Recently, Trump announced that American and Iranian positions for ending his ugly war crime were very close, claiming they’d agreed major to everything ahead of Monday April 20 talks. Wow! He’s close to giving up on committing more war crimes! Happy days are here again, right?
On closer inspection, the snarky, sarcasticky, profaney observer will note that these social media pronouncements were posted on — when was it? Friday? — and what happened? Stock markets improved and oil futures fell. Funny how that works.
With Trump yo-yoing between bellicose threats to Iran for non-compliance with US demands and his overtly rosy assessments of future negotiations — complete with grandiose claims about concessions on the Strait of Hormuz, the relinquishing of enriched uranium, and pledges to abandon nuclear weapons — it’s enough to start believing in conspiracy. Especially once you start correlating spikes in stock and oil futures trading with each pronouncement.
Immediately after Trump painted his glowing picture of riding unicorns over the Rainbow Bridge — holding hands with his Iranian BFF, sharing a heart-shaped cupcake, singing Kumbaya — his Iranian BFF said: not so fast. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced the Strait of Hormuz was closed again, and Iranians fired upon ships in the area.
Such aspirational announcements can’t possibly help end Trump’s war crimes spree in Iran. They just prove to the Iranians how untrustworthy he is — despite ludicrous claims from White House spokesmodels that they could shock Iran into a deal.
To my mind, the only plausible explanation for Trump’s inexplicable yo-yo diplomacy is that he’s realized every pronouncement shifts the market, and he can pocket a few million, eh, billion? I don’t think market manipulation is why he started committing war crimes in Iran. I think he’s just being opportunistic. As long as he can alternate between belligerent threats and Pollyannaish proclamations of progress, he can manipulate stock markets and oil futures to his advantage.
What do you think is driving this ridiculous behavior? I’d love to discuss it in the comments.
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Whether or not it is the only or primary reason for the Yo-Yo, Trump is not one to pass up an opportunity to make money without work, and to share that opportunity with a few most favored.
Rapid cycling mood swings might be a root cause to consider, complicated by short term memory issues.
Howdy Bob!
I think there are lots of reasons for Trump doing what he’s doing. Primary among them is is impulse control issues. He thinks of it, he does it. It’s on his mind, he says it. Everything else is trying to shoehorn what he’s saying and doing into something remotely resembling coherence.
The other primary driver is his narcissism. I’m convinced he’s convinced that he has some super secret super genius plan going on that none of us can suss out or fathom, like playing the markets. He’s sure that no one will ever figure out that there is a connection between what he says, market fluctuations, and the spikes in trades just before he makes a pronouncement.
I think I’ve discounted his mood swings, though. When he’s distressed, as he’s been since the Epstein files punctured his shroud of invulnerability and he started openly whinging about the possibility of impeachment, he is driven my mood swings, anxiety, and paranoia. His cognitive decline only makes it worse. A situation like Iran only makes it worse because he cannot dominate the narrative or bully them into submission. Interestingly, his tactic of narrative dominance through social media and bullying seems to have achieved the Lebanon ceasefire. Probably because he has some leverage over Netanyahu.
He has no leverage over Iran. It will be interesting to see how China reacts if he actually cuts off the flow of Iranian oil to them. As I understand it, Iran built up a reserve of oil in tankers stashed in ports around the world. The two places that I’ve heard mentioned most often is off of China and Indonesia. Once that reserve has been run, we’ll see how China reacts to a real threat to their economy and well-being of the middle class.
Currently, the Chinese economy isn’t doing well. Unemployment is remains stubbornly high. There is deep and lingering unhappiness among the Chinese middle class since the #COVID19 pandemic. Unlike Trump, Putin, or Orban, Xi realizes the importance of keeping the middle class happy. Seriously, if Trump were focused on keeping his white base happy and protected from the ravages of his tariff and supply-chain disrupted induced inflation, he’d be in a much better place.
Huzzah!
Jack
I’m suddenly thinking about feedback loops, in this case between Trump (mouth, mood, impulse, etc.), the equities markets, Iran, and back around to Trump. It’s a closed loop. Part of it is his reliance on a very limited set of promises and threats.
It is becoming a bit amazing that the supposedly smart people trading in the markets fall for the doom or “everything is fixed” message so quickly and fully when they’ve been through the flip flop cycle so many times now. Their risk and reward systems must be overwhelmed. It’s herd behavior.
The Iranians must be begging G-d to send them a competent adult with whom the negotiate, since we seem to be unable to make that change happen. Of course, there is no guarantee that JD Vance is such an adult.
Howdy Bob!
The situation is so dire that Vance seems like a rational adult. At best he is not beholden to the Sunni Muslims of the Gulf Coast. I cannot begin to speak to the psychology of stock and futures traders, but the cycle seems to repeat endlessly. The same people, doing the same thing, hoping for a different result. Speaks for itself. Trump, though, seems endlessly repetitious. I’m dumbstruck by how similar all of his threats and optimistic promises that peace is right around the corner are to one another. Granted his cognitive decline restricts his imagination and ability to think about things more critically and carefully. He is simply incapable of coming up with something different or new. He has to repeat what he’s already said and maybe doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. There have been plenty of statements to the press that suggests he’s not sure of what he’s said before on any given topic.
Blog On, Sibling!
Jack
Trump is all bark and no bite, he always, CHICKENS out, when he needed to show that determination, to, do what is needed, because that’s the kind of bully he is, he only targets the weak, and when he faces someone who’s a hell of a lot tougher than he is, then, he’d, retracted to the position of the, beta male, he only pretended that he’s the alpha, when in reality, he’s, nothing, just see what he’s doing in the Strait of Hormuz right now, along with how he’d, talked his way in and out of the Russo-Ukrainian, Israeli-Hamas conflicts, and the Strait of Hormuz embargo is his, latest game of, chicken.
Howdy Taurus!
You can’t quite say Trump is no bite. He limits his bites to what he thinks of as guaranteed victories. In Trump 1.0, he was reluctant to use the military. He was afraid of failure and loss. He is risk averse and doesn’t understand the risks of using the military. In Trump 2.0, he’s surrounded not only by sycophants, but also, by people who not only understand the uses of the military, but want to use the military. So, Venezuela was an easy guaranteed win. Attacking fishing boats and murdering their crews in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are easy guaranteed wins. It emboldened Trump. Netanyahu was able to nudge him over the edge to do something risky by convincing him that there was no risk in attacking Iran.
Air power and bombing campaigns always look spectacular but only achieve a few of their aims and objectives. They are not as effective as the perpetrators want them to be. That said, we’ve damaged Iran. Not as badly as Trump wants us to believe, but they’ve been hurt. That’s bite.
Now that are munitions are dangerously low, and they are, we cannot continue attacking Iran. Thus, the ceasefire and bellicose threats. Iran knows they are largely empty threats at this point. Thus, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and refusal to return to the negotiating table.
Trump says we’ve won, but Iran knows they have. They know the US public has no stomach for or enthusiasm for the war crimes Trump is committing. That single factor has been what has ended all US military adventurism, Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam. Eventually, the white middle class turns against whatever war we’re fighting and the political pressure forces the US to stop. With Iran, we’re there now. In the past, we’ve had five to thirty years to get there.
If there were a way for Trump to profit from arming Ukraine, he’d be doing it. If there were a way for Trump to profit from aiding Hamas, he’d be doing it. Whatever kompromat Putin and Netanyahu have on Trump keeps him favoring them. The Russian-Israeli intelligence connection is stronger than most of us think and one important line runs through Mawell’s father.
Huzzah!
Jack
Jack indeed….everything he does in international affairs is about market manipulation…..look at all the cash been tucked away by his ‘buddies’. chuq
Howdy Chuq!
If there were away for him to profit off of aiding Ukraine, he’d be helping them. The offer by Ukraine to swap their drone technology and techniques for further aide should have been a no brainer. That we’re relaxing sanctions against Russia further and burning through the munitions that are needed to resupply Ukraine is hard evidence that military strategy is unimportant to him. He’s only concerned with tactics because of the banger memes that can be made using it.
Huzzah!
Jack
What’s also troubling is what’s been going on with the so-called prediction markets. Very suspiciously timed large investments were made concerning events involving Iran literally just hours before Trump or the Pentagon made announcements about specific situations concerning the country. It’s been happening often enough that it cannot be a coincidence. Someone in the WH is using insider information to make bets in the market related specifically to upcoming White House/Trump/Pentagon announcements/actions.
Howdy Grouchy!
I feel relatively certain that the predictive markets innovation is all Don-Don. He’s on the boards of the companies that are running the markets. That it took whatever trader so long to amass a million dollars in profits from betting on the Iran war crimes, you can be sure it is Don-Don masterminding the cooking of those small potatoes. Trump is making his bets, too, to be sure. After the big bets were placed on the initial bombing of Iran and the stock and futures purchases, Trump held a presser and said something about being a betting person. He used the word bet several times, so you know he was primed for it in the half hour before doing the presser.
Trump thinks he’s some super genius with opaque super secret plans, but he is so transparent. If the press would report on him accurately, maybe more of the uninvolved disinterested Americans would realize it, too.
Huzzah!
Jack