Friends + Interlocutors:

Could Europe retaliate financially against the U.S. to pushback Trump? Does Europe have leverage? According to this in-depth Financial Times analysis, the answer is no. Europe would be shooting itself in the foot. The same is probably true for China and its trillions of US Treasuries. And Japan. Everything is interdependent. There would be no winners in a finance war.

Incidentally, without going into details, I strongly suspect that this whole goofy Greenland business is actually about strategic minerals and oil, not defense. Just like Venezuela. Trump wants ownership, even if it is extraterritorial ownership. You gotta have that legal status to exploit natural resources.

The U.S. already has a treaty in place for military bases in Greenland, etc. But that does not generate cash flow. Notice how Trump talks about his retaliatory tariffs. He talks about the cash the tariffs bring to the U.S. treasury. He doesn’t regard them as inflationary. It’s a kind of smash and grab operation.

Patrick

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