Senior Director for Economy @scsp_ai | Personal views
Jan 4 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
🧵 1/ The real significance of events in Venezuela for oil is less about reserves and more about refining capacity and geopolitical positioning.
The potential boon for U.S. oil companies? Refining Venezuelan crude (caveat: depends on sanctions relief and production ramp-up). 2/ Oil from the Orinoco belt is heavy and sour, requiring specially-designed refineries. Few exist globally—many are on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
They've run below capacity for years and would welcome additional heavy crude feedstock, especially at competitive prices.
Oct 27, 2025 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1/7 BOMBSHELL: Dutch Government Intervention Was the ONLY Option to Save Nexperia's European Branch. The actions of Minister Vincent Karremans weren't just necessary, they were urgent to prevent a disastrous dismantling of the company's crucial European operations. #Nexperia
2/7 Per reporting by @marchijinkNRC & Jeroen Wester for @nrc, the crisis centered on the CEO, Wing. Insiders reveal Wing planned to move all wafer production to China and outsource it to his own company, WingSkySemi.
Jul 29, 2024 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
US intelligence officials gave an overview of foreign (i.e., Russia, China, Iran) election interference efforts today. Here are key points:
"Tehran and Moscow maintain their same Presidential preferences as in past cycles, whereas Iranian operatives are attempting to tear down the Republican ticket while Russia has made efforts to smear the Democrats, according to prior intelligence community assessments."
Jun 19, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The hidden hand of the CCP: Of 650 Chinese investments in Europe since 2010, roughly 40% have high or moderate involvement by state-owned or state-controlled companies, according to @datenna research.
🧵 wsj.com/articles/behin…
"In many of the European mergers and acquisitions, Chinese state influence was effectively hidden by layers of ownership, complex shareholding structures and deals executed via European subsidiaries, @datenna found." 2/7 wsj.com/articles/behin…
Oct 27, 2022 • 13 tweets • 11 min read
ICYMI Commerce U/S Alan Estevez @BISgov@CommerceGov joined me @CNASdc this morning to talk about the new chip export controls.
Important remarks and new insight. Check out the full discussion here 👇. Press coverage in 🧵 1/ cnas.org/events/special…
"The United States could extend the powerful export restrictions it has issued on China to areas like biotechnology and the algorithms that power artificial intelligence." @AnaSwanson@nytimes 2/ nytimes.com/2022/10/27/bus…
Apr 15, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Photonics for semiconductors effort launched in the Netherlands. Textbook promote/protect strategy. There's a lot going on here, so let's unpack this in a short 🧵 h/t @DUhockeyFan bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Let's start with the title of the article, which is a bit misleading. The goal for the effort is for the Netherlands to be at the leading edge in this technology. That doesn't have to mean a single company dominating the way ASML does in EUV lithography. 2/
Apr 18, 2021 • 16 tweets • 8 min read
1/ Bombshell reporting by Dutch newspaper @volkskrant on @Huawei in the Netherlands.
In 2010, KPN commissioned a risk assessment on Huawei. The findings were so damning that KPN never made them public for fear that the company wouldn't survive.
➡️ Had unfettered access to KPN's network
➡️ Could eavesdrop on all conversations (including those of the PM)
➡️ Knew which numbers were monitored by police and intelligence services
➡️ Accessed the network core from China
There's more...
Apr 10, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
1/x 🧵 Dutch broadcasters @NOS and @omroepntr have a new report on China's tactics to silence critics of its human rights violations.
They identify five lines of effort:
nos.nl/nieuwsuur/arti…1) Sending large delegations to the UN and 2) changing the UN system from within - my @cnasds colleague @kristinejlee27 has written extensively on this. Here is her excellent report on the topic: (2/x) cnas.org/publications/r…
Mar 26, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
1/ Investigation shows at least 29 researchers from China's National University of Defense Technology conducted militarily-relevant research at Delft University of Technology, one of the world's top tech universities.
Stunning R&D funding numbers coming out of @WhiteHouse today. How will this have America compete?
NIH: -7%
DOE: -17%
NASA: -11%
ARPA-E: -173% (not a typo - agency is eliminated, plus $311 million must be returned to Treasury)
1/4
Overall federal spending on civilian basic research: -9%; defense: -6%
Government R&D spending spurs private-sector investments, and the U.S. government remains the largest funder of basic research, which is foundational to game-changing technological achievements 2/4
