A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #5-26 - Chronicle of an Armed Hegemony. Reshoring and Resource Control: The Illusion of the Free Market (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

In these lines, we will conduct an analysis of extreme realpolitik, 
looking at the stark economic data to understand what is happening and 
what to expect in the immediate future. Economic analysis is essential 
to understanding the complex phase of capitalism in this period. Beyond 
speculations about the unipolar and multipolar world, the one adjective 
that seems to have no place in many dissertations I've read and in the 
various stadium-based fan bases of red-browns and "middle-class 
progressives" in search of an author is imperialism. The struggle 
underway in this historical phase is not to open markets to more 
competitors, thus ensuring pluralistic globalization; rather, it is a 
clash between imperialist tendencies, with Europe at best acting as a 
pivot and at worst as a hunting ground.

Speaking of the USA: The international landscape of January 2026 has 
definitively lifted the veil on the true intentions of US imperialism, 
transforming what was once called "globalization" into a ruthless act of 
national survival. Within the "laws" that structure the intrinsically 
predatory nature of global capitalism, the need for American reshoring 
arises not from a sudden social vocation toward its own population, but 
from a biopolitical urgency to secure the material flows of production.

The doctrine we have seen consolidate under the pressure of "Trumpian" 
acceleration-a term that now defines not just a man, but a method of 
muscularly managing hegemony-has largely transcended the soft phase of 
tariffs, entering that of the military appropriation of resources. 
Reshoring is no longer an invitation to companies to return, but a 
structural coercion implemented through the creation of an exclusive 
industrial ecosystem, where access to energy and raw materials is 
guaranteed only to those who agree to relocate within the protected 
confines of the American enclave.

In this context, the 2026 operation in Venezuela is not a whim of the 
tycoon, nor an operation to eliminate a regime or a resurgence of the 
Cold War, but a necessary step in a process of defending US power in 
which the logic of controlling energy flows prevails over any diplomatic 
protocol. Control of Venezuelan reserves responds to the material need 
for the Gulf Coast refineries, technically designed for the heavy crude 
oil extracted in Venezuela. But above all, it serves to sever the 
umbilical cord of the "oil-for-debt" scheme that tied Caracas to Beijing.

Control of Venezuela, therefore, is not about lowering pump prices for 
Nebraska residents, but about dominating the basic chemicals value 
chain. The European industry, particularly in Germany and Italy, is 
built on transformation. Without heavy hydrocarbons, Europe is at a 
standstill. By removing Venezuelan crude from the global market, the US 
has created an unsustainable cost differential. While American 
refineries process low-cost "proprietary" molecules, European companies 
must turn to volatile spot markets or geopolitically risky suppliers.

The intervention in Venezuela thus inaugurated the phase of "preventive 
seizure" of supply chain nodes. The US has understood that the hegemonic 
war with China is not won on the stock market, but by grabbing resources 
through the occupation of mines and wells. The Venezuela affair-the 
occupation of strategic space and the denial of resources to a 
competitor-should be considered the "model" that will be applied to the 
lithium triangle in South America (Argentina, Chile, Bolivia) and to the 
cobalt and rare earth deposits in Africa. It is ultimately a resource 
denial, transforming energy from a commodity into a tool of asymmetric 
warfare: by removing Venezuelan oil from the Asian market, the United 
States not only stabilizes its own internal manufacturing costs, but 
exponentially increases the production costs of its competitors, 
effectively making reshoring the only option for Western capital to 
survive for its so-called partners. Or, in the worst case scenario, it 
can direct purchases to the West rather than the East.

This isn't a free market (if it ever existed); it's an input monopoly. 
If you control the basic molecule, you control the final price of every 
plastic, pharmaceutical, or technological component produced in Europe. 
American reshoring feeds on European deindustrialization: unable to 
compete on the cost of raw materials, EU chemical companies are forced 
to relocate to the United States to survive.

Trump's acceleration has given this process unprecedented speed, 
eliminating the multilateral mediations undertaken by Obama and Biden in 
favor of brute force acting directly on adversaries' critical 
infrastructure. While China attempted in previous decades to engage the 
West through the "New Silk Road," the United States responded by 
dismantling its energy terminals in South America, demonstrating that in 
the era of value chain realism, a military-controlled oil well is worth 
more than a thousand trade deals.

The significance of these actions on the global stage is the return to 
an armed mercantilism in which the market currency, the dollar, is once 
again guaranteed not only by trust, but by the direct and military 
control of primary resources. This marks the end of the decades-long 
mantra of a free and neutral global market, already utterly unrealistic. 
The awakening from the hallucination of the free market today tells us 
once again that geographic control matters more than finance, and 
physical proximity to a protected supply source is the only real 
competitive advantage left.

In this zero-sum game, China finds itself with billions of dollars in 
bad debt and a "shadow fleet" of seized oil tankers, currently seeking 
retaliation over rare earths. These retaliations affect not only the 
United States but also its allies/buyers. Rare earths play a supporting 
role, just like hydrocarbons. It's no coincidence that Trump is doing 
everything he can to secure Greenland while simultaneously haggling over 
the Ukrainian conflict and the rare earths beneath the disputed territories.

A spiral of interlocking blocks is unfolding, bringing global trade to a 
standstill. This fragmentation is not a systemic error, but a new 
configuration: the creation of self-sufficient and opposing industrial 
blocs, where every resource taken from the adversary is a tactical 
victory in the battle for technological supremacy in the 21st century. 
Europe, in this conflict, appears to be the most vulnerable. The 
accelerated focus on energy transition, implemented without any 
extractive or technological independence, has handed the automotive 
sector-and its related chemical and mechanical industries-over to Asian 
competition.

The electric dogma has ignored material cycles, pushing the industry to 
a breaking point where energy has become an unsustainable luxury. The 
attempt to compensate for this decline with accelerated rearmament has 
resulted in a drugged market: a temporary subsidy to heavy machinery 
that fails to address the competitiveness gap. The real danger is 
reverse decoupling: a Europe crushed between American protectionism, 
Asian aggression, and Russia's uncomfortable proximity.

On the one hand, high-tech EU industry is tempted by the subsidies of 
Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). On the other, China's retaliation 
targeting critical minerals strikes at the root of the folly of Europe's 
green transition just as the energy crisis linked to the 
Russian-Ukrainian conflict has made traditional production costs 
unsustainable. The third wheel, Russia, is a neighbor that has become 
inconvenient following its aggression against Ukraine, but which, in 
unsuspecting times, wasn't considered such a bad thing, as long as it 
provided cheap energy.

Let's consider for a moment the implications of the IRA, which is a 
bailout plan for the US manufacturing ecosystem alone, an operation of 
industrial piracy. The mechanism of tax credits and direct subsidies is 
designed to be "exclusive": you receive funding only if production and, 
above all, research take place on American soil.

This is causing a silent but massive migration of R&D (Research and 
Development) departments. Europe's leading companies in hydrogen, 
batteries, and new materials are no longer simply selling their products 
to the US; they're moving entire laboratories there to access billions 
of dollars from the US Treasury. The ambivalence is fierce: the US 
presents itself as the leader of the ecological transition, but does so 
by draining the intellectual capital of its allies. Europe finds itself 
paying the costs of training its own engineers only to then hand over 
the fruits to the American manufacturing system. It's legalized plunder 
dictated by doped market logic.

In this context of competing imperialisms, Europe's dependence on the US 
financial and military system becomes a trap. Every success of American 
reshoring is a nail in the coffin of European manufacturing. If fossil 
fuels and chemicals once again become Washington's controlling 
prerogative, Europe finds itself forced to choose between productive 
irrelevance or total political submission. America's "industrial 
fortress" does not have equal allies, but only subcontractors or 
technological colonies. The game of 2026 is not about tariffs, but about 
the ability to physically control molecules and electrons; a game in 
which Europe, lacking its own strategic vision, risks becoming the table 
where other players divide up the scraps.

JR

https://umanitanova.org/cronaca-di-unegemonia-armata-reshoring-e-controllo-delle-risorse-lillusione-del-libero-mercato/
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