13 April 2025
This post began as a reply to a reader who is frustrated at the headlines, the markets, and the mockery being hurled at the only Western leader who for all his faults, seems to grasp the scale of what’s happening in global geopolitics.
"Even Yellen is lecturing Trump. How bad can it be!! Looking at the big picture i think it's too late for America to challenge China. China is already too independent and economically powerfull. America too hobbled by debt. It's not going to work. America has lost. The MSM and chattering classes are ridiculing Trump.....they don't realise what being second best to China means and how the USA economy is about to look like the UK economy....services only."
It’s not about liking Trump, it’s about recognising when a global regime change is already in motion - and the West’s refusal to take it seriously.
The reader's comment is bleak indeed, but is it very far from realistic? Yes, we are witnessing global regime change and the only person trying to save America is being ridiculed by a complacent elite who thinks it is “exceptional”, a belief echoed by the ever-comfortable chattering classes.
Ray Dalio identified the three ingredients for full-scale global regime change:
- Massive debt, budget and trade imbalances, credit spreads, liquidity difficulty, currency disruption, return to high inflation...the monetary order
- Deep internal division... the political and social orders
- The rise of a rival hegemon...the global geopolitical order.
This week we saw all three disrupted and on full display. It was the most volatile market week I can remember - a moment when the old orders cracked and the new one heaved into view.
Even Yellen is lecturing Trump. How bad can it be!!
Yellen is old-school: pro-globalisation and fiscally cautious. Biden was the last chance to shift America’s trajectory, but while the house burned, he was off playing pyromaniac war games with Russia (much like Macron President in France incidentally and the UK Prime Minister Starmer).
Now Yellen is lecturing Trump — a sign of internal division at the elite level. The ruling class can’t agree on trade, industry, or strategy. No consensus on what’s wrong. No agreement on how to fix it. So Trump pushes forward with Executive Orders under Emergency Powers.
The elites’ arrogance extends to their own people, American citizens - the “deplorables”, they call their underclass. That’s never going to work for long. How do they think Trump was voted into office?
Looking at the big picture, it may be too late for America to challenge China.
China is now too independent, too powerful. The U.S. is hobbled by debt. It not going to work.
Or could there be bipartisan support for reducing the budget imbalance to 3% of GDP?
it's all in the execution. Even if these various threats from tariffs to World War 3 can be handled competently, will it make any difference in the end?
Because, while the U.S. fiddled with its finances., look what China has been building:
- Energy and materials input supply chains via BRICS+
- A vast manufacturing base
- Independent digital platforms for administering trade and payments
- Global distribution output via Belt and Road
America distracted itself with war and delusion, while its leaders clipped their coupons. Debt soared - principally, because of all the endless wars that brought no return. The myth of exceptionalism persisted. The internal weaknesses, long ignored, were eventually exposed by external rivals.
America’s debt has built nothing durable — no new pipelines, ports, or domestic cohesion.
Trump says America was ripped off. The truth? America, through its military and dollar dominance, ripped off the rest of the world. The profits generated from servicing American needs were recycled in the form of loans into American treasuries, allowing America to live beyond its means. And that world now sees a chance to level the playing field.
The wars bought no return on investment to America, just inflation, trauma, and declining global trust. Meanwhile, China has been going around offering infrastructure deals to the nations America tried to police. America thought it could force democracy onto other nations and it failed; China forced economic development loans onto the same nations and it has succeeded.
America has lost
Maybe. But it won’t give up without a fight. It won’t regain the lead, but it won’t go quietly either.
The weirdest part of this week?
Gold surged. Yields surged. In a crash, capital usually flees to the dollar, to US treasuries. This time, it flowed to gold.
What does that tell us?
- Some say short covering in the derivatives market
- Others say China, Japan and Euro dumped US Treasuries in what appears to have been a coordinated move
- I'd guess really what it's saying is that investors are increasingly reluctant to refinance debt, and even don't want hallowed US debt. That's bad. That's a liquidity crisis in the making.
Either way, the message is clear:
Investors are no longer buying the dollar. They’re buying gold.
The USA economy is about to look like the UK economy...services only
They outsourced the hard economy, where productivity begins, where profits are to be had, where growth starts; they gorged themselves on services offerings instead (successfully) but also on financial fiddling on tertiary markets and social media tech. The profits foreign manuacturers earned abroad were recycled into U.S. debt. Overdettedness forced America to break the link with gold in 1971, since when America has lived increasingly beyond its means.
The MSM and chattering classes are still ridiculing Trump. Still fiddling. Still hoarding financial returns from swaps and options and buybacks. Still blind to what it will mean to live under Chinese economic supremacy. Unaware that their children will be global second-class citizens.
Trump: “I go by instinct.”
And he’s not wrong accept, that is an instinct and instinct is emotion. Should a leader be guided by emotion or by reason? He trusts his gut feeling more than his civil service specialist teams.
He’s one of the few politicians who sees what’s needed. But he forgot the backfill. Despite the rhetoric, he’s still fuelling wars with Russia, threatening Iran, escalating tension with China, with Israel threatening to emblaze the Middle East, all this instead of getting on and reforming the American infrastructure.
Trump is trying to compress a two-term reform programme into two years. It won’t fit. It’s too late. The foundational reforms are missing. And meanwhile, a divided elite, clutching their digital share certificates, laughs at him from all sides.
Trump as Saviour Figure
This politically charged oil painting, rendered in a realistic Renaissance / Baroque style, shows President Donald Trump standing confidently but humbly in the centre, his gaze turned upward. Radiating light surrounds him, emphasising his sacrificial messianic posture, and the contrast between him and the mocking, dark crowd of political elites, while three supportive figures, dubbed 'deplorables,' stand in the foreground, gazing at him with resilience and determination amidst a backdrop of chaos and financial ruin.
You, dear reader, may laugh at the irony, the parody even, but Trump does see himself as a saviour figure.
A Legacy Moment: Trump on the Mount
In this image, Trump evokes a kind of modern Moses. Shield in hand, he has held back the storm - tariffs as a temporary defence - buying time for deeper reform (which he is not yet awake to...). Behind him, the old world of outsourced industry and economic vulnerability; ahead, a path toward education, infrastructure, and innovation foundational reform.
Like Moses on Mount Nebo, Trump points forward to a future he won’t fully walk himself, leaving the real journey to successors. It’s not a retreat, it's a legacy moment: having led through crisis, he now gestures toward renewal.
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