“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com:
Setting sail, giving one’s future to the winds… That’s a scary thing.
But that is what makes a nation prosper.
To give markets over to winds of trade benefits both parties, including the upper and lower classes…
If you want to look at it through the eyes of class politics.
Then again, you don’t have to.
You can simply discover the winds of trade in your sails, and then let the efforts of all make everyone great again.
That being said, Trump’s about to fight the headwinds of a dropping dollar.
Zerohedge reports:
Dollar Crashes On Trump Tariff Report
“This morning, with a few short hours until Trump’s swearing in, The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is planning to issue a broad memorandum Monday that directs federal agencies to study trade policies and evaluate U.S. trade relationships with China and America’s continental neighbors – but stops short of imposing new tariffs on his first day in office, as many trading partners feared.
The Wall Street Journal reviewed a summary of the memo and spoke to Trump’s advisers about it.
A senior Trump policy adviser described the memo as an effort to lay out a vision for Trump’s trade agenda “in a measured way,” suggesting that the incoming president is, at least for now, taking a more deliberative approach to the issue that animated his political campaign.
The memo provides a blueprint for further executive action that Trump may take on trade, the adviser said.
The immediate reaction was a collapse in the dollar…
Meanwhile, as the self-proclaimed Anarcho-Capitalist, Javier Milei takes a chainsaw to the Argentinian bureaucracy, Argentina is prospering.
He did his best to reduce government spending, and streamline international trade barriers for Argentina’s import and export industry.
Argentina is one of those countries with more than enough national resources, agricultural and otherwise to receive great benefits from the trade.
Now we are seeing results…
RT reports:
Argentina posts first budget surplus in over a decade
“Argentina has recorded its first annual budget surplus in more than a decade, a year after President Javier Milei assumed office and applied shock therapy to try to stabilize the country’s economy.
The financial surplus for 2024 totaled 1.76 trillion pesos (roughly $4.5 billion), the equivalent of 0.3% of the country’s GDP, the Economy Ministry said in a statement on Friday. It was the first such result since 2010, it added.
In 2022 and 2023, Argentina’s fiscal deficit stood at 2.4% and 2.9% of GDP respectively. Inflation was at over 211% in 2023, the highest since the early 1990s, according to official data. The country also recorded a recession in 2023 and the first two quarters of 2024.
President Milei, a libertarian economist known for his controversial policies, has pushed for deep austerity measures to address Argentina’s economic crisis.
He devalued the national currency by 52%, laid off more than 33,000 public sector workers, and slashed state subsidies on transport, fuel and energy, among other measures.
“Zero deficit is a reality,” Milei said on social media. “Promises are fulfilled.”
So there are two things Argentina did to start turning their country around.
First, they reduced government spending.
Then they opened up international trade.
Can this be done for the United States?
Are zero deficits possible?
Right now, Trump is planning exactly the opposite of Argentina’s prosperity plan.
He’s running high government deficits…
And planning on imposing tariffs across the board…
Which as everyone accept him seems to now realize, would tank the dollar.
If the dollar is to regain its awe and splendour, it will be important for the new administration to realize how the winds of trade blow, and set their sails toward them.
