The Shape Of The Financial War To Maintain Global Hegemony

While I’m not competent to evaluate the financial ins and outs in current geopolitics in any sort of detail, it appears to be beyond doubt that the Trump 2.0 strategy—building on Project 2025’s call to weaponize US economic leverage to maintain its global military hegemony—is to use various financial and trade related measures to force the world to pay down America’s unsustainable debt so that the US can maintain military hegemony. No amount of fiscal austerity—if that were even conceivable in today’s America—will ever pay down America’s debt load, but the idea seems to be to squeeze the rest of the world to help us out. The inducement is continued access to US markets and a kinda promise of security. Don’t try to use those kinds of promises to pay for much of anything.

The reality is that the Anglo-Zionist Empire is massively overextended. The older Chinese and Russian empires maintained their ambitions within generally manageable limits—their “near abroads,” or relatively adjacent empty-ish regions. The Anglo-Zionist Empire has attempted to colonize the world and is predictably overextended. Like overextended empires of the past, the Anglo-Zionist Empire wants to retain its hegemony. You could perhaps frame what’s going on as a shift from the New Monetary Theory of the recent past—just keep printing more money, debt doesn’t matter—to a more fiscally “conservative” form of empire: balance the books, or at least get debt within some reasonably manageable range, by looting the vassal states.

Anyway, just keep that basic scheme in mind to piece together the puzzle in this impressionistic survey. All the wars and trade negotiations and so forth have to be viewed from this standpoint. Let’s set the stage by briefly referencing the disastrous Anglo-Zionist war on Russia—which has precipitated this crisis and is the context within which this imperial shakedown is taking place. First, the Russians—with victory apparently within view—are openly stating what has long been obvious. This has never been a war between Russia and Ukraine. It has always been an Anglo-Zionist war to subjugate Russia and loot it. Thus:

Representative of Russia to the UN Nebenzya says that Russia is fully aware that US and UK are striking its territory:

"Russia is fully aware of the direct involvement of the US and UK in strikes against its territory—from target coordinates to missile flight paths, every step is under their control"

No more pretending. And so Russia appears to be on the verge of presenting in Istanbul an ultimatum—peace on our terms. Take it or leave it. We will win in any event. Trump has adopted what looks like a highly irregular approach to getting out of this fix, which is to attempt a personal deal through a personal envoy to Putin, rather than government to government negotiations. The Russians, of course, have ample reason to distrust both the US government and Trump personally and, in any event, Trump has no leverage over Putin. I highly recommend these two videos that set all this and more out:

Moscow Ultimatum For Ukraine, West In Istanbul; Accept Terms Or Defeat; EU Dreams Black Sea Conquest

Chas Freeman: The Collapse of American Diplomacy

Meanwhile, Trump careens around the world, trying to salvage the hegemony of the Anglo-Zionist Empire. The initial stages of his shock and awe approach of unilateral demands and threats brought some response, but the world outside Europe is starting to take a more cautious approach, having more options than the Euro vassals.

So, onward.

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

Pretty hard to trade random White House statements…

Quote

Barchart @Barchart

Hedge Funds = Rekt Macro Hedge Funds are off to their worst start to a year in history

5:17 AM · May 31, 2025

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

The Golden Dome grift is causing scientists in the US to admit reality: the physics of intercepting ICBMs is just a non-starter. The same is true for even less advanced ballistic missiles.

View the appointment of Feinberg (below) in light of the overall strategy scheme. This is the type of expertise and mindset required for implementing the strategy:

Theo McDonald @tbald101

President Donald Trump has appointed Steven Feinberg as Deputy Defense Secretary.

He is the co-founder and CEO of Cerberus one of the biggest vulture funds in the world that feasted on Irish assets post-crash causing distress for tenants

Theo McDonald @tbald101

Interesting to see US private equity trying to outbid the Chinese in buying a port in Australia. PE is used as a form of statecraft in many ways. In an Irish context, Cerberus is a vulture fund which has been involved in acquiring Irish residential mortgages

Alex Recouso @alexrecouso

 The recent capital gains tax increase in the UK was expected to bring additional tax revenue.

Instead, high-net-worth individuals and families are leaving the country, leading to a 10% fall in net capital gains tax revenue.

Welcome to the Laffer curve, suckers.

So that’s all somewhat impressionistic, but here’s a more systematic presentation of what’s going on in the late imperial stage of the Anglo-Zionist Empire:

Philip Pilkington @philippilk

The late imperial looting has begun. The only rule is: “Grab everything that’s not nailed down!”

ERIVGENA @eriugenareview

The West is getting LOOTED by America. The acquisition of the @Telegraph is yet another example of this trend. Deep dive into the asset stripping of the West by the US.

As the American-led order unravels, nations, corporations, and individuals are looting what remains. Britain is no exception. ...; when there’s no future left in society, the only sane move is to loot what you can.

Looting sounds crude. These days, we prefer the soothing language of “asset restructuring” and “strategic investment.” ... what’s increasingly clear is that the U.S.-led liberal international order—the empire of open markets, open societies, and open wallets—is dying. Not suddenly, but recognisably. Not in one cataclysm, but in a thousand rational decisions.

We start at the top. The United States is looting its own empire. Washington has weaponised the dollar, overreached with sanctions, and now subsidises domestic industry through tariffs and other means. It pressures European allies to purchase American liquefied natural gas (LNG), even when it’s more expensive and carbon-intensive, undercutting Europe’s supposed climate aspirations, and gutting German industry in the process. That industrial base, once the motor of Europe, is now partially relocating to American soil, where energy is cheap and regulations are less onerous.

It is imperial preference by other means. Washington is telling allies to buy American or go hang. Corporations are following suit. Multinationals that once championed global stability now feast on the remnants of the old order. They siphon off taxpayer money through contracts that guarantee returns regardless of outcomes. See no further than the Pentagon’s cost-plus model, or the public-private patchwork of America’s infrastructure push, where lobbying, not efficiency, determines who gets paid.

The recent flurry of interest in antitrust enforcement on the political Left and the Right—targeting tech giants, healthcare, and even institutional investors—shouldn’t just be seen as a moral awakening. It’s more like a last-ditch effort by the imperial centre to stop its organs from being cannibalised. The looters are no longer just at the gates; they’re in the boardrooms. Even nations are acting accordingly.

Saudi Arabia is leveraging its position to extract as much as it can from Washington, asking for security guarantees, nuclear cooperation, and advanced weapons in exchange for tentative diplomatic gestures and vague alignment against China. Turkey plays NATO off against the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation while expanding its own sphere of influence. France, long the faithful lieutenant of NATO, is openly fantasising about strategic autonomy—an idea that sounds suspiciously like building a lifeboat as the ship is sinking.

The institutions of the old order still exist, but the loyalty they command is increasingly transactional. The international system looks less like a rules-based order and more like a liquidation sale. All of this is logical, even moral, if you believe the primary duty of a state, firm, or individual is to survive.

But it does leave behind certain casualties. ...

Note that most of the above applies to the Anglo-Zionist Empire and its vassals or client states. Many of these nations may feel they have few options but to go along with American demands—although many will be tempted to look for alternatives. The Japanese certainly are at that stage. Even a country like Poland that has been of invaluable—if poorly considered—aid in the Anglo-Zionist war on Russia may be nonplussed at what they see coming. The Poles themselves are probably the only people in the world who are surprised that they’re unlikely to receive any special consideration in return for their services. Consider that Lindsey! and the Senate are pushing for 500% tariffs on countries buying Russian oil and gas—which includes most of Europe via India. So, on the one hand the Poles are digging anti-tank trenches along their border with Kaliningrad, thinking that will protect them from Russia. Meanwhile, the US will stab them in the back, because:

Polish imports of Russian liquified natural gas continue to climb through the petrochemical industry carve-out.

On the other hand, some countries are better placed to resist the aggressions of the Anglo-Zionist Empire. Here’s an excerpt from the Diesen - Freeman video linked above. Trump’s tactic is to sow confusion while breathing threats in the expectation that the other side will give in to the compromise Trump ultimately offers. But some countries—notably Russia, China, and Iran—aren’t fooled and aren’t likely to be buffaloed. It’s a matter of survival:

GD: We see Washington strongarmming countries like Japan and also Taiwan is being strong armed, but at the same time Washington needs them for a coalition against China. So it is a bit uncertain what the grand strategy behind the whole thing is.

CF: There's no grand strategy at all. To have a strategy requires certain elements.

• First of all, you have to have clear objectives, goals that you plan to achieve.

• Second, you have to devote the resources to the achievement of those goals that makes their achievement feasible.

• And third, you have to be persistent--you can't move the goalposts around. You have to stick with it.

None of these factors now prevail. We're seeing the goalposts in negotiations moved all over the field while the negotiations are going on, so nobody on the other side is sure what the United States wants.

We now have a Japanese delegation coming again to the United States to try to negotiate a trade deal with us--or at least that's the moniker, the label, on the visit. In fact, I think the relationship with Japan is itself being renegotiated, and that is pretty important because there really is no American ally more cooperative and supportive than Japan has been. They've not joined us on the battlefield, but when an aircraft takes off from an air base in Japan the Japanese do not ask where it's going or what it's loaded up with. That's pretty accommodating. Anyway, the last time the Japanese sent a trade delegation they came to Washington, they met their counterparts, and their counterparts greeted them with: 'What have you brought us?' Tribute. Imperial tribute. And the Japanese then asked, 'What is it that you need or want?' And the American side, apparently, wasn't able to explain that coherently. So this is the problem: no strategy, no clear objectives, no persistence. The resources devoted to the objectives are entirely coercive, which does not persuade allies or friends, in particular, to be cooperative. In fact, it incentivizes them to seek alternatives to dependence or interdependence or reliance on the United States.

So this is a process that's going on. As the Singaporeans said, the United States looks like a landlord seeking rent rather than a statesman seeking to advance the interests of partners as well as his own.

GD: That's what I heard about the Japanese as well, that they were confused, because they saw the means [being employed by the US] towards this end was what [the Japanese] referred to as extortion. But even then, they were surprised that [the Americans] were willing to go to extortion, but they weren't clear what [the Americans] actually wanted from them. It's not a good way to manage a relationship. I heard something somewhat similar about Iran. I was there about 3 weeks ago and I was at the nuclear facilities there and spoke to some diplomats but, their their impression was the same. They had heard from Marco Rubio that 'you have to limit your enrichment, the grid enrichment, for your civilian nuclear program,' but then Trump comes along and says, 'No, no, no--everything has to be dismantled, even the civilian ones, because you have oil.' But even if they have sufficient oil, they still want a mix of energy. So it was a very strange thing. The whole point was, 'What does the United States actually want?' and they kept getting conflicting messages. The main concern was also that, if we make a deal such as with the JCPOA, it can go in the trash the next day. But also what do we get? If we alleviate your concerns, will you alleviate ours? But instead it's just, 'Well, we might punish you less if you do as you're told.’ But no one's actually talking about what Iran needs. What is the US diplomatic approach to Iran at the moment? Because it's not clear if this is heading towards war or an actual agreement.

CF: I think the more general issue that you raised at the outset has to be addressed: What is the objective of the United States in these negotiations over tariffs and sanctions--which is what they are? I think the foreign parties involved in these negotiations can be forgiven for concluding that their purpose is not economic but political subjugation--which is to say this is a power play, not a trade policy. The objective is to have everybody acknowledge the supreme leader as Donald Trump and the United States in its hegemonic role.

But the world is moving into what I call a multinodal framework, in which medium-sized countries, middle ranking powers, and smaller countries regain agency and freedom of maneuver. That's the first problem, that the objective does seem to be political subordination. And not surprisingly a country like Iran is not prepared to accept that, given its history. Second, when countries have agreed with the United States on an interim solution of some sort, they get no reward at all for that. Basically they give and the United States takes and they don't get a clear benefit. And this reflects the third point I would make, and that is that the Trump technique is to do something absolutely outrageous that causes a huge problem for everyone, and then after a while back off a bit so that it's just merely outrageous rather than absolutely outrageous, so that the problem has been reduced somewhat—but it's still vastly worse than where everybody began. Then he claims that's the solution. Well, this is not very much of an incentive for countries to yield elements of their sovereignty, or offer kowtow to the United States in the case of Iran.

Alexander Mercouris makes a persuasive argument that much of this confusion—and Trump’s inability to actually conclude deals with important international players—arises from a fundamental misperception. Mercouris argues that Trump was sold on the idea that he got from the likes of knuckleheads like Keith Kellogg that most of the world would be eager to come to an accommodation with the US, if pressure were applied massively and an exit was then provided—on US terms. The result, instead, has been that vassals have caved (but have been offended at no longer being treated as allies), but this approach has only stiffened the resolve of the rest to call Trump’s multiple bluffs. And that means that the hoped for quick rejiggering of the international order to shore up Anglo-Zionist hegemony is turning into a long slog, with no end in sight. Meanwhile, the debt piles up.