Hans van Hooft

And here comes Trump's next attempt to blackmail Europe: The US is warning the EU of the need to reach a trade agreement, otherwise they could lose "cheap" access to liquefied natural gas (LNG), - FT. The Trump administration is suggesting that European companies could lose priority access to supplies or face higher tariffs if they don't sign the agreement. This comes amid an escalating conflict in the Middle East, which has blocked shipments from Qatar through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is Europe's enemy.

BREAKING: President Trump just told 450 million Europeans: sign my deal by Thursday or I cut your gas. And if you think this is impulsive, you are not paying attention. This is the most calculated energy play in American history. Qatar’s LNG is offline. Force Majeure. Ras Laffan shut after Iranian drones hit it on Day 3. Seventeen percent of global LNG capacity gone for 3 to 5 years. Russia’s pipeline gas to Europe was severed after Ukraine. Norway is maxed. Europe’s LNG prices have surged 35 to 50 percent since Hormuz closed. One supplier remains at scale: the United States. Trump’s ambassador to the EU just told the Parliament: ratify the $750 billion trade deal without amendments by Thursday March 26, or lose “favorable access” to American LNG. Now decode the strategic geopolitical chess game which is being played in realtime. Saturday night, Trump posted a 48-hour ultimatum threatening to obliterate Iranian power plants. That was not about Iran. That was about oil prices. He needed them high enough to terrify Europe into ratifying the LNG deal, but not so high that American consumers revolted before the midterms. The ultimatum spiked Brent past $113 and WTI past $100 on Sunday. Monday morning, Trump posted about “productive conversations” and paused the power plant strikes for five days. Oil crashed over 10 percent in hours. WTI hit $89. The S&P surged $2 trillion. He spiked oil to create the fear. Then crashed it to create the relief. The fear makes Europe sign. The relief makes American voters forgive the war. Both moves serve the same president. Both happened within 36 hours. Both were executed with social media posts, not missiles. The $750 billion deal is the permanent monetisation of Europe’s energy vulnerability. LNG. Oil. Civil nuclear. Locked in until 2028. The EU had been delaying ratification for months. Three wars removed every alternative: Iran removed Qatar, Ukraine removed Russia, Norway’s geology removed Norway. What remains is American LNG. Trump is not selling gas. He is selling the absence of alternatives. The 5-day power-plant pause expires Saturday March 28. The EU Parliament votes Thursday March 26. Europe must ratify American energy dependency two days before the war might escalate again. If the pause collapses Saturday and Iran executes Ghalibaf’s promise to “irreversibly destroy” regional energy infrastructure, European LNG prices spike after the deal is already signed. Trump gets the $750 billion commitment at crisis pricing, then potentially triggers the next crisis 48 hours later. The deal locks in before the leverage expires. This is Trump Doctrine in its purest form. He does not separate trade from security from energy from markets. He operates them as one instrument. The war degrades Iran. The degradation closes Hormuz. The closure spikes energy. The spike terrifies Europe. The terror forces the deal. The deal locks in $750 billion. The pause crashes oil. The crash rallies stocks. The rally preserves midterm support. Every move funds the next move. He used the words “Department of War” in the pause announcement. Not Defence. The pre-1947 name. The name that tells Europe: the man offering you gas can resume bombing power plants on Saturday. Yesterday Russia signed a deal to build Vietnam’s first nuclear plant. Today Trump threatens to cut Europe’s gas. Two great powers selling energy security to two desperate continents during the same war. Both profit from the crisis. Both lock in decades of dependency. Both timed the offer to the moment the customer cannot refuse. The strait closed the alternatives. The ultimatum created the fear. The pause created the relief. The deal monetises both. Thursday is payday. Full deep dive analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

This idiotic war is also the biggest gift Trump could have given his buddy Putin. Literally hundreds of billions will flow from our coffers into Putin's now. It dwarfs any aid the US has given Zelensky. The US is doing such incredible damage worldwide at the moment! On purpose?

Netanyahu is panicking. He admits on camera that he and Trump are desperately trying to drag Europe and the rest of the world into their disastrous war. He is begging the international community for help because the US and Israel cannot win this alone.

The West will never teach you this history. ElBaradei exposes how the CIA and MI6 overthrew Iran's democracy in 1953, installed a brutal dictator, and then financed Saddam Hussein to gas 100,000 Iranians with chemical weapons provided by Germany. Absolute hypocrisy.

🔥 Doe jezelf een plezier en luister naar @jimmydijk. Ook als je niets met de SP hebt. Dit gaat niet over links/rechts, dit gaat niet eens over sociale zekerheid. Dit gaat over de onbetrouwbaarheid van dit kabinet. En dit gaan we vaker meemaken, folks. #BegrotingSZW #TweedeKamer

Absolute bombshell. The US Treasury Secretary admits on live TV that they are unsanctioning Russian and Iranian oil just to manipulate global prices and save their own economy after starting a disastrous war. The hypocrisy of Washington is fully exposed.

Ik moet zo hard lachen om mensen die pretenderen ‘rechts’ te zijn en tegelijkertijd om hun moeder janken over benzineprijzen. Nee proleet, je bent niet rechts. Je bent tegen asielzoekers. En daarmee is het wel gezegd. Je hebt in je hele godvergeten miserabele kutleven nog nooit box 3 op je aangifte gezien. Geen vennootschapsbelasting betaald. Je hebt geen idee wat dividend is. Je hebt niet te maken met de FIOD en ACM. Nee. Jij bent tegen AZC’s. Dan ben je niet rechts. Dan ben je een racist. Je kan niet lopen janken over eigen risico en dure boodschappen én rechts zijn. Als je rechts was dan had je 12 supermarkten en pakte je wat extra marge. Je bent tegen nareizen maar jankt over € 30,25 vliegbelasting. Je zit all inclusive je vette schultenbräubek vol te rammen met gefrituurde troep van Ed Kroket bij Sunny Beach in Bulgarije. Je bent niet rechts. Je bent een ongenoegzame, jaloerse, altijd ontevreden sukkel die zijn onvrede niet op zichzelf kan betrekken. Je bent mislukt en daarmee alles behalve rechts. Je bent wannabe-rechts. En een fascist. En zielig. In feite ben je een gelukszoeker zonder de moeite doen om te zoeken.

OMG you won't see ON FOX News for sure: French NATO General Yakovleff: Joining Trump in the Strait of Hormuz is "like buying a ticket for the Titanic after hitting the iceberg"

There will be no way to quantify the excess deaths caused by the US regime’s energy siege on Cuba But death, hunger and deprivation were the intended effects of the policy Trump and Rubio are destroying Cuban schools and hospitals without bombs

Hoi @Kruidvat Gisteren voor € 12,99 oortjes voor mn dochter gekocht, vandaag ligt de connector er al uit. En wat zegt t meisje bij de winkel? Als die kapot is mogen wij m niet aannemen. Fijne service zo. Verkoop aub geen rotzooi, of accepteer retour als t uit elkaar valt.

I don't know if people understand just how insanely egregious this is. First of all, 1) not only are NATO spending targets NOT legally binding (nothing in any NATO-related legal text mandates a specific GDP-based threshold for defense spending), but on top of this 2) Spain requested AND RECEIVED an exemption from the 5% target at the 2025 Hague Summit - NATO changed the declaration's language specifically to allow Spain to sign while publicly declaring it would not comply (jurist.org/news/2025/06/n…) This means that, legally speaking and according to NATO's own rules, Spain is doubly within its rights: there is no binding obligation to begin with, and Spain was excused from even this non-binding obligation. That's the first point: Germany's chancellor just endorsed - from the Oval Office - the U.S. punishing a fellow EU nation for refusing to comply with an obligation that doesn't exist in law, under a political pledge Spain was excused from at a NATO summit. The second point is that this 5% target has nothing to do with "defense", quite the contrary in fact: it is pretty explicitly an imperial tribute to the U.S. that will actually **weaken** European defense. That was Spain's main argument for refusing to comply: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that "committing to 5% would not make us any safer" because it "would only reinforce our dependence" on the U.S. (tiempoar.com.ar/ta_article/ped…) That's the insane thing about EU defense spending: in recent years, the more it has spent on defense, the more that spending has flowed to American contractors as opposed to European ones, making the EU defense industry weaker (x.com/adam_tooze/sta…). Increasing spending to 5% doesn't strengthen European defense: it accelerates exactly this transfer. All the more insane given the well-documented production backlogs in the U.S. defense industry and its inability to produce at scale: US defense analysts - including from Trump-adjacent think tanks like AEI (aei.org/research-produ…) - openly acknowledge that European customers would be deprioritized behind U.S. ones in any real conflict. AND, critically, a defense industry from a country that's increasingly hostile to Europe - explicitly so in its National Security Strategy - and whose weaponry has "kill switches" that allows for remote disabling. I mean, the sheer madness of it: anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that DOUBLING your defense spending to enrich a foreign arms industry that has kill switches on your weapons, can't meet its own military's needs, and increasingly treats you as an adversary, is not even remotely a defense strategy - it's suicide. That's why having Merz - in the oval office, sitting next to Trump - endorse economic coercion against the one EU country that's still sane enough to see through this madness is so egregious, and frankly straight-up traitorous. For those who know Asterix and Obelix, Spain is the "one small village still holding out against the invaders" and Merz is Cassius Ceramix, the self-described "gallo-roman" Gaul village chief who's the incarnation of all sycophants after his tribe were conquered by the Romans. I'm with Asterix, and all Europeans should be too.

Zoals verwacht* gaan de netwerkkosten fors (?) omhoog als u straks op drukke uren elektriciteit gebruikt. Niet leuk, wel eerlijk. Handig als uw (hybride) warmtepomp daar rekening mee kan houden. *zie energiepodium.nl/artikel/onzeke… nos.nl/artikel/260227…

@eddy_terstall I know the feeling! Maar zet door, het is de moeite waard! LAND VAN JOHAN gaat dat zien! Nu in de bioscoop

What's happening in Panama with the "China-owned" ports (which actually aren't China-owned) is absolutely extraordinary: after the U.S. failed to have BlackRock buy the ports, they're effectively outright stealing them with the help of Panama's Supreme Court. I'm not exaggerating: Panama's Supreme Court just ruled that the 29-year old concession of the ports is suddenly "unconstitutional". Legally speaking, this means the concession was never valid so there's nothing to compensate for. Effectively the ruling says that CK Hutchison - the Hong Kong company that invested $1.8 billion to build the ports into world-class facilities and paid fees to Panama to operate them during 29 years - did all of this illegally, without anyone in Panama noticing for 28 years, until Trump decided he wanted the ports 🙄 It's the equivalent of you operating, say, a restaurant somewhere on a beach for 29 years, and then a local oligarch who wants your spot pressures the local mayor, who gets a judge to rule that your lease was actually illegal this whole time - so sorry, you have to leave and lose everything, but thanks for the $1.8 billion renovation. This is all the more ridiculous given this all started with Trump's narrative that "China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we're taking it back" (bbc.com/news/articles/…), which is fake news. First of all, CK Hutchison isn't "China" - it's a Hong Kong company founded by tycoon Li Ka-shing who is actually currently sanctioned by Beijing (there is a directive that state-owned Chinese companies should not do business with him: x.com/Sino_Market/st…). Secondly, when the concession was originally awarded in 1997, the U.S. government itself investigated it extensively - the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Federal Maritime Commission (at the request of six senators), and the intelligence community all reviewed the process. Their conclusion: there was no discrimination against US companies under US law, and CK Hutchison's presence posed no threat to Canal operations or US interests. The State Department also confirmed that PPC (the subsidiary of CK Hutchison that actually runs the 2 ports) had no significant investment from mainland China, was run out of Featherstone, England with British, New Zealand, and Australian senior management, and a virtually 100% Panamanian workforce. It's all in this 1999 State Department report: 1997-2001.state.gov/policy_remarks… ("We have explored concerns that [CK Hutchison] is a front for the government of the People's Republic of China. We have found no information to substantiate that allegation.") So in effect this is the U.S. stealing ports from a company it already investigated and cleared - using a lie it debunked itself 27 years ago.

Waarom draait Land van Johan niet in @LUX_Nijmegen? Het grootste en beste filmhuis van Europa en vrij links.

"Good Girl." Venezuela's new president, Delcy Rodriguez, who handed over the carefree dancer Maduro to the Americans, publicly signed a law privatizing the country's oil industry in the interests of the United States, as Trump demanded. She betrayed not only Maduro and the Venezuelan people, but also the memory of her father, an ideological socialist who was tortured to death in prison by the Americans. Now Venezuela's oil industry belongs not only de facto but also de jure to the United States. After the law was passed, the US Treasury Department issued Venezuela a license permitting the export and refining of its own oil, which applies only to US companies. And even any commercial disputes will now be resolved exclusively in US courts. Moreover, Venezuela is completely prohibited from dealing with Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba. Moreover, the Venezuelan authorities, who swore eternal alliance with the friendly socialist Cuban people, have effectively joined the energy blockade of the Island of Freedom. Proceeds from Venezuelan oil sales will be channeled into special accounts managed by the United States. They can only be spent with American approval, meaning that repaying Venezuela's multi-billion dollar debt to Russia is out of the question. Previously, Caracas paid off its debts in kind with oil, but now any transactions with Russian and Chinese companies are prohibited. "trueolen"

Lees, luister en huiver. Alles wat we eigenlijk al wisten, wordt nog eens fijntjes bevestigd. De wereld beweegt zich langs het recht van de sterkste, van degene met het meeste geld en de meeste wapens. Kies je voor rechts om de wereld zo te houden of links om hem te veranderen?

@Verkoulen Het hele eerlijke plaatje, aangezien u het zelf nalaat: 150 eigen risico bij de start in 2008 zou nu een eigen risico van 231,54 moeten zijn, 99 basispremie in 2015 zou nu een basispremie van 133,97 moeten zijn. 1 op de 3 jongeren mijdt zorg. Schaamteloos dit!

Deze rector verdient alle steun. Het is niet de taak van een openbare school om een gebedsruimte in te richten. En waanzin dat een levensbeschouwelijk neutraal principe geframed wordt als discriminatie. nos.nl/l/2600203