Only Fools Outsource Survival

Mahathir Had the Balls. The Rest Still Renting Their Backbone.

Let’s cut the academic nonsense.

You don’t need a PhD to understand this:

If your country can’t make what it eats, powers, or defends itself with…You’re not a nation. You’re a franchise.

The modern global economy sold governments a lie:“Don’t produce. Just import. It’s cheaper.”They forgot to mention:

Cheaper means you’re cheaper too.

🧠 Mahathir Understood Power Isn’t Outsourced

When Dr. Mahathir launched the Guthrie Dawn Raid, he didn’t wait for permission.He took back land.When he created Proton, it wasn’t to compete with Toyota—it was to own the industrial ladder.

• Engines.

• Jobs.

• Pride.

Was it perfect? Hell no.But it was sovereign. And sovereignty ain’t about efficiency—it’s about not asking anyone for oxygen when things go sideways.

Now? Most ASEAN governments outsource their steel, seed, and semiconductors.They brag about GDP growth while they can’t make their own aspirin.

That’s not development. That’s dependence with nice packaging.

🧾 The Basic Principle:

Never let anyone else hold the thing you can’t live without.

Countries forgot this.Trump didn’t.

He bulldozed the global trade consensus, rewired the economy with robots, and made tariffs cool again—not to grow jobs, but to reset the power stack.

He made it painful for others to produce for America—so America could say:

“Fine, we’ll do it ourselves. But with fewer people and better margins.”

You don’t have to like him.But if you don’t learn from him, you’ll lose to people like him.

⚔️ A Simple Test for Any Leader:

If China shuts you out, and the U.S. shuts you off, can you survive a year?If not, you’re not ready for the next 20 years.

Global volatility is the new normal.

• Pandemics.

• Tariffs.

• Supply chain warfare.

• AI disruptions.

• Political chaos.

And your response is… “We’ll buy it cheaper elsewhere?”

No. No more of that.

🔥 You Don’t Need to Be Self-Sufficient. You Just Need to Be Dangerous.

The goal isn’t to make everything.The goal is to make the right things—the kind that no one dares to withhold from you.

Mahathir tried. Alone.The rest folded.

This next decade belongs to those who own their essentials, control their tech stack, and build internal buffers that let them walk away from the table without flinching.

Everyone else?

You’re not a country. You’re inventory.