It will be fascinating to see what is going to happen with that purely mercenary army recruited from the poor when the money is worth nothing any more.
Assuming that Trump, Musk, and Putin each need something from one of each other. Assuming that the siloviki want to quietly rule Russia.
A mercenary uprising would be convenient cover for Putin to endure exile in, say, the Caribbean. Security by FSB, siloviki split up their rule across Russia, etc. Operating from Guyana, Putin could deprive ESA of access to the French Guiana spaceport, handing it over to Musk.
The entire Caribbean fell into 10% tariffs except for two: Guyana (38%) and Cuba (0%).
- He wants to choke them with tariffs (and now has leverage to get the rest of the world to join in).
- They want Greenland to defend the North
- He wants to onshore manufacturing as a strategic wartime capability
Once you understand this, his policies make sense.
And the whole business of putting tariffs on everywhere is so countries can't export from them to evade the tariffs.
So because of this he seems to think effects on markets will be a one time correction that's worth the cost (not to mention is probably shorting it to pieces)
Who buys American weaponry to fund American military industry when countries don't trust us?
Why would he create the grounds for civil unrest here, which would make decisive military action much harder?
How can we have leverage when other countries are dealing with an O(1) problem while we are dealing with O(N) harm to our economy?
Why abandon Ukraine, a country in a very similar position to Taiwan?
Why talk about ethnically cleansing Gaza, ceding the human rights high ground?
Even if we figured out manufacturing, wars are frequently won with technology, and those researches that fled Germany to get away from oppression are now fleeing America because colleges are robbing them of their dignity in expression and attempting to exploit them by taking the fruits of their labor, without the experiencing the "cost" of their own person-hood and individual beliefs.
> He wants to choke them with tariffs (and now has leverage to get the rest of the world to join in).
Like, how? You expect the countries to put tariff on Chine, risk to have tariffs put on them by both China and unpredictable USA? He is loosing leverage here rather then gaining it.
> They want Greenland to defend the North
Right now, Greenland sees America as the biggest threat to protect against. They even refused to talk to Vance on his visit.
> He wants to onshore manufacturing as a strategic wartime capability
That is inconsistent with tariffs on everything. If this was the goal, he would had targeted tariffs to ease manufacturing. It would exclude materials for example. It was NOT be calculated as ratio of trade deficit.
And this is also inconsistent with using tariffs as a leverage in negotiations which was your other point. This would require stability and companies being confident the policy wont change in the next few years. In reality, they dont know what will happen tomorrow.
They'll tie the defence umbrella to tariffs and good behaviour.
If they wanted to sell defense, threatening annexation of countries they are supposed to have current defensive arrangement with is inconsistent with that. Allying yourself with Russia is inconsistent with that too.
And above all, an attempt to use past help as a reason to make the other country your colony for materials extractions while trying to sell their parts to Russia ... makes you untrustworthy.
Greenland is not threatened by China right now, they are threatened by America.
China has the upper hand because USA has turned against all its allies and countries will favor trade deals with the country which is not tariffing them. China will form stronger trade coalitions with the Japan/Korea/Europe and leave America to cannibalize itself.
Also, this kind of ignores how dependent Russia is on _China_. If this were actually at Russia’s behest, China would hardly even be bothering with mirroring tariffs; it would just call Putin to heel.
If you don't believe that, then his policies are terrifyingly not confusing. If you believe his policies are primarily meant to benefit American oligarchs or Russia, his policies are even less confusing.
Withdrawing support for Ukraine and not putting tariffs on Russia, despite putting tariffs on uninhabited "Heard Island and McDonald Islands" is probably the least confused I've been since his inauguration. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump...