Yves here. Satyajit Das takes on the serious task of trying to explain the unexplainable: what Trump is up to, or perhaps more accurately, what Trump thinks he is up to.
By Satyajit Das, a former banker and author of numerous technical works on derivatives and several general titles: Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006 and 2010), Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk (2011) and A Banquet of Consequence – Reloaded (2016 and 2021). His latest book is on ecotourism –Wild Quests: Journeys into Ecotourism and the Future for Animals (2024). This is an amended version of a piece first published on 12 July 2025 in the New Indian Express print edition
Like Kremlinologists who during the cold war studied Soviet leader’s public statements, media reports, companions and body language, a similar industry is developing around the US Administration seeking to infer what will happen next! In fact, President Trump’s agenda does not require complex economic or political theorising as they revolve around three simple objectives.
The first, power. The President want to increase his own authority and control. Part of that is to force others to prostrate themselves and beg. The reciprocal tariffs are designed, in the President’s own terms to force countries to make “phenomenal offers” to buy favourable treatment. NATO Head Mark Rutte’s craven flattery including referring to Trump as “daddy” set the standard for the behaviour expected.
The second, wealth. The President associates intelligence with wealth – if you’re so smart how come you’re not rich! Many current policies are designed to enrich the President and his funders. Examples include the first family’s own media and crypto assets, Blackstone’s pending acquisition of two Panamanian ports and administration aligned firms interest in TikTok’s US interests. The parallel is 1990s Russia where a small group of oligarchs become wealthy by looting state assets as the Soviet empire disintegrated.
The third, Thomas Carlyle’s great man of history theory. President Trump sees himself as a “big man” in African leadership terms, possessing superior intellect and heroic courage, whose manifest destiny is to change America and the world. This is allied to nostalgia and a worldview firmly rooted in the 1980s.
The controversial tariffs are only one element of the strategy. Another is to reorder the international monetary system. Central to this will be restructuring US public debt. The Miran proposal would entail a forced exchange of US treasuries for long dated (100-year or perpetual), low or zero interest securities. Alternatively foreign holders of US government bonds can place them in escrow or pay a fee. Control over capital movements into and out of the US are possible.
Another element is extracting tributes and territories. The proposed minerals and energy agreement with Ukraine is a barely disguised attempt to extract payment for services provided. A similar deal with the Congo has also been negotiated. US allies must choose between increasing defence spending, benefitting US armament manufacturers who dominate supply, or paying for American protection. A demand for a stake in semi-conductor maker TSMC in return for support for Taiwan is not fanciful.
Territorial claims (over Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and the Gaza Riviera) alongside threats or actual military actions, such as those in Iran, in the name of national and international security seek to expand US dominion. After all, Alexander became great by conquering much of the then known world.
The strategy may not be workable as it neglects the likely response of affected parties and geo-political rivals.
Greek letters, equations and incorrect citations of academic articles cannot disguise the tariff plan’s economic shortcomings. A trade war is likely as many trading partners will not negotiate with an increasingly erratic and untrustworthy America. As the US has significant surpluses on the trade of services such as technology, other countries may place damaging tariffs or outright bans on US services exports.
In the short run, as many items imported into the US cannot be substituted the effect will be either higher prices or shortages, including of certain foods, medicines and other essential items. The belief that overseas firms will simply absorb the tariffs is wishful thinking. In 2016, prices of goods imported into the US did not rise because of the stronger dollar but the Administration has stated it now wants a weaker currency. President Trump has threatened to punish auto manufacturers if they pass on the increased cost of inputs merely transferring the cost from consumers to businesses.
In the longer run, it may be possible to replace some imports with local production but it would be at a much higher price and with reduced choice. There is little prospect of restoring jobs in low-value added industries. Re-shoring high-end manufacturing will be difficult in practice due to the lack of requisite skills. It will also not create the expected jobs as these industries are typically highly automated. Tariff revenues will end up being redirected as subsidies to many affected industries.
The real benefits of the tariffs may be to US trading partners. Reduced sales into the US will means producers are forced to cut prices as they divert stock to other markets. A long term benefit will be reduced dependence on Americans who like to buy things!
Plans to interfere with free capital flows risks the dominant role of the dollar, which is immeasurably more important than manufacturing in America’s dominant economic position.
Restructuring US debt as suggested would constitute a technical default. It would ‘Make-America-Greece-Again’. Such a proposal and concern about the negative trends in US governance and institutions will accelerate capital flight making it more difficult to finance America’s budget and trade deficit. It risks permanent damage to US capital markets. Which because of low domestic savings, predominantly recycles foreign funds. Up to 70 percent of all funds that flow through the US market are from overseas investors channelled through American banks and asset managers. A significant portion is likely to be re-routed over time.
Attempts to extract tribute and expand territories will lead to conflict and further isolate the US. If 911 is repeated, which is not beyond the realms of possibility, America will find itself alone with few allies.
The administration’s path, which ignores economics and history, is indeterminate. The planning and execution have been haphazard. But as Winston Churchill, to whom Trump has compared himself, observed: “The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseen.”
Churchill who’s policies forfeited the British Empire (despite his Trumpian, though literary self promotion).
He’s right about this, though. I tracked down the extended quote and quite liked it, though I think it applies to many other contemporaries at least as much as Trump:
Thanks for posting this full quote. Mike Tyson had a similar but shorter statement: ““Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time,” I am sure Trump could not write either with or w/o AI help; he lacks the relevant experience.
Moltke the Elder’s observation about this has been shortened over the years to the relatively pithy, “no plan survives contact with the enemy” …
There is even shorter version, that says: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
Similar military wisdom is compiled in Murphy’s Laws of Combat Operations.
https://www.itstactical.com/intellicom/mindset/murphys-laws-of-combat-operations/
edit: Only after posting this, have I realized how slow am I at typing, and not skillful at refreshing. :)
If 911 is repeated..?
If USA keeps making installment payments, eventually it’ll be delivered.
Another element [in Team Trump’s plan] is extracting tributes and territories. The proposed minerals and energy agreement with Ukraine is a barely disguised attempt to extract payment for services provided.
That’s another way to try to skin the cat; here’s a quick review of a few of the many western financial interests at work as they continue their efforts to loot Ukraine after our successful neocon-sponsered coup:
Ukraine’s Corporate Carve-Up Collapses?
On July 5th, Bloomberg reported that a BlackRock-administered multibillion-dollar fund for Kiev’s reconstruction, due to be unveiled at a dedicated Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome July 10th/11th, had been placed on hold at the start of 2025 “due to a lack of interest” among institutional, private, and state financiers. The summit is over, lack of investor enthusiasm persists, and “the project’s future is now uncertain.” It’s just the latest confirmation the West’s long-running mission to carve up Ukraine for profit verges on total disintegration.
The article shows that Western ROI in Ukraine is what soldiers are dying for today, while poor Canada and Greenland have the misfortune of not having Russia as a neighbor– they’ll be taken in a week!
I think “big man” and “great man” are two different men. The former is a measure of one’s actual power in a society, and Trump does have that, though he may overestimate it (hard to say, though, as this power is also determined by the willingness or unwillingness of others to bend). The latter is the man of destiny, a subjective (self-)assessment of one’s historical importance. Arguably Trump is that in the sense that he is making some very consequential decisions, even if the consequences may not be what he and his supporters hope for.
Does the “big man” take the 10% like the “big guy”?
I appreciate the distinction you make: Trump does have a chance of being a modern day Napoleon, a “great man,” should he continue the march on Russia– although either China or Iran would work as substitutes for this.
That’s the weakness of the “great man” meme – it lets us pretend the “great man” is the sole agent making changes and ignore all the supporting cast (us included). In this case, continuing the march on Russia (or China or Iran) is more a sign of weakness, or capriciousness, in that the agent driving the change is one faction or another of the deep state (or Bibi, in the case of Iran) manoeuvring him into actions he likely considers a distraction. Trump wants to look like a winner, without having to actually make the effort to win, because then his glaring incompetence would be fully on display.
Good point– Greenland it is then.
I must admit to being perplexed by our ‘Fearless Leader.’ He started out as a promised Cloth Coat Republican and ended up as an Institutionalized Robber Baron.
As the saying puts it: They would be dangerous if they know what they were doing.
The inception of DOGE was a truly revolutionary move, in more ways than one.
So it’s power, wealth and ego–your basic sociopath. Undoubtedly this is why the Epstein matter is resonating. Because regardless of what sexual misdeeds he may have performed Trump, by his own admission, was friends with that repulsive predator for fifteen years. And going by the increasingly available evidence he must have know about Epstein’s proclivities.
In his first go round after 2016 Trump seemed to be exposing the hypocrisy of our ruling class in general. After all in many ways Obama and Hillary deserved to be mocked. In his current gig–his mental defenses weakening–he’s exposing himself and it’s an ugly picture indeed. Reading today’s ICE story you ask what is to be gained by violating so many rules. The Dems would say it’s a prelude to fascism but perhaps it’s much simpler matter of self-validation for Trump and Noem and his other minions. Proud to be an ***hole. Or as Leona Helmsley said, “only the little people pay taxes.” Real power is breaking the law and getting away with it, perhaps in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
Trump is a creature of the hyper-inflation of the 1970’s.
It appears to me that his only goals are to inflate the value of his family’s assets — still heavily weighted toward real estate — and to avoid income and estate taxes on the gains.
Everything else is purely an id tantrum from a boy whose mother never loved him.
I am convinced one of his top objectives is staying out of prison.
That sounds more like Netanyahu, or South Korean polticians. :)
I think that Trump has signed up for American Hegemony for the rest of the 21st century. Whether he is talking about taking over countries like Canada and Greenland, bombing countries that do not obey him, putting on tariffs on countries for the privilege of trading with the US or trying to force the countries of the world to move all their factories to the US or else, it is all about trying to establish American dominance. And it is that idea which resolves the why of so many of his actions.
I see on Twitter his various secretaries use the word dominance often. Like, “energy dominance” and in contexts that don’t seem to call for the concept of dominance, but there it is. Keeping the boss happy.
Full Spectrum Dominance just won’t go away. It has become part of a sad and pathetic display of hubris and ignorance.
Yep, I see “technology dominance” and “AI dominance” all too often. It seems to resonate with recent online groups that stress “traditional” male dominance. Hegseth likes to say he’s brought back “warrior mentality” to the armed forces. I am sad for my grandchildren that they must grow up in these times.
brought back “warrior mentality” to the armed forces.
If so, he’s just rewarming the tired “warrior mentality” push from the end of the cold war late ’80s / early ’90s.
Which brought such hits as
– wearing BDUs to desk jobs. (in case the sneaky bad guys were hiding behind the file cabinets? who knows? we didn’t complain because it meant less ironing and wearing PJs to work….)
– the start of the F-35 boondoggle
– two decades of failed Army revolutions in warfighting
– a decade of non-stop failures in space system development
Not surprising when your management philosophy is to take ‘warriors’ who have been non-stop conditioned to ‘follow the checklist’ no matter what into managing very complex, one-of-a-kind systems with lots of moving parts. I saw this in the space business where they moved the entire missile career field who didn’t have missiles anymore post-SALT, but assume it was more or less the same elsewhere, judging from results.
And here I thought that military psychology had conclusively demonstrated that the “warrior” ethos, rooted as it has always been in aristocratic displays of individual prowess, is ill-suited to the impersonal discipline and cold professionalism necessary for mass industrial warfare.
Hegseth’s ascension implies that the US is dangerously close to the stage where its military resembles 14th century French armored nobility parading about the field unaware of the fate about to be unleashed upon them by a rabble of yeoman archers on yonder hill …
I think it’s even worse than what Das outlines. The emperor has no marbles, and the court sycophants pretend not to notice. (not to mention he is genocidal, and probably a rapist and pedophile)
In recent weeks I have heard analysts like John Helmer, Andrei Martyanov, Col. Wilkerson, Michael Hudson, Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson, Richard Wolff, and others using words like “idiot”, “madman”, “moron”, “unhinged” etc. to describe the current freak who sits in the WH. I had thought the Genocide Joe regime reached Peak Kakistocracy, but it just gets worser and worser dunnit?
Combine a mentally-ill emperor with deeply corrupt institutions of power (both so-called public and private) and we have a recipe for worsening disaster. The constitution and legislation is ignored by the exec branch as well as Congress, and SCOTUS makes a flagrant mockery of the law. It is perverse, sickening and frightening. And this dude has the “nuclear football”?
I just sent in the application and $130 check to renew my passport, we’ll see how long it takes to be processed. Supposedly it takes 4-6 weeks. It’s time to GTFO.
Trump’s agenda can be summarized as “ME” and I suspect Covid has a role in how over the top his behavior has become.
You might have noticed that Trump, as well as his libertarian, neocon, and maga supporters, use the word “freedom” a lot more than they use the word “democracy.” In contrast, the basic liberal democrat uses “democracy” more often and often in the context of “saving our democracy.”
For Trump and wealthy supporters, freedom means a country and world where nothing interferes with them, not the DOJ, IRS, media, regulation, or any international organization. Freedom is Trump’s agenda but it means he et al., can do whatever they want because by definition, their money, power, and so-called political acumen, gives them the right to do whatever they want.
“…libertarian, neocon, and maga supporters, use the word “freedom” a lot more than they use the word democracy.”
That’s because they believe they should have the right to do whatever the F they want to and don’t care about any assemblance of a community that comes together to make community choices.
Even the Christian National wing of Trump’s support doesn’t want anyone to have the right to choose differently from the [CN] church even though they espouse living in a “Christian” community.
My ancestry is massively waited towards early-colonial and colonial American Rev War families and I am convinced they would be aghast at what we are seeing today (and even in the last 20 years) with elite hubris and expectations of conformity to the status quo.
And Trump supports the Frank Sinatra Doctrine; I do it my way.
Trump is no different from the average American CEO. He is a psychopath and a narcissist who wants to appear smarter than he actually is. Most importantly, he prioritizes his own interests over those of the organization he represents.
Trump is the “greatest” president since Richard Nixon…
Agreed!
Now he is assisted by the fact that the bar is really quite low no matter how you measure presidential greatness, unless your measure is least bad, but I don’t see how that could qualify as a measure of greatness – that’s an oxymoron measure.
With Superman in the theaters these days I think a good way to see Trumps “Greatest”-ness is to compare him to Teddy Roosevelt – but clearly from a POST NIXON era!
Teddy’s administration ran rough shot over all of the establishments plans and expectations. His ego massively pushed forward imperialism into the establishments thinking. America as a world power came into being under Teddy and he was going to make that clear and use that power.
So totally sounds and feels like the Trump administrations (and they’ve taken an overdose of steroids too), but Trump is not Teddy even though he thinks he should be on Mt Rushmore next to him. Trump is JUST the EGO ONLY equivalent of Teddy.
Trump is struggling to cover the fact that he can’t live up to his working class promises to bay for his “Big Beautiful Bill”.
But Teddy brought the average American the reverse of what Trump has given us non-Billionaires… FDA, National Parks & US Forest Service, Implementation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Bureau if Corp (future FTC), Hepburn Act (added powers to the ICC) and I’m sure more.
And what did Trump give use in exchange for his “Big Beautiful Bill”…? Cuts to most of the above and cuts to anything most working Americans could benefit from. The exception is a massive increase in the police state, primarily via a MASSIVE increase in ICE and a DoD that is now over $1T.
Yes he is the greatest presidential failure to date for the average American, but the greatest grift & gift President to the 1%! Ronald Reagan would envy his achievement.
What was the title of that 2018 book by Rick Wilson ?
“Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever”
Back in the 90’s I was in circles where discussion was around “we should invade Canada for their freshwater”, and not in jest. At the time I would scoff at the absurdity, roll my eyes. However, as climate change became undeniable, and as the US started experiencing droughts and water shortages, declining water tables, it has seemed less and less ridiculous.
Also, Greenland is not strategic for military reasons, but more likely in the sense it’s where you want to move a population when climate change renders your own country no longer habitable, it will be one of the cooler spots on the planet.
I’ve asked this elsewhere – under what circumstances would you want to impose tariffs on most of the world if you know it’s likely to damage or wreck your own economy, disrupt global trade, isolate your country? It seems to me you might do so fi you wish to distract or divert attention from something else.
Trump is just an empty vessel, it’s the people around him driving him. We should be asking what the planners, advisors and various agencies are doing, thinking and planning.
For example, the use of ICE and the setting up of concentration camps is likely intended for something other than immigrants.
I’m not sure that the US needs to invade Canada for its water — the border runs right down the middle of most of the Great Lakes (you own Lake Michigan outright).
So all you really have to do is break whatever agreements may be in place regarding taking water out of the basin.