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The Net-Zero mirage: When bureaucracy ignores the science and the street
By 2025, the Western world’s bureaucratic machinery is grinding toward its net-zero ambitions with the fervor of a crusade.
From Brussels to Washington, the mandates are multiplying: carbon caps, fuel quotas, emissions trading schemes, and sustainability certifications. Yet, beneath this regulatory avalanche lies a growing fissure - one that threatens to derail the entire climate agenda.
It’s not just economic resistance or technological lag. It’s the emergence of credible scientific evidence suggesting that carbon dioxide (CO₂), the villain of climate orthodoxy, may not be the unmitigated evil it’s been made out to be.
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Rethinking oil refining: Why producers should go retail
At first glance, the idea that oil-producing nations should refine their own crude and sell it directly to consumers seems like common sense. It’s a straightforward proposition: reduce the number of hands in the supply chain, cut down on transportation risks, and streamline the process from wellhead to gas pump. But beyond the surface-level logic lies a deeper, more urgent rationale—one shaped by environmental concerns, shifting geopolitical dynamics, and the tightening grip of regulatory regimes in the West.
From an environmental standpoint, the case is compelling. Transporting crude oil across oceans and continents carries significant risk. Spills are catastrophic, not just for ecosystems but for public trust in the energy sector. By refining oil closer to the source, producers could ship smaller quantities of finished products like gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel—substances that are easier to handle and pose less environmental danger. This shift could dramatically reduce the likelihood of large-scale spills and the associated cleanup costs and reputational damage.
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From tariffs to Covid: How policy shockwaves remade shipping seasons
For more than a century, ocean shipping’s calendar has been as predictable as the tides. Importers and carriers could set their watches by the annual peak and slack seasons: spring build‑up for summer retail, autumn surge ahead of the holidays, winter lull. But in the past decade, that pattern has been blown apart - not once, but twice - by policy shocks that had remarkably similar effects.
The first shock came from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods. The tariffs were controversial enough, but what really scrambled the industry was how they were rolled out. Each new tranche of duties came with a grace period: a gap of weeks or months before the higher rate took effect.
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America’s trade reset and the coming reckoning for global shipping
By any honest reckoning, the United States has spent decades subsidising the prosperity of foreign economies through lopsided trade arrangements. While American markets remained open and forgiving, foreign governments imposed steep tariffs, regulatory hurdles, and currency manipulation to tilt the playing field in their favour. The result? A hollowed-out manufacturing base, stagnant wages, and a growing underclass of Americans—particularly in the 80–100 IQ segment—left behind by globalization’s winners.
The Trump administration’s reciprocal tariff policy, now in full swing, is not merely a political gesture. It is a structural correction. It asserts that access to the American consumer is a privilege, not a right—and that privilege must be earned through fair and balanced trade.
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Intra Asia Trade Specialists |
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