So, I am a little confused by the Trump fan boys that are saying that Trump sure showed them, Canada and Mexico bent the knee, and Trump is the master. Aren’t the tariffs supposed to be on? How are we doing away with the income tax if the tariffs got taken off? I knew Canada’s tariffs were coming off as soon as Mexico said they would fly some choppers and put some troops on the border. Canada just had to do the same. So Trump won? What did he win? A little less fentanyl coming across the border? Trump took a flamethrower to the trade agreement he made when last in office and broke it by declaring tariffs on our two biggest trading partners. The whole world says, “well we can’t trust him any more than the other guy.” Meanwhile, Canada and Mexico have thirty days to find new trading partners for their maple syrup and avocados. Was this worth it? Are these circuses just here to distract us from something else? I believe so. I think we need to look at other more important things. The stock market sold off, crypto dropped 25%, Bitcoin dropped 7%, and then things went back to normal. Volatility is high is all I can accurately and safely say right now.
But if I was a little confused over the weekend with the Trump flip flop over tariffs imagine my surprise when I saw this headline. Trump says US will own Gaza and develop it. I had to stop and say oh no do we have a Joe Biden moment? He thinks he is still developing real estate. Don, these aren’t potential condos. This is the corner of the world that has been at war for a thousand years. Trump actually came out and said the 2 million people will need to leave. I don’t know what to say here. How about if China did this to Kansas. Out, Colorado and Missouri take them in. Only Colorado and Missouri were two other countries like Egypt and Jordan. Oh wait, I saw this two weekends ago with Colombia, last weekend with Canada and Mexico, and this week will be Israel. Israel will put 10,000 troops on the border and take a planeload of Jews back and all will be well.
What in the actual hell is going on? Trump and his merry band of billionaires are running wild through the government? We are buying or taking Canada, Greenland, Panama’s canal and Gaza? Elon Musk has a bunch of 17 year olds going through individuals’ personal records and the Department of Justice said, no questions and no stopping them. He’s from South Africa and just gave a Nazi salute on a stage. How about we deport his ass back to his own god damned country? Earmuffs kids! What in the actual fuck is happening to this country? Trump just authorized a sovereign wealth fund so the government can buy TikTok? I don’t want my government buying TikTok, I don’t want my government buying Gaza, and I don’t want my government buying Greenland. We don’t have any fucking money! We are $36T in debt and Trump wants to go to the mall shopping?
This gets even worse. He signed an executive order to impose maximum pressure on Iran. This from Michelle Price, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller at the AP, “President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it assassinates him.
“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order calling for the U.S. government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
Now after seeing what Trump’s word means with regards to tariffs, what is JD Vance to do? Trade them a ham sandwich? Threatening the use of nuclear force is the one thing Trump has not done to any country that could push back. This is why this and this guy is so laughable. Trump in two weeks has flipflopped on sanctions on three countries in hours. Were those bluffs, is this a bluff? Trump also says he wants to take Iran’s oil exports to near zero. Who buys 80-90% of Iran’s oil? China. Do you think they are going to say ok, Don? Here is one little problem Don.
China and Russia have hypersonic missiles. The US does not, and no idea of how to build them. I can see how Trump would be trying to threaten Putin. Do what I say or it will be bad Vlad. Putin could lean back in his chair and simply say, you are going to give me Hawaii or I will disappear every aircraft carrier that you have on this planet in 5 minutes and there isn’t a goddamned thing you can do about it Don. Can you take this nuke stuff seriously since the tariff situation wasn’t? Should you take this nuke stuff seriously? We need to separate fact from fiction here before we end up in a nuclear war.
All of this was merely a prelude to what I want to talk about today, but it goes together like Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire. Trump threatening to rubble Iran with or without a nuke is cause for concern. Let’s leave the idea of World War III off the table, although he may very well cause that. Putin and President Xi actually grew up tough and not coddled by their rich daddy so they are not the two countries that I would choose to pick a fight with and neither is Trump. He is just picking on the low hanging fruit. If Iran had a nuclear bomb would he be speaking that way?
The risk that I want to talk about is economically when they all band together. I was watching this YouTube video of this big hornet attacking and killing some honeybees. I was shuddering because this hornet was one of those crazy steroid takers from overseas that looked like it was part of the East German All-Stars. This thing was eating bumblebee after bumblebee and then the tide turned. The honeybees ate his ass like you wouldn’t believe. It looked like they were building a hive around this poor bastard all them honeybees waiting to stick their stinger in that bully.
It reminds me of what happens when countries have had enough. It turns out someone else knows a thing or two about the strength of bumblebees. Former Canadian Finance minister Chrystia Freeland is floating the very topic of which I speak. This from Randy Thanthong-Knight of the Financial Post, “Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who spearheaded trade negotiations for Canada during Trump’s first term, pitched the idea as part of a strategy she released on Monday to counter the U.S. president’s attacks. She said if she’s chosen as leader of the governing Liberal Party, she would hold a summit — bringing together leaders from Mexico, Denmark, Panama and the European Union — the day she’s sworn in as prime minister.
The coalition would “coordinate a joint response to challenges to our sovereignty and our economies,” she said in a statement.
Trump has threatened 25 per cent tariffs on goods the U.S. imports from Canada and Mexico, potentially as early as Feb. 1, that has now passed, and said he would use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st American state. He hasn’t ruled out using military force to seize control of Greenland from Denmark as well as the Panama Canal, and he’s repeatedly chastised the EU over its trade practices and said he’d impose duties on its exports. “Trump thinks we are for sale and that he can push us around. This is a serious moment that demands a serious plan to fight for Canada,” Freeland said. “A strong retaliatory plan is the best defence and the most effective tool to stand up to Donald Trump right now.”
Now she isn’t likely to win as I am sure Canada is going to swing to the conservative side of the aisle once they get done with that rat fink Justin Trudeau, but still. The idea only has to catch on to be successful. Divided they might perish but united they can stand. They are literally needing to become United States to defeat the United States. God the symmetry. To update our tally from two weeks ago for those of you keeping score at home, Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China, Brazil, Panama, Venezuela, Greenland, and Denmark, the UK, and now Iran.
We want to go to war, instead? We can’t, we get our oil from Canada, Mexico, and Colombia to refine into diesel. Sorry the war would be over while we were trying to pull permits to build a refinery. We drained our strategic reserve in half remember. Drones, missiles, tracking systems, made in China, made in China with parts from China. Russia and China have nukes. We can’t fight everybody everywhere.
Instead let’s see how America would do in an economic war. In April of 2024, foreign countries owned approximately $8.0T of US debt, almost a quarter. If they banded together and sold those treasuries, the Treasury market would seize up, bond yields would skyrocket, US couldn’t sell any bonds or fund itself, the stock market would crash, and the US would be out of business selling funny green pieces of linen and cotton. This is the fragility which Don appears to want to destroy.
I was listening to Peter Schiff the economist this week and I like his take on this situation regarding tariffs. To paraphrase it, Trump has it wrong America needs the rest of the world to make stuff because we can’t make stuff anymore. We just give them paper. It isn’t even backed by gold or anything anymore, its just paper. We get the world’s stuff and they get our paper. Who is the sucker? The world is and when they wise up it is the US that will be in trouble.
I think he is exactly right. US dollars are the world’s reserve currency and therefore a lot of countries use them mostly in the past to buy oil, but if they just said enough is enough, we refuse to use US dollars, all of us, cooperatively. The US is over. We are done. Economy crushed, the Great Depression would appear just that, great. That can’t happen, the dollar is king some say. It is but kings have fallen before. Remember what we wrote on April 10 of last year, “The Soviet Union and United States both condemned what was happening with regards to the Suez Crisis in 1956 with Soviet Leader Nikita Krushchev threatening to nuke Paris and London….With the Soviets and Americans united, the United Nations were poised to put sanctions on the British government and the currency crashed. President Eisenhower wouldn’t allow any IMF aid to bail out the British economy until they agreed to a cease fire and even threatened to sell British sterling bonds into the market.
Faced with the threat of his nation going bankrupt and unable to import fuel or food, Eden blinked and only two days after landing in Egypt, he abandoned the fight. The French followed suit and Israel would over the coming months high tail it out of Sinai at the behest of the Americans. The Soviets and Americans had flexed their muscles, and the French and Brits were forced to back down, humiliated and no longer a superpower.”
It happened in two days. It wasn’t war that ruined and ended the English and the French it was high finance. Which is why we study high finance. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and French Prime Minister Guy Mollet tried to bully the world and take a canal of their own in 1956, and it ended badly and quickly. The world’s real powers, the Soviets and Americans stepped in and threatened nuking London and Paris and wrecking the currency. The playbook is out there, and I can’t be the only one that knows what it is. I guarantee you I’m not. Peter Schiff is correct in asking, who is the sucker? The world is baiting Trump, not the other way around. Trump can be very successful if he focuses on getting his own house in order. If he tries to be a hornet, he could end up with a bevy of bees in his bonnet.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
Also born on this date… a pair of futbol greats…Christiano Ronaldo and Neymar
Thank you for listening today and you can find all of our articles and more on our website cthomasprinter.com.