We Will Tariff: A Declaration of War?

“I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.” —President Donald Trump, Inauguration Speech 2025

On January 20th, the whole world was watching. The question is, what were they thinking? Fact is, if any other leader from any other nation in the world were to say such a thing, he/she would be scoffed at and ostracized, or simply disdained. The U.S. is the only exception to this rule, because time and again, we have proven to be the greatest nation in the world. We used to be the greatest creditor nation, and now we are the greatest consumer nation. The U.S. has turned 180 degrees, but the public hasn’t quite noticed, at least nominally. Trump is convinced that the world needs us to consume, depends on us consuming, and will do anything to keep us consuming their goods and services, even at great expense.

If you’re in agreement with Trump on this issue, then I would say that you are on board with American exceptionalism and you think taxing the rest of the world could make us rich. Our gain, their loss, and they’ll just deal with it. I’m not going to say you’re wrong, as it could work for awhile, but I will say you’re operating from a limited and finite perspective. Just to be clear, I’m a skeptic. Yesterday morning, I was reminded of an excellent interview I heard about three years ago when the United States pulled out of Afghanistan. If you never saw this interview, now would be a great time to watch it. Lara Logan, an expert journalist on the Middle East, explained perfectly what happened then, which leads into what is continuing now.

But if you don’t have time for the video, I will explain why it resonated with me and what I think it means for our nation. I believe we are heading forwards into a different kind of greatness than any of us know or understand today. We are not going backwards to the greatness we knew in the past or who we were decades ago. Some problems from the last administration will be fixed, while others will be exacerbated on the trajectory of unmasking and unwinding our false prosperity, hidden behind a mountain of debt. Neither evolution nor God promises us material wealth; the promise is spiritual riches for those who are aligned with the laws of nature and/or God’s will, even if it means facing hardship and poverty.

When the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan, and the media portrayed it as sloppy and uncouth, Lara Logan had a different take on the events that transpired. She explained it like this, “The United States has the power to effect anything, and the Afghans know that. So what’s really interesting about living on the ground with people, in a country like Afghanistan, is that you get to see that when you take away the prism of political spin and parties, and all the trappings that we have that obscure the truth from us in the U.S…these people, they teach you how to look at things in their most basic form…what they know is there are many things the United States could do right now to change what has happened and what is happening in Afghanistan, and they are not doing it.”

While it appears that America’s leaders have seemingly lost their ability to see things from other nation’s perspectives, it’s bigger than this…much bigger. Our leaders have lost the art and science of safeguarding our interests, while maintaining peaceful and productive relationships. It’s probably because it is no longer possible to do this and still remain the empire of the world. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and if you tell the world that you plan on overhauling global trade to your benefit, at their detriment, it sounds bad. Why is Trump speaking to the rest of the world as if they are spoiled little children who are deliberately taking advantage of us and prospering from it? Not exactly a friendly diplomatic communique.

Lara Logan thought, three years ago, that we negotiated without the Afghan government because they refused to participate in the lie that the Taliban is not ideologically identical to Al-Qaeda. Maybe now we are negotiating with ourselves, without the rest of the world, because they will no longer participate in the lie of Democracy. They do not want debt-backed U.S. treasuries, so they are buying gold. They do not want to use a depreciating dollar in trade, so they are joining BRICS. It all goes back to a question that Tucker asked Lara in the interview…why is the U.S. government funding the Pakistan military and its intelligent services? Why is the U.S. government funding the Pakistanis, who fund the Taliban? “Literally, while our troops were being killed and maimed on the battlefield, we were paying the people who put them in the ground,” said Logan. A sobering statement, but true.

What does this say about America? I don’t really know. After explaining how ridiculous the U.S. narrative was about the Iraq War, and you should really listen to her yourself, Lara Logan explained that what the people in power really want you to believe is that it’s complicated, and this is a tactic in information warfare called Ambiguity Increasing. She concluded that the people in power wanted the outcome in Afghanistan… “What the Afghans will tell you is that the United States chose this outcome,” she said. I conclude the same, and I’ll take it further to say I think that they also want the outcomes that are coming from the wars in progress, and they want the world’s reaction to the U.S. taxing them to enrich American citizens. Just follow the money.

“What I see is the American ideal on trial,” said Logan. “In fact, not just on trial, but convicted and guilty by our own hand…We took this idea of freedom, and everything that we live for and represent, and we said that this is a noble idea. And we brought that with us in Afghanistan, and we encouraged people to believe in it, and to fight for it, stand by our side, and to believe and die for it, and they have in the hundreds of thousands since 9/11…….Every country in the world is watching. Every indigenous force or group or tribal community or whatever, every U.S. ally, every enemy is watching right now. And the message we are sending is that the American ideal is not worth fighting for. Why? Because it’s based on a lie.” I repeat, the whole world is watching.

While most Americans have no idea what is BRICS, Trump just called attention to them on Friday. And once again, the language is like a daddy protecting his own perfect children from the bullies outside… “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. dollar or, they will face 100% tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. economy… They can go find another sucker nation. There is no chance that BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in international trade, or anywhere else, and any country that tries should say hello to tariffs, and goodbye to America.” So while the media has played down the influence of BRICS, Trump just turned up the volume. And while Biden seemed unnaturally against America, complicit in its collapse, Trump seems to be naturally trying to counteract those forces, but maybe too much.

On top of this, it looks like our government is planning to do the same thing that the British government did with a group of merchants around 1720 to reduce the national debt. The government provided the South Sea Company with a monopoly on trade in exchange for converting debt into company shares. In similar fashion, the U.S. government is entertaining the idea of providing a company called Tether (USDT) with a monopoly on crypto in exchange for converting their proceeds into U.S. Treasuries. The idea is clever but misguided. As the currencies of other nations depreciate against the rising U.S. dollar, it assumes that people will continue to trust the U.S. dollar and convert their local currencies into spendable USDTs through easy and convenient exchanges. Since Tether indirectly backs Bitcoin, the government would give Bitcoin a big boost by purchasing large chunks with more worthless debt, to create what they are calling a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

A strategic Bitcoin reserve would be a twin tower to the U.S. dollar. All it would do is prolong the government’s ability to sell its ever-growing and unsustainable debt instruments, by using up a lot more precious energy. This is the name of the game, and when they can’t do this anymore, the game is over. Meanwhile, European Central Bank President says Bitcoin will not be included in any EU central bank reserves. “Reserves have to be liquid, reserves have to be secure, they have to be safe, and they should not be plagued by money laundering or other criminal activities.” The implication being that Trump hasn’t thought through this crypto capital, empire of the world. Or is there something else in the pipeline? Wasn’t Bitcoin supposed to be the people’s money? Separate from the hands of government and its doomed debt and dollar? That was the narrative, but narratives have a way of changing for the sake of profiteering. Learn about the South Sea Bubble and its epic collapse…

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