[GUEST ACCESS MODE: Data is scrambled or limited to provide examples. Make requests using your API key to unlock full data. Check https://lunarcrush.ai/auth for authentication information.] [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/twitter/RnaudBertrand) "Making America great again by cutting trade with the largest country in your continent and making them "look to other partners to replace" trading with you. Almost unbelievable own goal. This is by the way the only possible response by Brazil: if there is one thing we've learned about Trump is that appeasement and submission is only seen as a sign of weakness and as a validation of his hostility"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943516616907723111) 2025-07-11 03:44:04 UTC 339K followers, 114.1K engagements "This is beyond shameful and a terrifying sign. Albanese is as close to a political saint as we're likely to see and watching her be persecuted for her very virtues reveals just how morally collapsed the West has become. She literally personifies the highest ideals of public service: profound integrity intelligence graceful eloquence and an almost sacred commitment to the voiceless and defenseless. The fact that we're in an era where we persecute figures like her who advocate for murdered children and civilians in order to protect (and keep arming) their killers proves we've abandoned any"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943210988846878737) 2025-07-10 07:29:37 UTC 339K followers, 427.8K engagements "The pace of realignment is dizzying. Japan's PM urges his country to de-risk itself from the US in most sectors: "Ishiba said on Thursday his country needed to wean itself from U.S. dependence in such key areas as security food and energy""  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943698933986755068) 2025-07-11 15:48:32 UTC 339K followers, 144K engagements "It's done: China just launched the construction of the Yarlung Tsangpo dam project It'll be by far the worlds largest hydroelectric facility generating X times more electricity than the Three Gorges dam XXX billion kilowatt-hours. This dam project alone could power almost a quarter (21.6%) of all US households since the average U.S. household consumes about 10500 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity per year and there are XXX million households in the US It could also power the entirety of France and Italy COMBINED since the average electricity consumption in France is X XXX kWh per person per"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1946854532043899326) 2025-07-20 08:47:45 UTC 339K followers, 315.5K engagements "Thinking about it ironically maybe the biggest victims of the Trump tariffs may end up being American companies. Take Apple for instance. These guys have spent decades building incredibly complex global supply chains that span dozens of countries. They can't just flip a switch and move everything back to America. Their supply network represents tens of billions in investment thousands of supplier relationships and logistics systems perfected over decades. Dismantling this overnight is impossible and building a comparable domestic alternative - which is the stated goal of the Trump tariffs -"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1907827106337452168) 2025-04-03 16:06:42 UTC 339K followers, 205.6K engagements "Perfect example of what I wrote last week: the "China rose thanks to us" is the new coping mechanism to reconcile China's rise and American exceptionalism - "we didn't lose we just gave it all away." Setting aside the fact that this is zero-sum thinking that is wrong by definition - the world isn't black and white where one's "win" means another's "loss" - even within that framework this is just sore loser mentality: obviously ridiculous to claim that China which pulled off the fastest rise in human history much faster than the US's own rise did so with no merit of its own. If anything Deng"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1947361295801393433) 2025-07-21 18:21:27 UTC 339K followers, 82.6K engagements "Just watched this Chinese movie called "successor" in the plane and I have to say one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. It's the story of billionaire parents who grew up poor (like most people of their generation in China) and don't want their second child to become spoiled so they decide to set up a "Truman show"-like environnement where he is raised in the same poor conditions they themselves grew up in. Some scenes are truly hilarious like when the boy unexpectedly finds himself in his parents' real mansion forcing them to quickly swap outfits with their staff so the"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945035006851911924) 2025-07-15 08:17:37 UTC 339K followers, 314.2K engagements "There's no overstating how extraordinary this is. The West has now lost political support from the whole of Asia even Japan and South Korea"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1937126934309405148) 2025-06-23 12:33:45 UTC 339K followers, 1.8M engagements "This is a nice feel-good story. A Japanese student decided to do a "social experiment" in China where he would hitchhike from Nanjing all the way to Urumqi the capital of Xinjiang more than 3000 kilometers away. The social experiment was: he would ask passing drivers if they were willing to give him a ride. If they said yes he would then tell them he was Japanese - and observe whether they would still agree to take him. The result: among XX drivers only X refused him after learning he was Japanese. That is to say XXXX% of drivers still chose kindness and offered him a ride. Link to the"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943628004191883498) 2025-07-11 11:06:41 UTC 339K followers, 239.2K engagements "If confirmed this is one of the most significant developments in space technology in a long time and could fundamentally change satellite economics. Satellite refueling in geostationary orbit has been a holy grail for decades but it's an extraordinarily complex technical challenge. NASA tried during X years with its OSAM-1 program but ultimately threw in the towel. The reason why it could change satellite economics is simply because it could dramatically extend satellite lifespans which is quite impactful when replacing a geostationary satellite can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1944417649624248490) 2025-07-13 15:24:27 UTC 339K followers, 79K engagements "To be expected the U.S. is now issued open threats against this "Hague group" of countries seeking to put in place concreate measures against Israel. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said that they strongly opposes efforts by so-called multilateral blocs to weaponize international law as a tool to advance radical anti-Western agendas. The Hague Group seeks to undermine the sovereignty of democratic nations by isolating and attempting to delegitimize Israel transparently laying the groundwork for targeting the United States our military and our allies. Adding that the U.S. government will"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945074287871697063) 2025-07-15 10:53:42 UTC 339K followers, 122.4K engagements "That's probably one of least known yet coolest facts about China: in almost all large cities (that I've seen) people swim or fish in the rivers. This is Liangma river in Beijing 👇"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1944282827123790019) 2025-07-13 06:28:43 UTC 339K followers, 102.7K engagements "This is actually a clear violation of China's export controls on drone usage: the IDF is weaponizing Chinese civilian drones (EVO drones made by Autel Robotics meant for aerial photography) by attaching hand grenades to them and dropping them on Palestinians. China's drone export controls which were revised in July last year "prohibit exporters from selling abroad if they become aware that these drones will be used for. military purposes." This XXX investigation 👇 proves that the EVO drones made by Autel Robotics are in fact being used for military purposes so logically China should try to"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943524849156264439) 2025-07-11 04:16:47 UTC 339K followers, 151.4K engagements "Ha yes the extraordinarily complex science of early-stage investing where you need to a) look at startup pitches b) decide if you give them money. How could the Chinese have possibly cracked that code without American help 🤦 After IP theft this "we taught the Chinese everything" is the new coping mechanism to reconcile China's rise and American exceptionalism - "we didn't lose we were just super generous and gave it all away." Because we all know that American capitalists are famously all about selflessness and altruism"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945414470060081172) 2025-07-16 09:25:28 UTC 339K followers, 123.6K engagements "I had an AI research this and there has never been a single documented case of a foreigner detained at the border in China for negative content about China. In fact I broadened the search and contrary to popular belief I couldn't find a single documented case of a foreign tourist or student ever being detained in China over their speech or over content they posted or possessed. By contrast I've seen dozens of cases such as this one 👇 in the U.S. in the past few weeks alone. You draw your own conclusions"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1937720341952102414) 2025-06-25 03:51:45 UTC 339K followers, 130.5K engagements "This letter is batshit crazy no other way to describe it. For one imposing XX% tariffs on Brazil so that they drop charges against former president Bolsonaro is pure foreign interference. Even if you do support Bolsonaro you don't want to establish a precedent where the US can dictate the Brazilian judicial process. Also longer-term this can only encourage Brazil to de-risk itself as much as possible from the US and minimize trade with them so that such hostile actions have less impact. Which means reinforcing BRICS and all initiatives aimed at establishing an alternative order in which the"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943125210473074774) 2025-07-10 01:48:46 UTC 339K followers, 445.8K engagements "This is yet another move that doesn't make any sense whatsoever from an economic or strategic perspective. As per the FT article the EDA firms that will now be banned from selling to China - Synopsys Cadence Design Systems and Siemens EDA - have an XX% market share there and their revenue in the Chinese market account for between XX% and XX% of their global sales. At the same time there are some domestic Chinese companies in this sector like Huada Empyrean Software (HES). This is essentially saying "let's take the XX% market share our companies have in this sector and hand it over to Chinese"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1927901624586096923) 2025-05-29 01:35:40 UTC 339K followers, 62.4K engagements "@Anc_Aesthetics Let's see if these tariffs will end up being the success you seem to posit; I highly suspect you'll want to delete the tweets where you defend them in a few months"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1913157386225041890) 2025-04-18 09:07:20 UTC 339K followers, 222.5K engagements "I have to say there's something immensely ironic about the Dalai Lama arguing his reincarnation should be determined by a tax-exempt Swiss foundation incorporated in Zurich while Beijing insists on maintaining the traditional centuries-old Golden Urn selection process. And the even bigger irony is that everyone will doubtlessly denounce China for "destroying Tibetan traditions and culture" for doing so"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1940574901901185080) 2025-07-03 00:54:45 UTC 339K followers, 333.9K engagements "@JamesMi13822417 You're batshit crazy if you think Rothschild controls China's central bank"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943325827137155371) 2025-07-10 15:05:57 UTC 339K followers, 2681 engagements "That was our boat. We rented it together with X other families (we were a total of X adults and X kids). Relatively affordable: XX million Indonesian rupiah ($3400) for X nights and X days with a crew of X and full board"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1917856579870941405) 2025-05-01 08:20:15 UTC 339K followers, 12.5K engagements "This is the U.S. starting to recognize it made an absurdly stupid mistake by banning the sale of A.I. chips to China depriving its own companies of their largest market (China used to import more semiconductors than oil) and boosting the rise of major domestic competition in China. And given that their strategy backfired they're pivoting from trying to prevent China from competing in AI to a strategy of acknowledging that they will but they'd rather they do so under a Western tech stack effectively trying to contain the adoption of Chinese chips"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945086811681824954) 2025-07-15 11:43:28 UTC 339K followers, 76.2K engagements "Just spent the last X days on a sailboat exploring the Flores and Komodo islands in Indonesia and I have to say undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the world"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1917855375094866340) 2025-05-01 08:15:28 UTC 339K followers, 147.9K engagements "This is easily the best graphs I've seen of who actually walks the talk in clean energy. China is by far the biggest investor in clean energy on the planet with nearly $700bn invested in 2024 3.7x what it invested in fossil fuels. North America on the other hand is by far the biggest investor in fossil fuels (about twice more than the Middle-East) and invest less than half what China does in clean energy"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1798948264651452581) 2024-06-07 05:21:03 UTC 339K followers, 82.4K engagements "Remember: ultimately the price of AI will converge to the price of electricity. And in general tomorrow's economy will be powered by electricity to an even far greater extent than today. The whole economy ultimately is energy transformed and more and more electricity transformed. Electricity prices rising so dramatically (35% over the past X years) in the US is an immensely consequential competitive disadvantage in the technology race one that'll only worsen with time. Which is exactly why I argued in my recent article that America's energy strategy may prove to be the greatest strategic"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945925974199005267) 2025-07-17 19:18:00 UTC 339K followers, 42.4K engagements "Remember this This was April 9th the day of the announcement of the 90-day pause for "liberation day" tariffs and Trump was saying that countries were "dying to make a deal" and would do anything for it "kissing his ass" to make deals. Basically the narrative was that countries were so desperate to avoid the tariffs that deals would be easy. We're now July 7th the eve - literally - of the 90-day deadline. So where are we 1) Not a single actual trade "deal" was achieved. The US has reached X "framework" agreements with respectively China the UK and Vietnam but even with those the US wasn't"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1942081421151252789) 2025-07-07 04:41:07 UTC 339K followers, 125.6K engagements "Yup we're at the stage where Canada's leading newspaper is calling for the country to "free ourselves of the U.S. and forge closer ties with China" and to "break free from the made-in-Washington narrative that China is an unreliable trading partner.""  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945023759179489345) 2025-07-15 07:32:55 UTC 339K followers, 86.1K engagements "But according to Donald Trump Jr. "American products in China are virtually nonexistent because they made it impossible" 😏"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1932754312545144898) 2025-06-11 10:58:31 UTC 339K followers, 50.5K engagements "I did compare US electricity prices per KWH with China and the answer is that China is XXX times cheaper today. Avg price per kilowatt-hour in the U.S. is $XXXX (as per the FRED graph) and rising; vs $XXXXX per kilowatt-hour in China for industrial power Your restaurant analogy doesn't quite make sense because at the end of the day both countries are serving a global market: if China sells similar products or services XXX times cheaper than the US thanks to cheaper energy people will rather buy that"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945937803444957244) 2025-07-17 20:05:00 UTC 339K followers, 1318 engagements "This is a good piece by @stephenwertheim making the point - which I agree with and should reassure us all - that a cold war between the US and China is becoming "less warranted and less feasible" because it would certainly be much more detrimental to the US than China. This is because as per the piece "70% of countriesnow conduct more trade with China than with America" and "more than three-quarters of the world's countries judge China more favourably than the US"; meaning that if a cold war were to break out it'd likely be China containing the US instead of the reverse. Wertheim argues that"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945950822807789880) 2025-07-17 20:56:44 UTC 339K followers, 44.7K engagements "Almost every day now I see a massively viral tweet with a quote Xi never said and would never say: top Chinese leaders express themselves in a very particular language and would never be so direct and insulting. People wishing this was real should be careful what they wish for: it's already bad enough that we have one great power whose leadership keeps making unhinged public rants. And China is winning for the very reason that it remains diplomatically disciplined. When you spread these fake quotes you actually undermine this"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945789214605643788) 2025-07-17 10:14:34 UTC 339K followers, 286K engagements "When you take actions that obviously cede ground to your competitor there are X possible explanations for it: either you're making an error out of incompetence or you're cutting your losses in recognition that the game is unwinnable. Virtually all commentators - like here 👇- look at the US's recent actions on the global stage and assume the former: "they're so stupid don't they realize this will cause America's decline and accelerate China's rise" The Trump administration meanwhile is muddying the waters by framing this as a purge of "radical ideologues" house-cleaning DEI and "woke""  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1947599893305909686) 2025-07-22 10:09:33 UTC 339K followers, 19K engagements "As a big river swimming fan and being in Paris today I had to try it: swimming in the Seine river which is now possible since the 5th of July. Honestly pretty cool experience in all meanings of the word since the water is a refreshing 23C. They have X sites and we tried the "Grenelle" one very close to the Eiffel tower. The water quality is frankly not bad I saw many fishes in the water and it feels quite clean I even put my head under the water as you can see on the video"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1946187799230558318) 2025-07-18 12:38:24 UTC 339K followers, 51.6K engagements "Looks like another instance of persecution of an iconic Chinese company might be developing in the US with Homeland Security raiding Fuyao Glass America: Fuyao Glass America is especially famous because it was the company featured in Barack Obama's Netflix documentary "American factory". As such it'd be immensely symbolic if they were to become - after Huawei TikTok DJI etc. - yet another victim of the US's crusade against anything related to China"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1817113451354898715) 2024-07-27 08:23:01 UTC 339K followers, 57.9K engagements "Wow looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden probably the most he's ever officially been in a meeting with a US president. According to the Chinese readout here's what he told Biden were the X "lessons of the past X years that need to be remembered": 1) "There must be correct strategic understanding. The 'Thucydides Trap' is not historical destiny a 'new Cold War' cannot and should not be fought containment of China is unwise undesirable and will not succeed." 2) "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1858019192370507904) 2024-11-17 05:27:50 UTC 339K followers, 717.8K engagements "We're definitely witnessing quite the tone shift from Australia with regards to China if one looks at PM Albanese's tweets over the past few days. He says that "free and open trade is good for both Australia and China" an obvious coded criticism of American policies around trade: quite ironically being "free and open" is now siding with Beijing over Washington. He emphasizes several times the importance of stability in the relationship with China again probably a reference to Trump's characteristic instability and also likely a jab at his predecessor's confrontational approach to China."  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945567240189088003) 2025-07-16 19:32:31 UTC 339K followers, 130.6K engagements "A Belgian member of the EU Parliament from Renew Europe Macron's group proposes an international coalition of Europe China Latin America and Canada to coordinate efforts against Trump's tariffs because "he must understand he doesn't rule the world." Unlikely this will materialize but this is another sign that the political wind and political discourse is shifting in Europe. Mainstream European politicians are proposing political partnerships with China to have leverage against the US at an increasing frequency something that would have been absolutely unthinkable just 2-3 years ago"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1944221760045609260) 2025-07-13 02:26:04 UTC 339K followers, 48.4K engagements "I'm an extremely fast eater myself (I've literally won speed-eating contests) and since the eating style in China is to all share dishes my wife's common saying is: "since I'm married with Arnaud if I don't eat fast I don't eat" 😅"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1947008681905688863) 2025-07-20 19:00:18 UTC 339K followers, 46.3K engagements "Wow XX countries - including China () - are meeting in Bogota this coming week to declare concrete measures against Israels violations of international law. The states due to take part in the summit include Algeria Bangladesh Bolivia Brazil Chile China Colombia Cuba Djibouti Honduras Indonesia Ireland Lebanon Malaysia Namibia Nicaragua Oman Portugal Spain Qatar Senegal South Africa Turkey Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Uruguay and Palestine. Src:"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1944516124718297193) 2025-07-13 21:55:46 UTC 339K followers, 801.1K engagements "Most people interpret this as the US preparing for war but I think that on the contrary this is but the latest sign of strategic retreat - the US trying to outsource the costs and risks of a competition it knows it has already lost. Think about it: what the US is doing here is asking its "allies" to write blank checks that it itself refuses to sign (Trump is adamant it won't commit to anything wrt Taiwan). Ultimately this leads to a situation whereby "allies" will eventually ask themselves "wait a minute the whole point of our alliance with the U.S. was THEM defending US but now we're"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1944246767798956306) 2025-07-13 04:05:26 UTC 339K followers, 109.4K engagements "This movie says a lot about Chinas current anxieties: how does a society that has conquered poverty in just one generation ensure that prosperity doesn't destroy the very qualities - hunger resilience determination - that made that prosperity possible in the first place It also says a lot about China's recent history: in some way Mao's cultural revolution was this movie's plot on a civilizational scale - Mao scared that China's revolutionary fervor would be corrupted by comfort and bureaucratic privilege orchestrated a massive national experiment in manufactured hardship to maintain what he"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945143865578570040) 2025-07-15 15:30:11 UTC 339K followers, 139.2K engagements "5.2% GDP growth is pretty impressive given that exports to the US dropped by XX% that quarter compared to the year before due to the tariffs. Shows once again that China really doesn't rely on exports to the US for its economy"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945228667681972466) 2025-07-15 21:07:09 UTC 339K followers, 244.4K engagements "This absolutely stunning chart comparison by the NYT might prove to be the most important geopolitical visualization of the 21st century. The two major superpowers are each cornering a competing energy platform. China bets everything on clean energy the US on fossil fuels. It's incredibly rare probably even unprecedented in history to see X superpowers making completely opposite trillion-dollar bets on the underlying technology that literally powers the world. Let's see how it plays out. One interesting related statistic: XX% of the Global South's new energy investments go to clean tech so"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1940310878307655965) 2025-07-02 07:25:37 UTC 339K followers, 523.5K engagements "I just read this WSJ article on why Europe's tech scene is so much smaller than the US's and China's. I'm afraid that like most articles on this topic it largely misses the mark. Which in itself illustrates a key reason why Europe is lagging behind: when you fail to understand the root causes of an issue you have zero chance to solve it. What makes me competent to speak on this topic Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s I founded and led HouseTrip which at the time was one of Europe's top startups. We were the first historical startup in which all top X VC investors in Europe invested. So I"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1925029185052917791) 2025-05-21 03:21:37 UTC 339K followers, 819.6K engagements "Trump blinked first. Below the full list of the items that are now exempt from tariffs XX categories of products in total organized by HS code (sourced from here: - 8471: Automatic data processing machines and units thereof (e.g. computers such as laptops desktops and servers) - 8473.30: Parts and accessories for automatic data processing machines and their units (e.g. computer components and peripheral parts) - 8486: Machines and apparatus for the manufacture of semiconductor devices or electronic integrated circuits - 8517.13.00 Smartphones and other telecommunication apparatus for cellular"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1911068764067750066) 2025-04-12 14:47:53 UTC 339K followers, 326.9K engagements "This might be the most remarkable geopolitical document I've seen come out of a major European institution so far this century. Frances Parliament has just produced an extraordinary 153-page report that calls for nothing less than a complete strategic realignment of Europe. The document systematically dismantles the EU's current geopolitical positioning - "vassalized" to the U.S. in the report's words - as a catastrophic failure that has led to the EU seeing "its influence diminish and its interests poorly protected." The report details XX recommendations from the "creation of a common world"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1943599430227357732) 2025-07-11 09:13:09 UTC 339K followers, 629.4K engagements "@BvGroat It's a pretty universal truth about rich kids"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1945071411267010562) 2025-07-15 10:42:16 UTC 339K followers, 6643 engagements "You need to be a special kind of psychopath to think these images somehow reflect well on you: a large group of emaciated and obviously desperate civilians in a landscape of total desolation that you caused scrambling towards a rare aid truck while your soldiers have to be repeatedly instructed not to shoot them from afar which means it isn't the norm"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1947605368097354204) 2025-07-22 10:31:19 UTC 339K followers, 149.1K engagements "Congrats @guardian this is easily one of the most dishonest articles I've read in a long time just pure ideological propaganda. In short the article's main thesis is that climate change is a "democracy" vs "autocracies" issue whereby virtuous "democracies" are struggling valiantly against climate change while evil "autocracies" are the primary obstacle to progress. And the central question being: how can we the good guys force these bad "autocracies" to behave responsibly on climate As the article puts it "democracies" apparently have attributes like popular pressure and transparency that"  [@RnaudBertrand](/creator/x/RnaudBertrand) on [X](/post/tweet/1946131640671199482) 2025-07-18 08:55:15 UTC 339K followers, 94.6K engagements
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@RnaudBertrand
"Making America great again by cutting trade with the largest country in your continent and making them "look to other partners to replace" trading with you. Almost unbelievable own goal. This is by the way the only possible response by Brazil: if there is one thing we've learned about Trump is that appeasement and submission is only seen as a sign of weakness and as a validation of his hostility"
@RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-11 03:44:04 UTC 339K followers, 114.1K engagements
"This is beyond shameful and a terrifying sign. Albanese is as close to a political saint as we're likely to see and watching her be persecuted for her very virtues reveals just how morally collapsed the West has become. She literally personifies the highest ideals of public service: profound integrity intelligence graceful eloquence and an almost sacred commitment to the voiceless and defenseless. The fact that we're in an era where we persecute figures like her who advocate for murdered children and civilians in order to protect (and keep arming) their killers proves we've abandoned any" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-10 07:29:37 UTC 339K followers, 427.8K engagements
"The pace of realignment is dizzying. Japan's PM urges his country to de-risk itself from the US in most sectors: "Ishiba said on Thursday his country needed to wean itself from U.S. dependence in such key areas as security food and energy"" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-11 15:48:32 UTC 339K followers, 144K engagements
"It's done: China just launched the construction of the Yarlung Tsangpo dam project It'll be by far the worlds largest hydroelectric facility generating X times more electricity than the Three Gorges dam XXX billion kilowatt-hours. This dam project alone could power almost a quarter (21.6%) of all US households since the average U.S. household consumes about 10500 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity per year and there are XXX million households in the US It could also power the entirety of France and Italy COMBINED since the average electricity consumption in France is X XXX kWh per person per" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-20 08:47:45 UTC 339K followers, 315.5K engagements
"Thinking about it ironically maybe the biggest victims of the Trump tariffs may end up being American companies. Take Apple for instance. These guys have spent decades building incredibly complex global supply chains that span dozens of countries. They can't just flip a switch and move everything back to America. Their supply network represents tens of billions in investment thousands of supplier relationships and logistics systems perfected over decades. Dismantling this overnight is impossible and building a comparable domestic alternative - which is the stated goal of the Trump tariffs -" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-04-03 16:06:42 UTC 339K followers, 205.6K engagements
"Perfect example of what I wrote last week: the "China rose thanks to us" is the new coping mechanism to reconcile China's rise and American exceptionalism - "we didn't lose we just gave it all away." Setting aside the fact that this is zero-sum thinking that is wrong by definition - the world isn't black and white where one's "win" means another's "loss" - even within that framework this is just sore loser mentality: obviously ridiculous to claim that China which pulled off the fastest rise in human history much faster than the US's own rise did so with no merit of its own. If anything Deng" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-21 18:21:27 UTC 339K followers, 82.6K engagements
"Just watched this Chinese movie called "successor" in the plane and I have to say one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. It's the story of billionaire parents who grew up poor (like most people of their generation in China) and don't want their second child to become spoiled so they decide to set up a "Truman show"-like environnement where he is raised in the same poor conditions they themselves grew up in. Some scenes are truly hilarious like when the boy unexpectedly finds himself in his parents' real mansion forcing them to quickly swap outfits with their staff so the" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 08:17:37 UTC 339K followers, 314.2K engagements
"There's no overstating how extraordinary this is. The West has now lost political support from the whole of Asia even Japan and South Korea" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-06-23 12:33:45 UTC 339K followers, 1.8M engagements
"This is a nice feel-good story. A Japanese student decided to do a "social experiment" in China where he would hitchhike from Nanjing all the way to Urumqi the capital of Xinjiang more than 3000 kilometers away. The social experiment was: he would ask passing drivers if they were willing to give him a ride. If they said yes he would then tell them he was Japanese - and observe whether they would still agree to take him. The result: among XX drivers only X refused him after learning he was Japanese. That is to say XXXX% of drivers still chose kindness and offered him a ride. Link to the" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-11 11:06:41 UTC 339K followers, 239.2K engagements
"If confirmed this is one of the most significant developments in space technology in a long time and could fundamentally change satellite economics. Satellite refueling in geostationary orbit has been a holy grail for decades but it's an extraordinarily complex technical challenge. NASA tried during X years with its OSAM-1 program but ultimately threw in the towel. The reason why it could change satellite economics is simply because it could dramatically extend satellite lifespans which is quite impactful when replacing a geostationary satellite can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-13 15:24:27 UTC 339K followers, 79K engagements
"To be expected the U.S. is now issued open threats against this "Hague group" of countries seeking to put in place concreate measures against Israel. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said that they strongly opposes efforts by so-called multilateral blocs to weaponize international law as a tool to advance radical anti-Western agendas. The Hague Group seeks to undermine the sovereignty of democratic nations by isolating and attempting to delegitimize Israel transparently laying the groundwork for targeting the United States our military and our allies. Adding that the U.S. government will" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 10:53:42 UTC 339K followers, 122.4K engagements
"That's probably one of least known yet coolest facts about China: in almost all large cities (that I've seen) people swim or fish in the rivers. This is Liangma river in Beijing 👇" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-13 06:28:43 UTC 339K followers, 102.7K engagements
"This is actually a clear violation of China's export controls on drone usage: the IDF is weaponizing Chinese civilian drones (EVO drones made by Autel Robotics meant for aerial photography) by attaching hand grenades to them and dropping them on Palestinians. China's drone export controls which were revised in July last year "prohibit exporters from selling abroad if they become aware that these drones will be used for. military purposes." This XXX investigation 👇 proves that the EVO drones made by Autel Robotics are in fact being used for military purposes so logically China should try to" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-11 04:16:47 UTC 339K followers, 151.4K engagements
"Ha yes the extraordinarily complex science of early-stage investing where you need to a) look at startup pitches b) decide if you give them money. How could the Chinese have possibly cracked that code without American help 🤦 After IP theft this "we taught the Chinese everything" is the new coping mechanism to reconcile China's rise and American exceptionalism - "we didn't lose we were just super generous and gave it all away." Because we all know that American capitalists are famously all about selflessness and altruism" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-16 09:25:28 UTC 339K followers, 123.6K engagements
"I had an AI research this and there has never been a single documented case of a foreigner detained at the border in China for negative content about China. In fact I broadened the search and contrary to popular belief I couldn't find a single documented case of a foreign tourist or student ever being detained in China over their speech or over content they posted or possessed. By contrast I've seen dozens of cases such as this one 👇 in the U.S. in the past few weeks alone. You draw your own conclusions" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-06-25 03:51:45 UTC 339K followers, 130.5K engagements
"This letter is batshit crazy no other way to describe it. For one imposing XX% tariffs on Brazil so that they drop charges against former president Bolsonaro is pure foreign interference. Even if you do support Bolsonaro you don't want to establish a precedent where the US can dictate the Brazilian judicial process. Also longer-term this can only encourage Brazil to de-risk itself as much as possible from the US and minimize trade with them so that such hostile actions have less impact. Which means reinforcing BRICS and all initiatives aimed at establishing an alternative order in which the" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-10 01:48:46 UTC 339K followers, 445.8K engagements
"This is yet another move that doesn't make any sense whatsoever from an economic or strategic perspective. As per the FT article the EDA firms that will now be banned from selling to China - Synopsys Cadence Design Systems and Siemens EDA - have an XX% market share there and their revenue in the Chinese market account for between XX% and XX% of their global sales. At the same time there are some domestic Chinese companies in this sector like Huada Empyrean Software (HES). This is essentially saying "let's take the XX% market share our companies have in this sector and hand it over to Chinese" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-05-29 01:35:40 UTC 339K followers, 62.4K engagements
"@Anc_Aesthetics Let's see if these tariffs will end up being the success you seem to posit; I highly suspect you'll want to delete the tweets where you defend them in a few months" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-04-18 09:07:20 UTC 339K followers, 222.5K engagements
"I have to say there's something immensely ironic about the Dalai Lama arguing his reincarnation should be determined by a tax-exempt Swiss foundation incorporated in Zurich while Beijing insists on maintaining the traditional centuries-old Golden Urn selection process. And the even bigger irony is that everyone will doubtlessly denounce China for "destroying Tibetan traditions and culture" for doing so" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-03 00:54:45 UTC 339K followers, 333.9K engagements
"@JamesMi13822417 You're batshit crazy if you think Rothschild controls China's central bank" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-10 15:05:57 UTC 339K followers, 2681 engagements
"That was our boat. We rented it together with X other families (we were a total of X adults and X kids). Relatively affordable: XX million Indonesian rupiah ($3400) for X nights and X days with a crew of X and full board" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-05-01 08:20:15 UTC 339K followers, 12.5K engagements
"This is the U.S. starting to recognize it made an absurdly stupid mistake by banning the sale of A.I. chips to China depriving its own companies of their largest market (China used to import more semiconductors than oil) and boosting the rise of major domestic competition in China. And given that their strategy backfired they're pivoting from trying to prevent China from competing in AI to a strategy of acknowledging that they will but they'd rather they do so under a Western tech stack effectively trying to contain the adoption of Chinese chips" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 11:43:28 UTC 339K followers, 76.2K engagements
"Just spent the last X days on a sailboat exploring the Flores and Komodo islands in Indonesia and I have to say undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the world" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-05-01 08:15:28 UTC 339K followers, 147.9K engagements
"This is easily the best graphs I've seen of who actually walks the talk in clean energy. China is by far the biggest investor in clean energy on the planet with nearly $700bn invested in 2024 3.7x what it invested in fossil fuels. North America on the other hand is by far the biggest investor in fossil fuels (about twice more than the Middle-East) and invest less than half what China does in clean energy" @RnaudBertrand on X 2024-06-07 05:21:03 UTC 339K followers, 82.4K engagements
"Remember: ultimately the price of AI will converge to the price of electricity. And in general tomorrow's economy will be powered by electricity to an even far greater extent than today. The whole economy ultimately is energy transformed and more and more electricity transformed. Electricity prices rising so dramatically (35% over the past X years) in the US is an immensely consequential competitive disadvantage in the technology race one that'll only worsen with time. Which is exactly why I argued in my recent article that America's energy strategy may prove to be the greatest strategic" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-17 19:18:00 UTC 339K followers, 42.4K engagements
"Remember this This was April 9th the day of the announcement of the 90-day pause for "liberation day" tariffs and Trump was saying that countries were "dying to make a deal" and would do anything for it "kissing his ass" to make deals. Basically the narrative was that countries were so desperate to avoid the tariffs that deals would be easy. We're now July 7th the eve - literally - of the 90-day deadline. So where are we 1) Not a single actual trade "deal" was achieved. The US has reached X "framework" agreements with respectively China the UK and Vietnam but even with those the US wasn't" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-07 04:41:07 UTC 339K followers, 125.6K engagements
"Yup we're at the stage where Canada's leading newspaper is calling for the country to "free ourselves of the U.S. and forge closer ties with China" and to "break free from the made-in-Washington narrative that China is an unreliable trading partner."" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 07:32:55 UTC 339K followers, 86.1K engagements
"But according to Donald Trump Jr. "American products in China are virtually nonexistent because they made it impossible" 😏" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-06-11 10:58:31 UTC 339K followers, 50.5K engagements
"I did compare US electricity prices per KWH with China and the answer is that China is XXX times cheaper today. Avg price per kilowatt-hour in the U.S. is $XXXX (as per the FRED graph) and rising; vs $XXXXX per kilowatt-hour in China for industrial power Your restaurant analogy doesn't quite make sense because at the end of the day both countries are serving a global market: if China sells similar products or services XXX times cheaper than the US thanks to cheaper energy people will rather buy that" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-17 20:05:00 UTC 339K followers, 1318 engagements
"This is a good piece by @stephenwertheim making the point - which I agree with and should reassure us all - that a cold war between the US and China is becoming "less warranted and less feasible" because it would certainly be much more detrimental to the US than China. This is because as per the piece "70% of countriesnow conduct more trade with China than with America" and "more than three-quarters of the world's countries judge China more favourably than the US"; meaning that if a cold war were to break out it'd likely be China containing the US instead of the reverse. Wertheim argues that" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-17 20:56:44 UTC 339K followers, 44.7K engagements
"Almost every day now I see a massively viral tweet with a quote Xi never said and would never say: top Chinese leaders express themselves in a very particular language and would never be so direct and insulting. People wishing this was real should be careful what they wish for: it's already bad enough that we have one great power whose leadership keeps making unhinged public rants. And China is winning for the very reason that it remains diplomatically disciplined. When you spread these fake quotes you actually undermine this" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-17 10:14:34 UTC 339K followers, 286K engagements
"When you take actions that obviously cede ground to your competitor there are X possible explanations for it: either you're making an error out of incompetence or you're cutting your losses in recognition that the game is unwinnable. Virtually all commentators - like here 👇- look at the US's recent actions on the global stage and assume the former: "they're so stupid don't they realize this will cause America's decline and accelerate China's rise" The Trump administration meanwhile is muddying the waters by framing this as a purge of "radical ideologues" house-cleaning DEI and "woke"" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-22 10:09:33 UTC 339K followers, 19K engagements
"As a big river swimming fan and being in Paris today I had to try it: swimming in the Seine river which is now possible since the 5th of July. Honestly pretty cool experience in all meanings of the word since the water is a refreshing 23C. They have X sites and we tried the "Grenelle" one very close to the Eiffel tower. The water quality is frankly not bad I saw many fishes in the water and it feels quite clean I even put my head under the water as you can see on the video" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-18 12:38:24 UTC 339K followers, 51.6K engagements
"Looks like another instance of persecution of an iconic Chinese company might be developing in the US with Homeland Security raiding Fuyao Glass America: Fuyao Glass America is especially famous because it was the company featured in Barack Obama's Netflix documentary "American factory". As such it'd be immensely symbolic if they were to become - after Huawei TikTok DJI etc. - yet another victim of the US's crusade against anything related to China" @RnaudBertrand on X 2024-07-27 08:23:01 UTC 339K followers, 57.9K engagements
"Wow looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden probably the most he's ever officially been in a meeting with a US president. According to the Chinese readout here's what he told Biden were the X "lessons of the past X years that need to be remembered": 1) "There must be correct strategic understanding. The 'Thucydides Trap' is not historical destiny a 'new Cold War' cannot and should not be fought containment of China is unwise undesirable and will not succeed." 2) "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without" @RnaudBertrand on X 2024-11-17 05:27:50 UTC 339K followers, 717.8K engagements
"We're definitely witnessing quite the tone shift from Australia with regards to China if one looks at PM Albanese's tweets over the past few days. He says that "free and open trade is good for both Australia and China" an obvious coded criticism of American policies around trade: quite ironically being "free and open" is now siding with Beijing over Washington. He emphasizes several times the importance of stability in the relationship with China again probably a reference to Trump's characteristic instability and also likely a jab at his predecessor's confrontational approach to China." @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-16 19:32:31 UTC 339K followers, 130.6K engagements
"A Belgian member of the EU Parliament from Renew Europe Macron's group proposes an international coalition of Europe China Latin America and Canada to coordinate efforts against Trump's tariffs because "he must understand he doesn't rule the world." Unlikely this will materialize but this is another sign that the political wind and political discourse is shifting in Europe. Mainstream European politicians are proposing political partnerships with China to have leverage against the US at an increasing frequency something that would have been absolutely unthinkable just 2-3 years ago" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-13 02:26:04 UTC 339K followers, 48.4K engagements
"I'm an extremely fast eater myself (I've literally won speed-eating contests) and since the eating style in China is to all share dishes my wife's common saying is: "since I'm married with Arnaud if I don't eat fast I don't eat" 😅" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-20 19:00:18 UTC 339K followers, 46.3K engagements
"Wow XX countries - including China () - are meeting in Bogota this coming week to declare concrete measures against Israels violations of international law. The states due to take part in the summit include Algeria Bangladesh Bolivia Brazil Chile China Colombia Cuba Djibouti Honduras Indonesia Ireland Lebanon Malaysia Namibia Nicaragua Oman Portugal Spain Qatar Senegal South Africa Turkey Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Uruguay and Palestine. Src:" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-13 21:55:46 UTC 339K followers, 801.1K engagements
"Most people interpret this as the US preparing for war but I think that on the contrary this is but the latest sign of strategic retreat - the US trying to outsource the costs and risks of a competition it knows it has already lost. Think about it: what the US is doing here is asking its "allies" to write blank checks that it itself refuses to sign (Trump is adamant it won't commit to anything wrt Taiwan). Ultimately this leads to a situation whereby "allies" will eventually ask themselves "wait a minute the whole point of our alliance with the U.S. was THEM defending US but now we're" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-13 04:05:26 UTC 339K followers, 109.4K engagements
"This movie says a lot about Chinas current anxieties: how does a society that has conquered poverty in just one generation ensure that prosperity doesn't destroy the very qualities - hunger resilience determination - that made that prosperity possible in the first place It also says a lot about China's recent history: in some way Mao's cultural revolution was this movie's plot on a civilizational scale - Mao scared that China's revolutionary fervor would be corrupted by comfort and bureaucratic privilege orchestrated a massive national experiment in manufactured hardship to maintain what he" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 15:30:11 UTC 339K followers, 139.2K engagements
"5.2% GDP growth is pretty impressive given that exports to the US dropped by XX% that quarter compared to the year before due to the tariffs. Shows once again that China really doesn't rely on exports to the US for its economy" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 21:07:09 UTC 339K followers, 244.4K engagements
"This absolutely stunning chart comparison by the NYT might prove to be the most important geopolitical visualization of the 21st century. The two major superpowers are each cornering a competing energy platform. China bets everything on clean energy the US on fossil fuels. It's incredibly rare probably even unprecedented in history to see X superpowers making completely opposite trillion-dollar bets on the underlying technology that literally powers the world. Let's see how it plays out. One interesting related statistic: XX% of the Global South's new energy investments go to clean tech so" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-02 07:25:37 UTC 339K followers, 523.5K engagements
"I just read this WSJ article on why Europe's tech scene is so much smaller than the US's and China's. I'm afraid that like most articles on this topic it largely misses the mark. Which in itself illustrates a key reason why Europe is lagging behind: when you fail to understand the root causes of an issue you have zero chance to solve it. What makes me competent to speak on this topic Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s I founded and led HouseTrip which at the time was one of Europe's top startups. We were the first historical startup in which all top X VC investors in Europe invested. So I" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-05-21 03:21:37 UTC 339K followers, 819.6K engagements
"Trump blinked first. Below the full list of the items that are now exempt from tariffs XX categories of products in total organized by HS code (sourced from here: - 8471: Automatic data processing machines and units thereof (e.g. computers such as laptops desktops and servers) - 8473.30: Parts and accessories for automatic data processing machines and their units (e.g. computer components and peripheral parts) - 8486: Machines and apparatus for the manufacture of semiconductor devices or electronic integrated circuits - 8517.13.00 Smartphones and other telecommunication apparatus for cellular" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-04-12 14:47:53 UTC 339K followers, 326.9K engagements
"This might be the most remarkable geopolitical document I've seen come out of a major European institution so far this century. Frances Parliament has just produced an extraordinary 153-page report that calls for nothing less than a complete strategic realignment of Europe. The document systematically dismantles the EU's current geopolitical positioning - "vassalized" to the U.S. in the report's words - as a catastrophic failure that has led to the EU seeing "its influence diminish and its interests poorly protected." The report details XX recommendations from the "creation of a common world" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-11 09:13:09 UTC 339K followers, 629.4K engagements
"@BvGroat It's a pretty universal truth about rich kids" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-15 10:42:16 UTC 339K followers, 6643 engagements
"You need to be a special kind of psychopath to think these images somehow reflect well on you: a large group of emaciated and obviously desperate civilians in a landscape of total desolation that you caused scrambling towards a rare aid truck while your soldiers have to be repeatedly instructed not to shoot them from afar which means it isn't the norm" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-22 10:31:19 UTC 339K followers, 149.1K engagements
"Congrats @guardian this is easily one of the most dishonest articles I've read in a long time just pure ideological propaganda. In short the article's main thesis is that climate change is a "democracy" vs "autocracies" issue whereby virtuous "democracies" are struggling valiantly against climate change while evil "autocracies" are the primary obstacle to progress. And the central question being: how can we the good guys force these bad "autocracies" to behave responsibly on climate As the article puts it "democracies" apparently have attributes like popular pressure and transparency that" @RnaudBertrand on X 2025-07-18 08:55:15 UTC 339K followers, 94.6K engagements