No Big Deal

Trump’s most important ‘deal’ — to bring federal spending and deficits under control — was never even proposed. The budget could be balanced. But the president has no interest in making that deal.

Tuesday, June 17^th, 2025

Bill Bonner, from Youghal, Ireland

‘We can easily get a deal done between Israel and Iran and end this bloody conflict.’

--Donald J Trump

One of the most surprising things about the Trump regime is how few deals the great deal maker actually does. No deal the frozen North of Greenland or Canada, or in the tropics of the Panama Canal. But who thought anything else would happen? Nothing should have happened; and nothing did happen.

And…maybe public policy is more than just trying to get a better deal.

There are the wars, for example, sponsored and funded by the US, in the Ukraine and Gaza. It would be easy for the US to stop the killing. Just cut off the flow of money and weapons to the killers. But that wouldn’t need a deal maker. That would require an act of genuine disruption — standing up to the firepower industry and mega-donors…defying the neocons and Zionists. And so, no deal; the violence continues.

There was no deal for the DOGE either. Musk found waste — in the billions. Congress and the White House could have followed up…cutting programs and budgets permanently. No deal was needed. And no great insight either. The politicians know how much the US Treasury is likely to receive in tax collections. All they need is the backbone to keep the outgo below the income. But Congress, which controls (or rather, doesn’t control) the budget, doesn’t really want to cut spending. Neither does POTUS. DOGE was just for show.

There were also the tariffs. According to Trump Team promises, the president was going to impose ‘reciprocal’ tariffs that would make the whole global trade system fair…and bring manufacturing back to the US. But after the stock market cracked, he gave up and went back to deal making. And the deals never get done, because the real deals are made between buyers and sellers, not between hack tariff negotiators. Team Trump could get out of the way and let the traders do the deals. Instead, tariffs are set, paused, modified, re-negotiated…and we end up with a moveable hodge-podge of taxes on trade (aka tariffs)…which makes it almost impossible for the real traders to do business. The Daily Mail:

Companies are warning how turmoil and confusion around Trump's trade wars is slowing the progress made in reinvigorating American factories.

The latest jobs report revealed that manufacturing jobs declined by 8,000 last month - the most this year so far.

Anxiety is high in the Midwest, which remains home to the largest concentration of US manufacturing jobs — despite losing tens of thousands of workers to offshoring in the early 2000s.

'Overall, it is going to be a drag on the US economy,' Gus Faucher, chief economist for PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh, told Bloomberg.

The fake ‘deal-making’ also encourages foreigners to make deals of their own. The New York Times:

Trump Is Pushing Allies Away and Closer to Each Other

America’s closest allies are increasingly turning to each other to advance their interests, deepening their ties as the Trump administration challenges them with tariffs and other measures that are upending trade, diplomacy and defense.

Concerned by shifting U.S. priorities under President Trump, some of America’s traditional partners on the world stage have spent the turbulent months since Mr. Trump’s January inauguration focusing on building up their direct relationships, flexing diplomatic muscles and leaving the United States aside.

But Trump’s most important ‘deal’ — to bring federal spending and deficits under control — was never even proposed. There again, the fault lies not in the president’s deal-making skills. The budget could be balanced. But the president has no interest in making that deal. Because that deal means taking short term pain in exchange for a long-term benefit. That’s not the way politics, or Donald J. Trump, work. So, the deficits keep coming.

And now…another war…another opportunity for fake deal making! It is a war of geo-political hygiene, say its sponsors (the US and Israel)…designed to immunize the Mideast against a nuclear-armed Iran. But everybody knows Iran poses no real nuclear threat. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard:

‘We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.’

Even if Iran had a nuclear bomb (which it doesn’t) imagine what would happen if it dared to use it. Israel, with hundreds of nukes, would obliterate it. That’s why Iran agreed to give up its nuke program…and submit to regular inspections — not because its leaders are pure-hearted saints, but because nuclear weapons would do them no good.

That was a real deal. Iran dumped the expense of a useless nuclear weapons program; Israel no longer had to worry about it.

And now, the US could stop the killing and destruction easily. It could stop supporting it. But it is a war begun on false premises. Fake deal-making won’t stop it. Instead, the whole world tilts toward violence.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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Market Note, by Tom Dyson

The Feds are coming for our savings. One strategy they’ll use is inflation and debasement. So we’re investing in scarcity…gold, silver, platinum, Bitcoin, cargo ships, oil production…essential stuff the Federal Reserve (which is meeting today and tomorrow) cannot print.

This chart shows investment in oil supply, adjusted for inflation. Pumping a hundred million barrels of oil from out of the ground – each day – is hard work and takes a lot of money. But they aren’t investing enough to sustain it.

This chart suggests that oil supply is about to get a lot scarcer. Maybe not immediately, but soon. US oil production growth is already peaking, for example. Makes you wonder, could oil be the more likely reason they’re trying to topple Iran’s government?