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Will Trump Succeed In Overcoming ‘The Deep State’: Putin’s Senior Aide Patrushev
Will Trump Succeed In Overcoming ‘The Deep State’: Putin’s Senior Aide Patrushev
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
The outcome of Trump’s continued struggle with the “deep state” will reverberate across the world…
Putin’s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev, who ran the FSB for nearly a decade (1999-2008) before chairing the Security Council for over 15 years till recently (2008-2024), made three predictions about international affairs in his latest interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda. The first concerns the continued struggle between Trump and the “deep state”, the latter of which can be described as US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, some members of whom are known to oppose him.
Patrushev expects Trump to implement domestic and foreign policies that are practically the opposite of Biden’s, which he characterizes as pragmatic and more aligned with the interests of the American people, but he’s unsure whether he’ll ultimately succeed due to internal resistance. The precedent from his first term bodes ill for his second, but the outcome of this latest struggle will reverberate for decades seeing as how the world is undergoing far-reaching systemic changes last seen since 1991.
On that topic, Patrushev assessed that one of Trump’s top foreign policy priorities is to ramp up pressure on China, including by artificially exacerbating bilateral tensions.
He then reminded everyone that “For us, China has been and remains a most important partner, with whom we have relations of especially privileged strategic cooperation. These relations are not subject to the situation, they remain regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.” This can be interpreted as signaling that Russia won’t backstab China.
In other words, Trump’s declared goal of “un-uniting” those two will fail, thus meaning that no worsening of their relations will occur. This shouldn’t be misunderstood as suggesting that Russia will go out of its way to help China at the expense of provoking the US’ wrath, however, seeing as how China hasn’t done that for Russia. After all, the Chinese-based BRICS Bank and SCO comply with US sanctions against Russia as do some of its local banks, all of which is proven in the preceding hyperlinked analyses.
A Chinese company also pulled out of Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 megaproject under sanctions duress too while private drone companies sell their wares to Ukraine. At the same time, Russia continues arming China’s Indian rival to the teeth despite their nascent rapprochement, and it also authorized the shipment of jointly Indian produced BrahMos supersonic missiles to the Philippines a year ago. Accordingly, while Sino-Russo ties will remain strong, some differences will nevertheless still exist.
And finally, the last prediction that Patrushev made in his latest interview was that Moldova and Ukraine might cease to exist as a result of their anti-Russian policies, with the first possibly “becoming part of another state” in an allusion to joining Romania like some nationalists there want to have happen. As for the second, his ominous prediction was preceded by him remarking about how such policies “are destroying once prosperous cities in Ukraine, including Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev, and Dnepropetrovsk.”
While some might believe that he’s implying that Russian forces will sweep across both to the Romanian and Polish borders respectively, it’s much more likely that he simply wants Moldova, Ukraine, and their shared American patron to bear in mind the possibly existential stakes if the conflict further escalates. Of course, it’s also possible that one or both collapse under the weight of their anti-Russian policies due to a combination of domestic instability and Russian pressure, but that probably isn’t what he meant.
This take on his intentions stems from what else he said about the need for Russia to only negotiate with the US, not with the UK, the EU, or anyone else. He reaffirmed that Russia will achieve its goals in the conflict and won’t cede any territory, but the overall impression is that Russia is interested in compromising with Trump the pragmatist, though the potential failure to agree to a decent deal (perhaps due to “deep state” subterfuge) could doom Moldova and Ukraine (at least with time).
Reflecting on Patrushev’s predictions, all three are grounded in a solid understanding of their associated dynamics, which is to be expected from someone like him. What unites them all is whether or not Trump will succeed in overcoming “deep state” opposition to his policies, thus making this domestic aspect of his platform globally important. If he does, then the US will likely cut a deal in Ukraine in order to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto, while it’ll likely remain in Ukraine and possibly even escalate if he doesn’t.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/21/2025 – 14:05
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SEC Forms New Crypto Task Force Spearheaded by Hester Peirce
Gary Gensler only officially stepped down as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday, but the federal agency’s approach to crypto is already getting an overhaul.
Acting Chair Mark Uyeda announced Tuesday that the agency has created a crypto task force dedicated to “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.” The task force will be led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, a long-time advocate for the crypto industry, and will work closely with the crypto industry to develop regulations. The task force will also work with Congress, providing “technical assistance” as it crafts crypto regulations.
Both the tone and content of the SEC’s Tuesday announcement indicate a radical shift in the agency’s approach to crypto regulation under the new Trump administration.
“To date, the SEC has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively, often adopting novel and untested legal interpretations along the way,” the statement said. “Clarity regarding who must register, and practical solutions for those seeking to register, have been elusive. The result has been confusion about what is legal, which creates an environment hostile to innovation and conducive to fraud. The SEC can do better.”
The SEC’s new crypto task force will also coordinate with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – which, under the leadership of former Chair Gensler and former CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam, has been locked in competition with the SEC over which agency should be the primary regulator of the crypto industry.
“This undertaking will take time, patience, and much hard work. It will succeed only if the Task Force has input from a wide range of investors, industry participants, academics, and other interested parties. We look forward to working hand-in-hand with the public to foster a regulatory environment that protects investors, facilitates capital formation, fosters market integrity, and supports innovation,” said Commissioner Peirce in a statement.
The SEC previously published staff guidance in 2019, though it has not been referenced or discussed much in the past five years.
EU Regulator Urges Nations to Ensure Compliance with Stablecoin Rules Soon
The European Securities and Markets Authority has urged national authorities in the European Union (EU) to ensure that exchanges are no longer making non-compliant stablecoins available for trading within the next two months.
The regulator has requested that the 27 member states in the EU ensure crypto asset service providers (CASPs) are compliant when it comes to its stablecoin rules “no later than the end of Q1 2025,” ESMA said in a statement on Friday.
“In practice, this means that CASPs operating a trading platform for crypto-assets are expected to stop making all crypto-assets that would qualify as ARTs and EMTs but for which the issuer is not authorised in the EU (“non-MiCA compliant ARTs and EMTs” ) available for trading,” ESMA said. ARTs are asset referenced tokens and EMTs are electronic money tokens.
The move would affect stablecoins which are not compliant with EU laws like Tether’s USDT if it were offered to EU clients. Large issuers have already taken steps to try and comply with MiCA. Tether announced in November it was discontinuing its euro stablecoin, EURT. The company has not managed to obtain an e-money license to operate in the EU. Circle obtained an e-money license in July.
Exchanges like Gemini and Coinbase, who are registered in the EU, would have to delist un-authorized stablecoins, according to ESMA’s statement. Coinbase previously announced it would delist any such tokens by last December.
“Given our commitment to compliance, we restricted the provision of services to Retail, Exchange, and Prime Vault customers of Coinbase Europe Limited, Coinbase Germany GmbH, and Coinbase Custody International Limited in connection with stablecoins that do not meet the MiCA requirements beginning on December 13, 2024,“ a spokesperson from Coinbase told CoinDesk on Tuesday.
The exchange “will assess re-enabling services for stablecoins that achieve MiCA compliance on a later date,” the spokesperson said.
CoinDesk reached out to Gemini for a comment.
Read more: EU’s Restrictive Stablecoin Rules Take Effect Soon and Issuers Are Running Out of Time
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