumbling about vague investments in digital technology – perhaps financed by the European Investment Bank, based in Luxembourg – to cut off China’s “authoritarian reach” across the Global South.

The EU-US summit may be launching a “Trade and Technology Council” to coordinate policies on 5G, semiconductors, supply chains, export controls and technology rules and standards. A gentle reminder: the EU-US simply do not control this complex environment. They badly need South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

Wait a minute, Mr. Taxman

To be fair, the G7 may have rendered a public service to the whole world when their Finance Ministers struck an alleged “historic” deal last Saturday in London on a global, minimal 15% tax on multinational companies (MNCs).

Triumphalism was in order – with endless praise lavished on “justice” and “fiscal solidarity” coupled with really bad news for assorted fiscal paradises.

Well, that’s slightly more complicated.

This tax has been discussed at the highest levels of the OECD in Paris for over a decade now – especially because nation-states are losing at least $427 billion a year in tax-dodging by MNCs and assorted multi-billionaires. In terms of the European scenario that does not even account for the loss of V.A.T. by fraud – something gleefully practiced by Amazon, among others.

So it’s no wonder G7 Finance Ministers had $1.6 trillion-worth Amazon pretty much on their sights. Amazon’s cloud computing division should be treated as a separate entity. In this case the mega-tech group will have to pay more corporate tax in some of its largest European markets – Germany, France, Italy, UK – if the global 15% tax is ratified.

So yes, this is mostly about Big Tech – master experts on fiscal fraud and profiting from tax paradises located even inside Europe, such as Ireland and Luxembourg. The way the EU was built, it allowed fiscal competition between nation-states to fester. To discuss this openly in Brussels remains a virtual taboo. In the official EU list of fiscal paradises, one won’t find Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Malta.

So could this all be just a P.R. coup? It’s possible. The major problem is that at the European Council – where governments of EU member-states discuss their issues – they have been dragging their feet for a long time, and sort of delegated the whole thing to the OECD.

As it stands, details on the 15% tax are still vague – even as the US government stands to become the largest winner, because its MNCs have shifted massive profits all across the planet to avoid US corporate taxes.

Not to mention that nobody knows if, when and how the deal will be globally accepted and implemented: that will be a Sisyphean task. At least it will be discussed, again, at the G20 in Venice in July.

What Germany wants

Without Germany there would not have been real advance on the EU-China Investment Agreement late last year. With a new US administration, the deal is stalled again. Outgoing chancellor Merkel is against China-EU economic decoupling – and so are German industrialists. It will be quite a treat to watch this subplot at the G7.

In a nutshell: Germany wants to keep expanding as a global trading power by using its large industrial base, while the Anglo-Saxons have completely ditched their industrial base to embrace non-productive financialization. And China for its part wants to trade with the whole planet. Guess who’s the odd player out.

Considering the G7 as a de facto gathering of the Hegemon with its hyenas, jackals and chihuahuas, it will also be quite a treat to watch the semantics. What degree of “existential threat” will be ascribed to Beijing – especially because for the interests behind the hologram “Biden” the real priority is the Indo-Pacific?

These interests could not give a damn about a EU yearning for more strategic autonomy. Washington always announces its diktats without even bothering to previously consult Brussels.

So this is what this Triple X of summits – G7, NATO and EU-US – will be all about: the Hegemon pulling all stops to contain/harass the emergence of a rising power by enlisting its satrapies to “fight” and thus preserve the “rules-based international order” it designed over seven decades ago.

History tells us it won’t work. Just two examples: the British and French empires could not stop the rise of the US in the 19th century; and even better, the Anglo-American axis only stopped the simultaneous rise of Germany and Japan by paying the price of two world wars, with the British empire destroyed and Germany back again as the leading power in Europe.

That should give the meeting of “America is Back” and “Global Britain” in Cornwall the status of a mere, quirky historical footnote.

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https://stephenlendman.org/2021/06/blinkens-big-lies-and-mass-deception/

Blinken’s Big Lies and Mass Deception

Like most others in Washington and the West, interventionist Blinken lies, deceives and can never be trusted.

His hostile to world peace, stability and the rule of law is all about advancing US imperial interests through perpetual wars by hot and/or other means against invented enemies.

On Monday before the House foreign affairs committee, Blinken recited us usual litany of Big Lies and mass deception.

He falsely called “stopping” annual flu-renamed covid a “major test” for the US.

He lied claiming that the US is committed to “defend(ing) the international rules-based order” it systematically breaches multiple times daily — as it’s done repeatedly throughout the post-WW II period and earlier.

He called for “renew(ing) (US) democratic values” that never existed before and clearly don’t now.

He requested congressional approval of $58.5 billion for USAID.

Promoting US imperial interests, the organization seeks to undermine nations free from US control by coups, color revolutions and other dirty tricks.

What Blinken called US “foreign assistance to advance human rights” is all about abusing them at home and abroad by diabolical US policies.

His congressional request of $300 million for the so-called National Endowment for Democracy is all about NED’s mandate to combat and eliminate rule of, by and for people equitably wherever it exists.

His State Department budget request has nothing to do with “prevent(ing) violence, reduc(ing)  poverty, curtail(ing) endemic corruption, and expand(ing) job and educational opportunities” anywhere.

Nor will any funding be used for supporting “refugees, victims of conflict, and other displaced people.”

Their status is largely to entirely because of US wars of aggression in multiple theaters.

Funding Middle East countries is all about US pursuit of control over the oil-rich region.

Funds go largely to apartheid Israel, its war machine, and for permanent US occupation of regional countries.

There’s little or no humanitarian aid for Palestinians in need.

What’s budgeted goes entirely to the pro-Western, Israeli installed PA puppet regime for controlling Palestinians, not serving them.

There’s nothing for besieged Gazans, nothing for other Occupied Palestinians, nothing for regional peace and stability over endless US/NATO/Israeli aggression.

Like many times before, Blinken falsely accused China and other nonbelligerent nations on the US target list for regime change of “work(ing) hard to bend international organizations to their worldview (sic).”

At a time when Washington’s only enemies are invented, Blinken falsely claimed that US “national security depends on the strength of our armed forces” — to rape, plunder, and control other nations he left unstated.

A Final Comment

In separate remarks about ongoing JCPOA talks in Vienna, Blinken falsely claimed that “it remains unclear whether Iran is willing and prepared to do what it needs to do to come back into compliance (sic).”

Iran is in full compliance with its JCPOA and other international law obligations.

The Trump regime abandoned the landmark nuclear deal.

Blinken-led Biden regime hardliners refuse to comply with Security Council Res. 2231.

The unanimously affirmed agreement is binding international and US constitutional law under its Supremacy Clause.

Since replacing Trump in January by brazen election rigging, the illegitimate Biden regime refuses to return to the JCPOA in its binding form — wanting unacceptable demands enforced on Iran no responsible governments would accept.

Based on its false remarks, stalling tactics, and Big Lies about an Iranian nuclear threat and hostile actions that don’t exist, Blinken-led Biden regime hardliners appear hell bent on undermining the JCPOA instead of return to the agreement as mandated by international law.

Days earlier, Blinken falsely said “(w)e’re not even at the stage of returning to compliance for compliance.”

“We don’t know if that’s actually going to happen.”

On Monday, Blinken falsely called “Iran’s nuclear program…out of control (sic)” — a bald-faced Big Lie, adding:

“Iran is carrying out activities that would have been worse if it had been a nuclear power (sic).”

Its “nuclear breakout time” was shortened to several weeks (sic).

All of the above Big Lies suggest that Biden regime hardliners have no intention of returning to JCPOA compliance in other than unacceptable revised form to include draconian demands its government won’t tolerate.

In response to Blinken’s hostile remarks, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted:

“It remains unclear whether @POTUS and @SecBlinken are ready to bury the failed ‘maximum pressure’ policy of Trump and @mikepompeo, and cease using #EconomicTerrorism as bargaining “leverage.”

“Iran is in (full) compliance with the #JCPOA.” 

“Just read paragraph 36. Time to change course.”

Based on what’s clear at this time, the Biden regime continues unlawful maximum pressure on Iran.

It shows no intention of changing its predecessor’s war on the Islamic Republic by other means.

If this policy remains unchanged, what’s highly likely, the landmark JCPOA as affirmed in 2015 is doomed.