This article was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.com
Over the past several months, I have been examining the underlying or hidden motivations behind the currently expanding global trade war, including the impressive level of cognitive dissonance surrounding the issue. The political left doesn’t seem to have an intelligent grasp of economic issues in the slightest. I’m not seeing any critical discussion from leftist media outlets or pundits on fiscal uncertainties, and the only reaction that is common from them is that they hope that the trade war results in the financial downfall of the US so that Trump can be voted out in 2020. They may very well get their wish, but they seem to imagine themselves celebrating at the end of the disaster, and I predict they’ll be so concerned with their own financial survival that they won’t have time to celebrate…
The initial reaction in conservative circles to the trade war was unfortunately overconfident denial, with many refusing to call the situation a “trade war” at all and some predicting an end to the conflict before it began. Obviously those assumptions are proving incorrect.
Now that acceptance of the trade war as a reality is setting in, the Trump bandwagon is doubling down and embracing blind enthusiasm for what they assume will be a victorious outcome, no matter how long it takes. Though the team-geopolitics mentality is enticing in some ways, I don’t find much in the facts and evidence department to support the notion of America winning a global trade war. As I outlined in my article America’s Debt Dependence Makes It An Easy Economic Target, as long as the U.S. retains historic levels of debt on a government, corporate and consumer level, and as long as we remain addicted to foreign investment in that debt, trade war opponents have all the ammunition they need.
The argument I now see regurgitated over and over is that this trade war has actually been “going on for decades”, and only now do we “have a president with the guts to do something about it.” I’m not sure where this nonsense meme was started, but it’s everywhere.
The U.S. has NOT been engaged in a trade war “for decades,” not with China or any other nation. It has been involved in a subversive trade arrangement which benefits the elitists on both sides of the world while the common people suffer. Only in the past year have we seen a “trade war” develop, but even now, it is a staged war that will once again empower international banks and global elites.
It is hard to argue the longstanding trade war meme when considering the facts. While China has indeed enjoyed a trade surplus with the U.S. for many years, this was strictly maintained in exchange for Chinese investment in U.S. Treasury debt and the U.S. dollar. In fact, it’s absurd to claim that the U.S. has been “disadvantaged” in global trade when it is the dollar that is used to facilitate nearly ALL international trade as the world reserve currency. Dollar denominated assets have been the go-to safe haven investment for decades for this exact reason.
Back in 2008 during the initial stock market collapse, mainstream media economists and some alternative economists alike argued incessantly that emerging market investors and foreign central banks would “never” pull back from American markets because “King Dollar” was the premier safety net during fiscal crisis. Clearly, the U.S. has enjoyed a special advantage in global trade; namely the dollar, and it is this advantage alone that has fueled the American economy for years.
The argument that foreign markets have swallowed up American manufacturing is also a bit of a misdirection. As I have mentioned time and time again, U.S. corporations are the true culprits behind the bloodletting in American manufacturing jobs as they relocated all industry into cheaper labor markets. Trump could have stipulated that these same corporations would be required to bring some or most of this manufacturing back into the U.S. before they enjoy tax cut incentives. He didn’t. Instead, he gave them a massive tax cut for nothing, and the majority of the capital gained through that tax cut has already been spent – not on more American jobs or innovation, but on corporate stock buybacks to keep equities propped up just a little bit longer.
Tariffs on U.S. goods implemented by other countries are almost always tied to the U.S. dollar’s world reserve advantage. The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs as well as tech jobs has always been tied to the U.S. corporate desire for cheap labor. No, we have not been in a trade war for decades, quite the opposite.
So what has changed? Why are the old arrangements being abandoned? Is Trump really upsetting the old world order and battling the globalists, or, is he simply helping them to stage the foundation of their “new world order”?
I would suggest that readers look into the International Monetary Fund’s concept of the “global economic reset” for more insight into why this is happening. I would also suggest that people pay close attention to the “predictions” of George Soros back in 2009 on the future of the U.S. economy.
The plan for this global reset seems to revolve around the diminishing of the U.S. as a major economic power. This does not necessarily mean the U.S. will be replaced directly. Instead, as Soros suggests, nations like China will fill the void as “smaller economic engines”. This is often referred to as “harmonization,” but what it really means is that the standard of living for ALL but a highly select minority will be deliberately reduced to a common denominator, and what is more common today than poverty?
For many nations, a lower standard of living is the norm. For Americans, harmonization means we have a long way to fall yet. For the reset to take hold effectively in the US, globalists will have to misdirect various groups within the population in different ways in order to avoid revolt.
The Trump fandom is being enticed with notions of a return to a golden era with The Don on his white steed leading the charge. However, NO president has the power to reverse the economic damage already done in the US; the only solution is a long process of rebuilding the economy from the ground up after the ashes settle. Any honest president not under the control of the banking cabal would have to be forthright about this fact. Even under the best possible conditions of reformation, a depression and currency crisis is assured. You cannot fight against math, and the math of US debt versus US inflation spells stagflationary instability for many years, far beyond the one or possibly two terms of Donald Trump. When this reality finally hits the Trump Administration devout square in the face, they will be enraged, and the first scapegoat that will be held up to them will be foreign governments like China.
For the liberty movement subset not necessarily enamored with Donald Trump, the lie of the “multipolar world” has been concocted. In essence, we are being told that the death of the dollar will mean the death of globalist centralization, so we should cheer for such an outcome. In truth, there is no “multipolar world.” The IMF and the Bank for International Settlements continue to hold sway over the central banks of the world, in the East as much as the West.
With Russia and China’s calls for the IMF to become the defacto overseer of global monetary trade policy, and even calling for a new global currency system under the control of the IMF, I hardly see any indication that we are moving away from centralization if the U.S. currency falters. In fact, we will see even more centralization if the globalists get their way.
The key to the reset is undoubtedly the end of the dollar as the world reserve currency. Without this status, the U.S. loses all economic trade advantage as well as the advantage of perpetual debt monetization. As the dollar’s influence is reduced globally inflation becomes a more pronounced threat at home. The trade war makes the shift away from the dollar possible for international banking elites while they avoid blame for the suffering it will cause the public.
“De-dollerization” is already gaining steam as Russia and China make deals to decouple from the currency while increasing financial cooperation using their own. What trade war cheerleaders don’t understand is that a trade war with China is not a trade war with China alone. As the No. 1 exporter/importer in the world, if China decides to dump the dollar as world reserve its trading partners may very well do the same in order to secure their own import/export relationships.
As a domino effect ensues, I believe it will be the IMF that steps in as a “mediator” to provide the framework for a new system, probably under the Special Drawing Rights basket, and probably leading to a global cryptocurrency system, which the IMF has been praising recently as the next stage of evolution for money and monetary policy.
I have mentioned consistently over the past half year that a trend has developed in terms of the Trump administration’s behavior in the trade war. Specifically, whenever the Federal Reserve raises interest rates or expands cuts to its balance sheet, Trump conveniently expands his rhetoric on tariffs.
When the Fed increases balance sheet cuts, stocks take a hit of 1,000 points or more like clockwork. And, like clockwork, the mainstream media blames the drop in stocks on the trade war and Trump rather than the Fed. I think that this trend will accelerate into the end of 2018, and that stocks will hit critical downward velocity if the Fed does not reverse course. In my view, the Fed has no intention of reversing course because they prefer to see a major market crisis at this time.
But more that simply providing cover for the Fed’s controlled demolition of equities, the trade war may also provide cover for the controlled demolition of the dollar as multiple foreign creditors and trading partners turn America’s greatest strength into its greatest weakness.
The dollar itself is nothing more than an imagined symbol; it is a tool for international bankers. And, like any tool, it can be replaced. The trade war provides the perfect historical narrative for the end of the dollar. The story told to future generations will be that the U.S., emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric and nationalism, fueled by the dangerous ideas of “conservative populists”, bumbled into self-destruction and harmed the rest of the world in the process. The IMF and other globalist institutions will step in, stating that no single country should ever be allowed to wield the power of the world’s reserve currency again. They will then offer their pre-planned solution to the very problem they originally created.
Whether or not this plan for the global reset works will rely on the awareness of conservatives specifically. Getting caught up in the fervor of trade war rhetoric will cripple our ability to prepare and to fight back against the true culprits behind U.S. decline. Our fury will be wrongly directed at foreign economies instead of the banking elites, where it belongs.
***
If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here. We greatly appreciate your patronage.
You can contact Brandon Smith at: [email protected]
After 8 long years of ultra-loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, it’s no secret that inflation is primed to soar. If your IRA or 401(k) is exposed to this threat, it’s critical to act now! That’s why thousands of Americans are moving their retirement into a Gold IRA. Learn how you can too with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals the little-known IRS Tax Law to move your IRA or 401(k) into gold. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.
“The trade war provides the perfect historical narrative for the end of the dollar. ”
Not gonna happen. The reality is that the DOLLAR is the currency of the NWO; and it is in the DOLLAR where the NWO holds its excess cash. They have no real, practical, alternative.
While China and the EU can bitch about TRUMP’S “Trade War” both groups recognize the underlying MATHEMATICAL TRUTH to his claims.
Europe is defended by America and is in no position to defy the USA as it is in the throes of political, social, and economic chaos. Without America, Europe is easy prey for Russia militarily, and China economically.
TRUMP HOLDS ALL THE CARDS AND HE IS NOT BLUFFING. 🙂
“D”
You hit it right on the head. Very well stated. I agree with you 100%.
Sgt.
Brandon Nails it. 100% again. The US Dollar is in decline and only worth .02 Cents of its original $1.00. Gold and Silver are real money. Brandon is one of the best writers on this website.
Dkiddy is wrong over and over again. And the Yuan is backed by Gold. As I stated here several years ago. Dkiddy still owes me $100 as he was massively wrong on that issue like so many other financial issues. I collect silver as a hedge for financial collapse. Dkiddy collects $10 NWO paper fiat ponsi notes in #10 cans for his hedge and set of beliefs. That right there reflects Dkiddy’s of lack of financially reality as his buying power diminishes daily sitting in #10 cans. Brandon writes articles. Dkiddy writes inaccurate comments. Brandon is 100% accurate in his assessment. Pay attention to Brandon not Duncekiddy.
The US Exonomy is in shambles and only propped up by massive debt borrowing with interest attached. Which explains why the US is in perpetual war to keep the petro dollar propped up. Trump is just trying to level the playing field with tarriffs to reverse the trade deficits.
Mr. Blows, what exactly was that bet?
The Yuan is not fungible. Yet. You may be right. Eventually. But not today.
“And the Yuan is backed by Gold. As I stated here several years ago. Dkiddy still owes me $100 as he was massively wrong on that issue like so many other financial issues. ”
LMAO !!! The Yuan is NOT backed by gold. And the Yuan is still PEGGED to the dollar by the Chinese government. The value of the Yuan is established by the government not the open market. Try reading the related articles and not just the wishful thinking headlines of those morons who push gold down our throats (I have a mountain of gold, btw, so I am not opposed to gold”.
If the Yuan were backed by gold and it was fungible to gold, the Yuan would SKYROCKET on the FX. It hasn’t. It won’t. In fact, the PBOC …. the Chinese Central Bank …. has been recently PEGGING the Yuan LOWER to the Dollar on a daily basis attempting to circumvent TRUMP TARIFFS.
China will submit to TRUMP or be denied open access to the American economy. China has the most to lose in a Trade War and the USA the most to win as it intensifies. 🙂
Well put Durango. In the midst of all this ‘trade war’ the US economy seems to be doing quite well while Chinese markets are down more than 20%. European countries have all they can handle with importation of too many Jihadists. I read that in Germany only 5% of muslims are gainfully employed after a year in country.
“Without America, Europe is easy prey for Russia militarily, and China economically.”
Easy prey? Russia is a a fraction of power next to the USSR and France / UK nuclear weapons are a deterrent of massive proportion. Russian tanks rolling into Europe in the absence of the USA? ridiculous.
How does the USA protect Europe from China economically?
“How does the USA protect Europe from China economically?”
Right now and for the past 30 years, Europe has had a big trade advantage against the USA under the NWO in control of the USA, (but not anything like the tremendous advantage that China has had with US). Without these subsidies by the US Taxpayer Europe cannot compete for a meaningful share of world trade against China.
A recent graph at Zero Hedge showed Germany’s advantage if you consider its share of world trade (PER CAPITA) versus the USA. Germany has been ALLOWED to eat our lunch for decades and now complains because TRUMP wants Reciprocal Trade. Germany is the biggest economy in the EU.
Russia may be a FRACTION of the military power that the USSR was, but that is still enough to roll over the EU without America in NATO. Poland, to its credit is beefing up its defenses as it is on the front line of any attack.
Nuke weapons ??? Russia has them too and is willing to use them in a First Strike, according to their published battle plans.The UK & France are too timid to make that decision.
He who hesitates is dead. 🙁
Kevin. You too see through Dkiddy’s BS.
Alao folks the LEFT is becomming increasingly desperate as they are calling for more violance in the streets and anywhere they can obstruct. Carry your weapons daily and prepare to use them in self defense. Know how to take cover and shoot. And practice often in drills. Shoot prone and know how to make your body a small target.
I just don’t see crazed leftists, rightists or centralists around me. There is some poor underclass not too far away across the river. I have zero reason to go in their area.
There are……not there is…….oops
What President Trump needs is a x2 Tariff on ALL foreign countries. If they charge 20% Tariff on our cars, USA should charge 40% Tariff on their cars.
Make this the default law for all nations, be open for USA goods, or pay a huge tax BEFORE you are allowed to unload your ships in port.
Simple, the only way for countries to ‘win’ is to have full, free, unrestricted imports from USA.
x2 Tariff law is completely fair, and punishes the worst offenders with their own actions.
Certain USA exports to China face a 56% Tariff.
So for Chinese goods to USA – a 112% Tariff tax before they can unload the ship would crush their sales.
The only way for China to win is to remove all tariffs from all goods.
Supposedly, Satanists are intent on using up all the negative karma (and excretia).
Luciferians believe in moral free agency (and Opra-ism).
The Bible teaches predestination (but with lifelines).
What is the point of commonality, besides so much outrage porn.
I think, they would actually try to change their reality, rather than being a passive bystander.
Can you effect market conditions or use them to your personal benefit (if the sky doesn’t fall, first).
Rhetoric is besides the point, if you value objective reality, over what is ephemeral.
The thing about all this on a personal level is already having the things you will need before it becomes impossible to obtain. Having enough of it to last for years and the means to hide and protect it. Then the world can burn.
I am an eater. I like big and ostentatious things and never to go without.
I am not faulting you for work ethic, or creature comforts, but here is mathematical dilemma.
You would never have been able to buy, store, or preserve enough consumer goods, to last your whole life, assuming that all productive activity had stopped, last week.
Someone needs to be making or inventing new things, in Gault’s Gulch, or V’s lair, or in that parallel dimension, from Tomorrowland.
Brandon, please consider this. Imbeciles in Washington negotiated our trade and market advantages away for decades. In an effort to help previously third-world nations or bombed-to-oblivion nations, our legislators gave the store away at the expense of the American taxpayer. Those legislators were the same fools that spent the “Social Security Trust Fund” for the latest fad political expenditure of their era. They were the same cretins that could not balance a checkbook when provided with congressional accounts. The current administration is trying to balance the books, require countries to pay their fair share, and do tit-for-tat on unfair trade. I don’t have a problem with that.
In my effort to express my first comments, I forgot (I’m old) to thank you for a great article. Most of your points and conclusions are extremely well thought out.
cranerigger
They’re not ignorant or foolish; they’re corrupt.
If China drops the dollar other Countries will also drop the dollar in order to continue to import/export.
This is true. I ordered a product from Germany. It was shipped from China. So, I ordered one shipped by England and found out it was made in China.
_
“If China drops the dollar other Countries will also drop the dollar in order to continue to import/export.”
False. Not gonna happen. The US SWIFT system controls global trade transactions.
China cannot drop the dollar. Its economy depends upon the dollar to employ 500 million Chinese people. Chaos would ensue in China and Communist Party members would be the first financial victims and the last fatal casualties.
The world runs on KING DOLLAR. That’s reality and King Dollar is backed by the US MIC. Fuck with MIC and you die.
Changes are not gonna change until quantum computers are globally UBIQUITOUS and a digital world currency standard has been accepted by the FED & implemented by the Central Banks of the world.
Then Nibiru makes its entrance. 🙂
DKiddy is just trying to defend his $10 bills hidden in #10 cans which depricate daily. So his uninformed BS continues. China already dumped the Petro Dollar and buys oil from Russia for Yuan, then Russia steps up to the chinese Gold exchange window and buys gold frme the Yuan it just collected. This is fact, that Dkiddy wont admit.
DKiddy comes on here randomly post his BS, then when calles out for being wrong he fiea and hides dor a monthnor ao then comes back on and poat more BS. His pattern repeats itself over and over going back years.
T.S. Blows is the guy posting here that consistently Blows B.S. and most of it, such as the second run on sentence above, is incoherent nonsense.
You have absolutely no idea what Russia does with their foreign exchange receipts. No the Yuan (don’t you mean the Renmenbi?) is not backed by gold. No it is impossible for any other currency to replace the dollar anytime soon.
Oh, and you left out the Jews. They are bound to have a central nefarious part in the Russia/China/Illuminati/NWO alliance to destroy the American economy. I can’t believe you forgot the Jews. Sheesh.
” China already dumped the Petro Dollar and buys oil from Russia for Yuan, then Russia steps up to the chinese Gold exchange window and buys gold frme the Yuan it just collected. This is fact, that Dkiddy wont admit.”
I freely admit that fact: Russia buys gold from its oil sales to China and receives YUAN for the oil. Russia uses the Yuan it receives from its sales of oil to buy gold from China. China uses that Yuan it receives back from Russia to buy the gold from Chinese companies at less than world market prices.
This action subsidies China’s government with the excess profit from the sales vs the actual cost to produce and purchase from the Chinese gold mining companies, while employing chinese workers, and profiting the Chinese mining sector.
This process is not unlike FDR’S gold policies used in the Great Depression to put Americans back to work. Russia needs the Chinese market desperately for it oil & gas while under SANCTIONS from the West.
The Yuan is not backed by gold and the Yuan is pegged by the Chinese government on a daily basis. 🙂
Wow! That was an awesome read and not a word was wrong. I have not read such a cogent summary anywhere else.
SHTF needs more sharp writing like this.
The IMF is controlled by the USA through its CONTROLLING voting rights percentage. When China was admitted, the voting rights of other nations were decreased and given to China so it could participate.
The US has VETO POWER over all IMF actions. (read: THE FED)
🙂
NWO FLUNKIES GITMO AND LEAVENWORTH BOUND AFTER TRUMP MEETS WITH PUTIN.
NEW PARADIGM. NEO CONS ON THE ROPES. SOME MAY BE SWINGING FROM ROPES.
DEPRESSION, COLLAPSE, RESET OF ALL RESETS COMING.
HOUSE OF CARDS ECONOMY
PATRIOTS NOW HAVE THE UPPER HAND NWO R. I .P. 2018 WATCH
Steve Mnuchin is on the IMF Board of Governors and the US has over 800 thousand votes. The next nearest one is Japan with around 300 thousand and then China with around the same.
Basically the Treasury Department runs the IMF with LeGarde as a sock puppet spokesperson. Jack Lew was the US governor to the IMF when he was Treasury Secretary.
Most of it is wrong Frank. One example:
“But more that simply providing cover for the Fed’s controlled demolition of equities”
One of the Fed’s self stated goals is the support of the equity market. Indeed, since Alan Greenspan, every time the market has become shaky the Fed has rushed in to save the day. The Fed has absolutely no interest in “demolishing” the market.
Brandon has a long history of taking a handful of factual pieces and forcefully assembling them to fit a preconceived picture.
One day the dollar will be replaced as the world’s reserve currency but it won’t be in our lifetime and it won’t be fatal to America. All reserve currencies through out history have been replaced. Dutch Guilders, Spanish Reals, British Pounds. The issuing countries are still percolating along just fine.
“Brandon has a long history of taking a handful of factual pieces and forcefully assembling them to fit a preconceived picture.”
I don’t relish criticizing Brandon because I know he is a true Patriot; but I couldn’t have said it better: “Brandon has a long history of taking a handful of factual pieces and forcefully assembling them to fit a preconceived picture.”
Brandon has a fixation on the IMF, which the US FED controls. He is a liberal arts major with no financial education and no experience in banking or the financial industry; consequently he does not have the insight to make a serious analysis of Finance/Economics.
He is the blind leading the blind and makes the mistake of putting his musings in print, misinforming those with even less education & insight then himself. He still believes that the (eventual) Global Currency will be based upon a digital SDR; not understanding that the SDR is specifically not a currency and was created,(like the IMF) to protect the International Banks from taking fiat from the Third World (think Zimbabwe). 🙂
I had to read this twice to get the gist of what was being said. Teetering on the brink slow gaining speed collapse. I have to get the hell out of here. Brother can you spare a dime time. Effing bankers wtf?
I took the advice in your comment and read it twice myself.
Is a grass hut on a deserted island a good place to hang out while this blows over? (with internet connection otherwise I’d miss all the fun here.)
Yahooie, a grass hut works fine until things “blow over”.
Then your grass hut is, umm, gone.
We had 140-150 mph winds.
Our concrete block house, with a plywood and steel roof held. But 2 tile patios had tiles lift up and off the concrete from winds blowing.
I still have to pull up 2 patios of tile. One will be redone and the other will get paint.
Build your hut strong. 🙂
Want to know how to shut DKiddy up? Just ask him how many of his financial advice CD’s Roms he sold this year? Answer=Zero. Bwhahahaha
I wish somebody would shut up but it isn’t durangokidd.
He actually posts intelligent & thoughtful comments.
Some idiots just post mindless rants and insults.
TSB: I have bigger fish to fry than selling financial CD’s to morons like you without any money to invest.
With the Nibiru system now FULLY VISIBLE it should be apparent to everyone that priorities should be confined to stacking and packing. 🙂
China won’t dump the dollar, because they hold so much US debt in dollars, and they don’t walk away from equity. What I believe will happen is their continued selling of US Treasuries at a faster and faster pace, as the yields keep escalating on them. Makes sense. The Fed keeps raising the yields because it’s trying to attract buyers as the Chinese sell them off. Stock holders in the DOW, and others will grab at these yields as a way to make money from self-owned stocks that are under performing. When money leaves Wall Street, and goes into Treasuries, the market falls, and inflation gains.
I stated in a previous blog that US Textile Workers jobs fled to Asia because of their “slave labor” pay scale. I was chastised with “Greedy Unions” of high wages cost them their jobs. I stated then at they make $15.00 ‘hr in the US, hardly a high wage. Here it is from the US Bureau Of Labor Statistics.
Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2017
51-6099 Textile, Apparel, and Furnishings Workers, All Other
All textile, apparel, and furnishings workers not listed separately.
National estimates for this occupation
Industry profile for this occupation
Geographic profile for this occupation
National estimates for this occupation: Top
Employment estimate and mean wage estimates for this occupation:
Employment (1) Employment
RSE (3) Mean hourly
wage Mean annual
wage (2) Wage RSE (3)
14,610 8.7 % $15.04 $31,280 1.9 %
$15.00 was a high wage for textile workers, as a very high percentage of them worked in NC. It might be considered a low wage by someone living up north, but it was high for the South.
Archivist
“Was”?
That wage is current not past tense.
High? Relative to minimum? Relative to India or Pakistan?
Globalist manufactures pressured Congress / Senate / President to drop tariffs (Free Trade). With no tariffs those southerners can go to sub $1 / hr (which is impossible) or have no job at all. US labor has to compete with the lowest cost labor that can be found in the world while the US military protects these assets with US treasure and blood.
The bottom line is my post that stated that manufacturing fled the US for virtual slave labor wages is 100% accurate.
Tariffs were used to protect and thus expand US manufacturing along with its source of revenue. If one implies that they are Un- American then the Founding Fathers were Un-American,
“Trade war” Aka All part of the script (charade) to bring in the Nwo beast cashless system and world govt. Please research yourselves and stop being so naive for it may cost you your soul. Brandon Smith has done his homework and is why he is 1 of the most accurate in his predictions time after time. Check his record my friends