Reading The Tea Leaves on Trump 2.0

He’s back!

Traditionally new American presidents are judged after 100 days in office, but in this case, that seems far too languid a timeline. We think Trump’s first months will be such a whirlwind of change it’ll make FDR’s frantic flurry of Great Depression legislation seem as lifeless as an RBNZ press conference.

A Mandate for Change

Why? Because Trump and the Republicans have the trifecta of House and Senate majorities as well as the Presidency; a mandate (sort of) in winning the popular vote for the first time since way back in 2004; and a general impression that American society is in tatters after four years of Biden and the Libs.
They do have a point. The number of homeless in America is fast approaching a million – way worse than what FDR had to (new) deal with back in the 30s; the trade deficit is a joke; inflation is out of control; and rising grocery prices have never highlighted the gap between the rich and poor so clearly. Yet every month it seems Biden sends another few billions of dollars Ukraine’s way and appears to be completely in Israel’s thrall no matter what atrocities they commit in Gaza. And to hell with ordinary Americans struggling to make ends meet!

So, it’s real easy to see why Americans wanted a change last November. Sure, everyone knows exactly what Donald Trump is – even 20% of glassy-eyed Republicans openly admit Trump is guilty as sin – but no one really cares, they just want their goddamn country back and the Dems ain’t cutting it.

Fertile ground for a megalomaniac wannabe king to do whatever he feels like, so long as it’s done in the name of ‘patriotism’? Oh yeah, you betcha it is!

Predicting the unpredictable

But what exactly will he do? If we learned one thing during his last Presidency it’s that the guy is completely bonkers and will always do the last thing anyone ever expected. So, how can you predict the unpredictable?

Well, that was last time and even Donald Trump is capable of learning from his mistakes – not that he’s ever made one in his life of course! The biggest thing he’s learned is that even the President isn’t a king (yet) and he needs people around who know what they’re doing, even if he doesn’t. Last time around Trump had circus clowns like Corey Lewandowski and Anthony Scaramucci in his inner circle; this time he has people like Stephen Miller and Elon Musk.

A bigggg difference, and one which points to a far more sober and considered approach to policy rollouts – as does the selection of Marco Rubio as Trump’s pick for Secretary of State. That’s not vintage Trump cronyism – Marco even said mean things about him back in the 2016 primaries! Obviously other forces are in play here.

Doing the Math

Some of the predictions are simple; we know he’s going to sound off continuously on social media and break lots of norms – too easy, we’ve seen it all before. Plus, no one’s going to get any bonus points for guessing that all Trump’s slew of court cases and charges will disappear like a work colleague from the pub when it’s their round either. With all the conservative judges the Republicans stacked the benches with last time, that’s a given.

Instead, we’re looking beyond the wild 2am tweets and predicting what crazy stuff he’ll really get up to domestically – as global issues like Israel and Ukraine have a lot of moving parts and won’t be solved in an hour, despite what Trump claims.

Crunching the numbers we see there are two types of projects for the Don to tackle during his new term; those that pander to his own ego/sense of legacy and those which he, as President of the United States, will have to deal with – and add his own spin.

The Trump Ego projects:

Sprucing Mount Rushmore

Outwardly Trump sees himself as at least the equal of all the ‘great’ American presidents, whereas inwardly he obviously thinks he is the greatest – as well as Conqueror of the Libs, Supreme Astronaut and Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas to boot. What better way to celebrate this than by adding his mug to those of the Fab Four on Mt Rushmore?

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has already ‘joked’ about doing exactly that to the monument on her turf during one of her many suck-up sessions, but the reality is it would be more difficult than it appears, even with today’s laser cutting tech. Geological, environmental and cultural concerns, along with the not-insignificant likelihood of vehement nationwide protests, will probably encourage even Trump’s wild-eyed MAGA minders to talk him down from this one. Although a colossal free-standing statue installed nearby cannot be ruled out.

Welcome to Trump City

Far more likely would be the establishment of a new capital city to serve as a replacement for the current 90% Democrat-voting ‘swamp’ of Washington D.C. so abhorrent to the recycled President.

Despite the name, Trump City is actually not the worst idea as Washington is only the current capital due to the historical need to find a more central seat of power on neutral turf between the jostling Northern and Southern states of the 18th century. A largely irrelevant conflict from dusty history books in today’s increasingly class-conscious world. Even his loyal MAGA-ites would probably prefer to name the new main drag of such a city ‘Luigi Mangione Avenue’ over ‘George Washington Boulevard’.
Realistically, Trump might find few quibbling if he dumped Washington as the capital – particularly when the current ruling class has such a low rep amongst voters on both sides of the spectrum with Congress receiving a measly 19% approval rate in August 2024. Scrapping the politically gridlocked status quo of Washington and starting afresh someplace else would appeal to Trump – particularly as he has little use for democratic norms himself. Plus, it could also prove a windfall opportunity to rewrite a few laws especially those relating to presidential term limits!

A smart city for the smartest guy in the world

An all-new smart capital, like Brasilia was at the time of its establishment in 1960, could also be the ideal way to turn the page into the 21st century too. With people like Elon Musk in tow, Trump could create a ‘Woven City’ style smart city like Toyota have built in Japan where advanced technologies jump off the designers’ tablets and into a custom-made real-world environment. This would put America’s last-remaining speciality, tech innovation at the forefront as a showcase for all their latest AI, biotechnology, and quantum computing breakthroughs. Naturally, Trump will have his city run entirely by private tech firms instead of elected officials, thus allowing for plenty of surveillance and data monetization under the guise of efficiency and innovation.

A bolder tax haven

China has many Special Economic Zones where entire cities or regions enjoy tax breaks, streamlined regulations and infrastructure designed to attract investment, boost trade, and spur economic growth. While the U.S. does already have a number of similar zones these are usually smaller like just for a port or a depressed neighbourhood.
By making the whole of Trump City a Chinese-style SEZ, Trump could encourage immediate and enthusiastic populating of his sparkling new capital rather than the dead and dreaded feel other compromise capitals like Canberra and Ottawa suffer from. He would likely limit the incentives to tech and/or clean manufacture however as nobody would want to take a meeting in a boardroom shrouded in industrial smoke.

Patriotapolis

Of course, calling America’s new capital ‘Trump City’ will be a hard sell, particularly considering the dubious success of his previous businesses. More likely he’ll get talked into something more ironic and Newspeak-ish like Freedom City or Patriotapolis. The trade off will be some form of ostentatious monument to the Orange Man like some record-breakingly tall Trump Tower in the middle of town – complete with accompanying hotel, golf course, and rally venue. All built by immigrant construction workers of course, who live in their own segregated zones to ensure a clear division between the workforce and affluent residents is maintained.

The Conservanet

Donald Trump just doesn’t get ‘facts’ or why everybody else is so fixated on scientific proof for stuff. Like many devourers of self-help literature, he’s found that if you just keep telling yourself things you end up believing them. And, if you tell everybody else the same stories over and over, they start believing them too. It works for religion doesn’t it?

It was this frustration with ‘fact-checking’ that led him to create Truth Social as a soapbox for his policies/ranting. The next logical step would be to expand this into an alternative Web 3.0 internet – or at least intranet – that will become a Utopia for patriotism, conservative political messaging and other ‘alternative facts’.

As the Republicans control the House, Senate, Presidency and Supreme Court too – no matter what Chief Justice Roberts says – this Conservanet could have expanded uses too. Under the Orange One’s leadership, schools could be corrected onto a new curriculum focused on ‘patriotism’ and the greatness of Trump-era policies – enforced by Trump’s new brown-shirted ‘Patriot Guard’ of course.

The New Canal Mania

It’s ironic that that icon of 18th century technology – the canal – is fast becoming ‘so hot right now’ again here now in the 21st century. As in the legendary English engineer James Brindley’s time, logistics is the driver here with shipping volumes ever increasing due to the upturn in global trade. This has led to ever-lengthening delays in passing through both the Panama and Suez Canals. Plus, the Ever Given incident in 2021 where a container ship got stuck in Suez, causing the Canal to be closed for a week highlighted just how reliant international trade is on these waterways.

Concerned at China’s growing influence in Latin America especially with their developing facilities at the port of Callao in Lima, Peru, Trump has started mouthing off about the U.S. regaining control of the Panama Canal. Not feasible at all but likely a pre-emptive hat tip to the idea America should build one of its own, and charge their own really, really big fees to everyone else. So there!

Logic – and economics – would suggest that the cheapest option for an infrastructure project so staggeringly massive and expensive as an international trade canal would be to pick the shortest possible route between oceans. But, as Logic and Donald Trump have never actually met, we think this thought will never even occur to him.
Instead, we think Trump will dust off one of his pet projects from last time – the Border Wall with Mexico – and propose linking the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific via a new canal that will follow the entire U.S./Mexico Border – all 3,145 km of it. In this way, Trump will be fulfilling two dreams; creating a legacy infrastructure project his manufacturing mates can use at the taxpayers’ expense, and building a moat to keep the dirty Mexicans out. He’ll even put ‘really, really, nasty’ snakes and alligators in it.

The Trump as President projects:

Rare Earth Mining

Elon Musk, as CEO of Tesla, is freaking out about China’s utter dominance of the global rare earth trade (60-70% of global rare earth mining and 85-90% of rare earth refining capacity). Particularly as our man Trump is threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese imports; and blocking sales of rare earth refinements to the US could very easily become part of a possible suite of retaliatory measures by the Chinese. (Already, in early December 2024, they announced a ban on exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the U.S. in preparation for the proposed tariffs)

This is not good news if you are a manufacturer of computers, phones or even ugly electric vehicles as many of the refinements of these metals find their way into components of the above. And, as we learned with the 2004 Asian Tsunami, if any tiny elements of any complex machine are not able to be sourced for any reason, the final product can’t be completed and is left to rot in warehouses or rusting on wharves.

Musk and other American manufacturers will therefore be eager to reboot U.S. mining and refinement for ‘national security’, ‘economic independence’, and ‘to remain competitive with China on all fronts’. Should Trump’s Administration take this challenge up there will also be many benefits such as massive job creation in several Trump-friendly states like Wyoming, Nevada, Alaska and potentially Texas.

But… it’ll cost a bomb to set it all up. Billions, if not trillions and it will take years and years to catch up. China has a 30-year head start on them and even Australia is way ahead of the US. Plus, even if the Americans were able to get everything shipshape relatively quickly, in order to remain remotely competitive the government would have to subsidise – heavily. Importantly, they’ll also need a lot of help from their rare earth expert allies like Australia and Canada.

So, Elon will have to have a word with Donald about his ideas on slapping tariffs on USMCA free trade-buddy Canada and picking fights with the Aussies like he did last time, because that’s not going to help them get out of this mess at all. Trump might also have to think long and hard about his stance on immigrant workers too as the US has a skill gap in the research and refinement areas which won’t be easy to fill locally. The blue-collar mining stuff can be hard and filthy work too and often is done by – you guessed it – foreigners.

Saving The Dollar

The US Dollar is still dominant worldwide, but its stake of global foreign exchange reserves has dropped from 70% in 2000 to around 59% today. If this was a share you were following in the stock market, you would note the downward trend and act accordingly.

There are a multitude of theories as to why this Greenback slippage is happening but it is hard to escape those with a political bent as the sanction-a-thon several recent Administrations have indulged in, especially the last three, have unsettled central bankers around the world. Worse, the arbitrary asset-freezing of nations – and even wealthy and influential individuals – have only further encouraged these powerful entities to diversify away from a currency controlled by a hostile nation.
Then there is the rise of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – plus other potential hangers-on, e.g. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and their increasing use of currencies other than the standard Greenback for trade. You can tell this has rattled the Americans as Trump regularly sounds off about how this is damaging the sanctity of the US Dollar and bellowing warnings about anyone using a BRICS currency for such.

Huh? What BRICS Currency?

Although there has been a lot of fearmongering talk about the creation of a joint BRICS currency like the euro, we believe this is unlikely. As opposed to the European nations, the BRICS countries have little in common aside from their shared disgust for American/Western bullying. True, they have created a few joint agreements/entities but these have yet to do much and the nations themselves often are in direct competition with each other economically – as well as militarily in the case of China and India.
They could however create an additional basket-based currency that didn’t replace their native ones however, which could be backed by these currencies in fixed proportions or by commodities such as gold. This could be used for intra-BRICS trade or issued as bonds and used in reserves. All of which would further help replace the Greenback and reduce their exposure to the U.S.’ political posturing.

But China certainly wouldn’t want any other nation dragging their own yuan down and they have very real concerns about internal capital flight. A (near) globally useful currency would suddenly make it a lot easier for their staggeringly wealthy individuals to move colossal sums of money out of China which wouldn’t impress President Xi at all. They also wouldn’t like having to power share with India either but surely would have to seeing as the latter is the largest country in the world and an (emerging) superpower in its own right.

Of course, it’s possible a limited digital currency could be created which would be non-convertible for individual investors and blockchain-monitored for any nefarious uses but… Pandora’s Box is lying opened.

What Trump will do about it

Unless Trump’s threats to impose tariffs left, right and centre on both friend and foe alike are just like his empty 2016 promises to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it – America could be in big trouble economically under him. Considering that everyone who knows better in his party – i.e. the free-trade-loving Republicans – is quitting (even Mitch McConnell!) then Trump probably really does stubbornly intend to go through with at least some of these tariffs.

This of course will jack up prices for U.S. domestic consumers as ultimately they pay the import tariff (a.k.a. tax), not the Chinese, Canadian or Mexican exporters – duh MAGA voters! Worryingly for U.S. manufacturers, this could also affect the offshoring Maquiladora Program too. Maquiladoras are Mexican manufacturing plants just over the border packed with cheap low-skilled workers who process, assemble or transform raw materials into finished products for a multitude of U.S. companies. Unless there are some serious loopholes in Trump’s new tariff-happy system this could mean a 25% increase in price every time these goods crisscross the border – let alone what Mexico will impose in retribution. Thus, bloating the price of domestic – and exportable goods – even more than their imported counterparts. Smart stuff!

A far better approach would be to try and weaken BRICS unity via bilateral trade agreements with individual BRICS members like India and Brazil that offer preferential terms if they keep using the dollar instead of other currencies. Heck, he could even try and give tax breaks or discounts for dollar-denominated trade.

X COIN

Another possibility we see Trump and Co attempting might be an X Coin cryptocurrency based off Elon Musk’s X. The benefits of this – to Trump and co – are enormous personally and could even turn the tide of Greenback slippage from a national perspective as well.

While crypto is obviously already out there, and even in centralised governmental form in a few countries around the world, the majority of private cryptocurrency is de-centralised in order to stop governmental/political control. Trump and Musk might see a new happy middle ground where they can mine the best of both worlds; a centralised investor-friendly ‘secure’ facility backed by both government and corporates but which can be owned by them (and their shareholders). Trump would also be very interested in the Rishi Sunak dream of a ‘ration’ side of such a controlled currency – where he could decide who can use ‘his’ currency, and for what. Non-Trump voters need apply!

The everything app

Though Musk hasn’t gotten involved with cryptocurrency yet – aside from some idiotic fooling around with Dogecoin a few years back – and even suspending Bitcoin payments for Tesla; a change maybe in the wind. Musk has already begun transforming his Twitter replacement into an ‘everything app’ which could include a digital payment system to rival cryptocurrency wallets. Now, with a dutiful President Trump in tow, Musk has the political leverage to force banks to ‘partner’ with X to offer seamless transfers, lower fees, faster transactions and whatever the hell else he wants. Now they are in power, Musk and Trump can start tweaking whatever legislation needs adjusting and removing any adoption reticence. As President, Trump can even demand all governmental transactions – from Social Security benefits to tax returns to international trade be made in X Coin thus forcing, eventually, universal use elsewhere as well.

Twitter/X already has a massive built-in user base of somewhere between 600 million monthly active users (if you believe Elon) and 330 million (if you ask anybody else). Of these, about 130 million are American which also means they have a huge head start if they wished to expand their crypto into other countries as well. It’s an obvious easy expansion into Tesla, Starlink and any other Trump crony’s business from there.

Competition is a sin

One really big benefit of being in charge of the – currently – largest economy of the world is that you can weaponize regulation against your crypto competitors. This could take the form of passing strict anti-money laundering laws that only apply to non-centralised currencies; slap high taxes on the trading of non-compliant cryptocurrencies; and to broadcast ceaseless governmental advisory campaigns ‘warning’ an uneasy public about the inherent scams and risks associated with ‘globalist’ cryptos.

Don’t laugh, it’s our future too

At the end of the day; ‘Trump is Trump’ as grateful apologist Republicans like to say. This means he won’t change his tendency to prioritise projects that will benefit himself either directly or indirectly through dealings with his corporate allies. Trump himself doesn’t care a jot about the fate of anybody else but those within his inner circle very much do. We can expect friction from this dichotomy throughout his Administration as Trump’s inner circle try to implement policies from a conservative agenda that Trump doesn’t recognise as having any immediate benefits for himself. It will all come down to patience – of which there is always a very, very short supply around the Orange Guy.

Make no mistake, these guys have won more than just an election. Democracy is over in America and therefore, by association, in the rest of the Western world too. The only question is; how quickly will we fall into line with Trump’s insatiable desire for self-aggrandisement, profitability, privatization, and strategic advantage. It’s going to be a very interesting year or two.