Gold Back Above $5,000, Oil Breakout, Dollar Trouble Ahead

Summary

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The Peter Schiff Show Podcast

Episode: Gold Back Above $5,000, Oil Breakout, Dollar Trouble Ahead
Host: Peter Schiff
Date: February 20, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Peter Schiff dives into the surging price of gold, a breakout in oil prices, and the potential troubles looming for the U.S. dollar. Schiff provides his characteristic candid and often contrarian take on recent market moves, government policy under Trump’s presidency, persistent fiscal and trade deficits, and the political rhetoric versus economic reality. He also explores the implications of recent changes at the FDA and offers a deep critique of U.S. economic policymaking, especially around tariffs, government spending, and regulation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Gold’s Surge Above $5,000 and Oil’s Breakout

• Gold as Support at $5,000:
  Schiff reiterates gold’s resilience:

  “Any dip below 5,000, you just gotta buy it because 5,000 is really the support. Not that we can't go below 5,000, but we don't go below it by very much and we don't stay below it for very long.” (02:45)

• Silver Trends: Silver at $78.50 and climbing.
• Oil Price Rally:
  Oil hits a six-month high above $66.50/barrel, a 21% increase since mid-December.

  “Oil stocks are signaling rising oil prices because oil is still relatively cheap at 66 and a half dollars. The reason oil stocks are moving up while oil is still cheap is because investors have a good sense that oil's not going to stay cheap.” (03:30)

• Election Year Forecast: Schiff predicts oil could surpass $80 or even $100 by the midterm elections, with higher gas prices likely weighing on Trump and Republicans at the polls.

Gas Prices, Trump’s Inflation Claims, and the Coming Dollar Weakness

• Political Spin on Gas Prices:
  Critiques Trump’s repeated claims about “cheap gas” and contextualizes how energy prices alone don’t control overall inflation.
• Underlying Forces: Schiff identifies the falling dollar and persistent deficit spending as driving factors behind rising prices.

U.S. National Debt, Deficits, and Political Rhetoric

• Debt Expansion Under Trump:
  U.S. national debt surpasses $38.7 trillion—up $2.6 trillion since Trump took office in January 2025.
• Broken Promises and Bipartisan Hypocrisy:

  “The Republicans rode into office on a platform that Biden's deficit spending was the problem... Yet Trump, what, 47 is spending more money than Trump 45.” (06:10)

• Deficit Spending’s Impact on Inflation:
  Fiscal irresponsibility is bipartisan, and deficit spending will continue to fuel inflation regardless of the administration.

Tax Cuts and Consumption, Not Growth

• Consumption vs. Investment:
  Schiff scoffs at the notion that recent Trump tax cuts are supply-side:

  “You don't grow the economy by letting waiters keep more of their money. They just spend it.” (09:32)

• Tariffs and Government Spending:
  Debunks Trump’s argument that prosperity in the late 1800s was thanks to tariffs – the real cause was a small government relative to GDP.

  “It wasn't the tariffs that made us rich. It was the fact that government was so small that all we needed were tariffs to pay for it.” (10:42)

• Tariffs Today: Americans, not foreigners, pay U.S. tariffs – a point supported by a New York Fed study.

  “…the study showed that 90% of Trump's tariffs are being paid for by Americans.” (28:54)

Twin Deficits and the Looming Dollar Crisis

• No Political Will to Cut Spending:
  Elon Musk’s short-lived push as “co-president” for government efficiency is used as an illustration of systemic failure to rein in spending.

  “If the Republican Party, the party that doesn't like government and doesn't like government spending, won't reduce the deficit and won't cut spending, clearly the Democratic Party isn't gonna do it.” (17:30)

• Central Banks Opting for Gold:
  As confidence in U.S. fiscal policy wanes, global central banks are accumulating gold and dropping dollars.

Trade Deficits: Data vs. Political Claims

• Trade Deficit Worsening:
  December’s trade deficit: $70.3 billion forecasted at $55.8 billion; goods deficit at $99.3 billion.
  • Imports up, exports down, contradicting Trump’s narrative that tariffs would solve the deficit.

  “Imports are going up and exports are going down. Now why is that?” (21:30)

• Tariffs Backfiring:
  Imports becoming more expensive; most tariffed products aren’t manufactured in the U.S. in meaningful quantities.

Currency Depreciation and Economic Feedback Loops

• Short-Term Effect of a Weaker Dollar:
  In the near term, a falling dollar worsens trade deficits by making imports pricier.

  “In the short run, it's actually the opposite. When the dollar goes down, all the stuff that we need to import but can't produce ourselves becomes more expensive. And so our imports get more expensive, and so our trade deficit goes up…” (34:23)

• Twin Deficits Pressure Dollar, Interest Rates, Economy:
  Growing fiscal and trade deficits trigger a vicious cycle of declining dollar, rising rates, and economic drag.

Housing Market Woes

• Pending Home Sales Hit Record Lows:
  Latest home sale index at 70.9—an all-time low that even outdoes post-2008 collapse readings.

  “Why is it that homes aren't selling? Because they're too expensive. That's why. The prices are too high. People can't afford them.” (42:39)

• Artificially Supported High Prices:
  Trump administration’s policies attempt to keep mortgage rates low via GSEs and Fed intervention, in an effort to prop up home values and maintain the “wealth illusion” of homeowners.
  • Schiff warns this only postpones the inevitable reckoning for inflated prices.

Critiquing the FDA: A “Step in the Right Direction”

• Reduced FDA Testing Requirements:
  Praises Trump administration for reducing drug approval studies from two to one, declaring it “a major improvement” (47:05), but argues it doesn’t go far enough.
• Historical Perspective:
  Reminisces about a time when there was no FDA and the U.S. market operated on basic standards of safety—he advocates for a strong return to free-market determination in pharmaceuticals.

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On Gold and Dollar Sentiment:

  “We're going to 6,000 before the year's over. Maybe quite a bit higher than that. But at least six I'd say would be my minimum target.” (57:38)

• On Tariffs:

  “If the Republican Party...won't reduce the deficit and won't cut spending, clearly the Democratic Party isn't gonna do it...The world has finally come to this conclusion, and that is why we're getting rid of the dollar. That's why these central banks are selling dollars and buying gold…” (17:30)

• On Government Inefficiency:

  “Efficiencies are only something that you find in a free market in private companies...In the government, maybe it's actually the opposite. If you're inefficient, you get rewarded.” (16:20)

• On Housing:

  “The longer you keep prices artificially high, the more damage you do to the economy. And there's a lot of damage that's been done and there's a lot of damage in the housing market. Prices need to come down and they will come down one way or another.” (45:32)

• On the FDA and Market Solutions:

  “We need a lot less (government). We can't just tinker around the edges. We have to dismantle this entire thing.” (56:56)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Time | Segment | |--------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 00:26 | Intro and announcement of gold above $5,000 | | 01:30 | Oil price surge and significance | | 04:44 | Political implications of rising oil/gas prices | | 05:59 | U.S. national debt and deficit spending critique | | 09:55 | Refuting tariff-based economic arguments | | 15:18 | Why dollar weakness is inevitable | | 17:30 | Fiscal irresponsibility: Musk and the GOP retreat | | 20:49 | Trade deficit worsens, Trump’s claims challenged | | 28:54 | Evidence Americans pay Trump’s tariffs (NY Fed) | | 31:55 | Tariffs’ impact on business and exports | | 34:23 | Weaker dollar backfires on trade balance | | 36:42 | Record low housing data, unsustainable prices | | 42:39 | Home price correction ahead; policy critique | | 47:05 | FDA reforms and cost of drug development | | 54:53 | Calls for radical downsizing of FDA/government | | 57:38 | End-of-show investment recommendations |

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Conclusion & Actionable Insights

• Buy Gold: Schiff maintains that dips below $5,000 are buying opportunities, with higher targets in sight.
• Be Wary of U.S. Fiscal Policy: Both political parties are perpetuating deficits—expect continued inflation and dollar depreciation.
• Tariffs Hurt Consumers: The current tariff regime is inflationary for U.S. consumers and fails to reduce the trade deficit.
• Asset Allocation: Preference for foreign markets over U.S. stocks; anticipate continued outbound flow of capital.
• Policy Reform: Calls for far deeper reductions in government regulation and spending, particularly in healthcare/pharma.

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This summary encapsulates Peter Schiff’s central arguments, market outlook, and political criticisms, while providing key quotes and a navigable structure for listeners who want to grasp the episode’s content without listening in full.

Transcript

[A]

You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you're up half a million in soybeans, and the next, boom. Your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley.

[B]

Are you with me?

[A]

The revolution starts now. Starts now. We have to pass the bill so

[B]

that you can find out what is in it. Turn those machines back on.

[A]

You are about to enter the Peter Schiff show me the fire.

[B]

If we lose freedom here, there's no

[A]

place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. The Peter Schiff show is on. I don't know when they decided that they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness. Your money, your stories, your freedom. The Peter Schiff Show. Well, it has been a long day for me. In fact, I just finished, I guess, a couple of hours with the guys from the Coffee. Coffee Hour podcast. They were just here in my studio. They're traveling. They came here from Las Vegas, they interviewed Logan Paul, who lives around the corner, and then they, they came down here and interviewed me. So no sooner did I end the Coffee Hour podcast that I'm now starting my own. So if I, if I'm, if I seem a little tired, that's why I've been, I've been going all day and, and here it is, you know, 9 o' clock after 9 o' clock at night in Puerto Rico. I wanna start off first of all mentioning gold. We are back above $5,000 in gold. Last time I did the podcast on Tuesday, we were back below. In fact, we were below 4,900. We got to like 4,880. But what I've been saying is that any dip below 5,000, you just gotta buy it because 5,000 is really the support. Not that we can't go below 5,000, but that we don't go below it by very much and we don't stay below it for very long because there's a lot of accumulation going on in, in gold. Silver is about 78 and a half. Both gold and silver were higher on the day. But I think more significant than what's going on in the gold market is what's going on in the black gold market. Talking about Texas T oil. Oil hit a new six month high today. It's trading above 66 and a half dollars a barrel. We're now up about 21% from where we were at the lows mid December. So less than two months, 21%. Now, one of the main things that President Trump has been holding out as an Example of why he's beaten inflation is gas prices. He keeps talking about cheap gas, $99 gas. Not really sure where that station is that's selling the President Gas for $1.99, but apparently there's one there, although, I don't know. I mean, just because the President says it doesn't mean it's true. But that's what he's been talking about. And yes, oil prices have been down. Gas prices have been down. Now a lot of other prices have been up, despite the fact that energy prices have come down. But as I've been stressing on the podcast, they've bottomed. That's why oil stocks, almost all the oil stocks I own and that we own for our clients hit new 52 week highs today. Oil stocks are signaling rising oil prices because oil is still relatively cheap at 66 and a half dollars. The reason oil stocks are moving up while oil is still cheap is because investors have a good sense that oil's not going to stay cheap. I think the strength in the oil stocks is signaling strength to come in oil. And in fact, I think that prices are going to continue to rise. I think that by the midterm elections in November, oil will be at least $80 a barrel, maybe closer to 100. Again, ultimately, we're going a lot higher than that.

[B]

Now, I don't know.

[A]

Trump might try to do what he

[B]

can to try to get the Saudis to kick up the pumps, but it's gonna be a problem for the Republicans at the midterms because oil prices, I believe, or gas prices at the pump

[A]

will be higher

[B]

on election day in 2026 than they were on election day in 2024 and higher than inauguration day in 2025. Meaning that Trump will have delivered higher, not lower, gas prices by the time anybody gets to express an opinion on the Trump economy. And that again, is going to be a big problem because drill, baby, drill didn't really pan out. Gas is going to be higher, not, not lower. And one of the reasons for the increase in oil prices yet to come I believe is going to be the weakness in the dollar. I think the dollar is about to

[A]

get a lot weaker.

[B]

And there's two examples of that that I want to discuss.

[A]

The first one being the US national debt, which now passed $38.7 trillion. We're up 2.6 trillion since Trump took the oath of office. He's barely been president for more than a year. He started in January 2025, and this is February 2026. So about a Year in office, and he's already run up 2.6 trillion in debt. Now, remember, the Republicans rode into office on a platform that Biden's deficit spending was the problem. That the reason we had the big spike in inflation was because of all the spending under the Biden administration, which was partially true, but it was also a result of all the spending under the Trump administration. But forget about that, Right? They didn't want to focus on the deficit spending under Trump. They just wanted to focus on the deficit spending under Biden. Well, the problem is the deficit spending is continuing under Trump 2.0. Yet Trump, what, 40, 47 is spending more money than Trump 45. And ultimately, he's going to run up more debt in his second term than Biden did in his only term. And if the Republicans were correct that we had high inflation under Biden because of deficit spending under Biden, well, why would we have anything different under Trump? If we're going to continue to have deficit spending under Trump, then why would inflation not also go up? And it's amazing. You've got all these Republicans out there, these cheerleaders for the president, talking about how there's no inflation, but the same guys are blaming the Biden spending on the inflation under Biden. Well, why is the Trump spending not gonna have a similar effect, especially when he's ultimately gonna be spending more than Biden did? And of course, the bigger problem that Trump now has is the ticking time bomb of the maturing national debt and all that debt having to be rolled over at these higher interest rates. So the deficit is going to start to spiral out of control even faster under Trump than it did under Biden. Plus, Trump did cut taxes, and those tax cuts reduce government revenue. Yes, they're offset by the tariffs. Maybe the Supreme Court will strike them

[B]

down and the tariff revenue will stop

[A]

flowing or there'll be less of it. But even if the tariff revenue stays, it's not enough to offset no tax on tips, no taps on overtime, no

[B]

tax on Social Security.

[A]

You know, whatever other tax cuts we have that we didn't have under Biden. And again, these tax cuts are not growing the economy.

[B]

You don't grow the economy by letting

[A]

waiters keep more of their money. They just spend it. Now, I don't begrudge the fact that

[B]

waiters have more money to spend.

[A]

I mean, I wish everybody had more

[B]

money to spend because I wish the

[A]

government didn't have all these taxes. We shouldn't have the income tax. We shouldn't have the payroll tax. Donald Trump Talks a lot, or at

[B]

least he did when he was running for office, about the good old days of the 1880s and 1890s when America was its wealthiest, certainly in relation to the rest of the world.

[A]

Now, of course, Donald Trump attributed our great wealth in 1880 and 1890 to

[B]

the fact that we were running on tariffs and we had these high tariffs. And we did, you know, 20, 30% tariffs. You know, I forget exact percentages. They varied, but we had tariffs.

[A]

And Donald Trump makes the illogical conclusion

[B]

that because we were rich in 1880 and 1890 and we also had tariffs in 1880 and 1890, that it was the tariffs that made us rich.

[A]

It wasn't.

[B]

It was the fact that government was

[A]

so small that all we needed were

[B]

tariffs to pay for it. Back then, governments spent about 2 to 2.5% of GDP.

[A]

Now government spends 10 times that much. So we have a government that 10 times as big.

[B]

That's why we're not as wealthy. We made the government big, and so

[A]

the economy got smaller.

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The government got rich by bleeding the country dry. So the way to go back to the prosperity that we were able to enjoy back then is not to introduce tariffs.

[A]

That's just gonna make our current situation worse.

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What we need to do is roll back government.

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We need massive cuts to government spending

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so that we can have the type of prosperity that we had back then because we didn't have to support this massive, unproductive government. In fact, not only is the government unproductive, it saps the productivity from everybody who is. So it's not just a waste, it actually undermines the productive efforts of everybody

[A]

else having all this government.

[B]

So that is the reason that we don't have the type of economic growth that we had back then. It's not because we had tariffs then. It's because government was so small that we could run it on tariffs. And if we could go back to that, I'm perfectly fine with tariffs, but it also means understanding who pays the tariffs. The Americans pay the tariffs. We pay the tariffs because that's how we pay for government. Foreigners aren't going to pay our tariffs. We pay our tariffs anyway. We got a quick commercial break. I got a lot more to discuss, so stick around. We're coming right back.

[A]

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[B]

Right?

[A]

The people that are living off of Social Security, they're going to spend whatever they get. And so if they get if they don't pay the tax, then they're going to have more to spend. So all of this spending is going to push up prices and oil prices, but what's going to affect it is going to be the dollar. And I think the dollar is getting ready for a major decline. One reason is the skyrocketing deficits. And you know, the fact is we had kind of one chance to show the world that maybe we were going to do something about the debt. Because Donald Trump ran on a campaign of not only cutting government spending but, you know, but reducing the debt, but doing it through spending cuts. Cuz remember, Elon Musk was supposed to be like a co president, almost like if a vote for Trump was a vote for Musk, he was going to be part of the administration. He was going to be leading the Department of Government Efficiency doge, which was really an oxymoron because government by definition can never be efficient. Efficiencies are only something that you find in a free market in private companies, because private companies are incentivized to be efficient. Because if I'm spending my own money, then whatever I don't spend, I get to keep. Plus also if I am running a

[B]

private business, I have competition. If I just overspend, I'm not going to be able to undercut my competitors. If they are frugal and I'm not, they're going to beat me to the customer. They're going to be able to offer a lower price. So there are all sorts of free market incentives to be efficient. There's rewards if you are efficient and you're punished if you're not in the government. Maybe it's actually the opposite. If you're inefficient, you get rewarded, you get more money, you get more power, you get more people assigned to your department. It's complete opposite. So you're never going to get efficiencies out of government. That's why government needs to be as small as possible and do as little as possible. Because whatever the government does, it's going to cost a lot and it's not going to be very good. You're going to get high costs and you're going to get low quality. If you want high quality and low cost, well then you got to get it from the private sector. Anything you get from the private sector is going to be better and cheaper than anything you get for the government. The problem is a lot of people think that they're getting government stuff for free. That's why they want it. People don't realize how expensive all this government Free stuff is if you have to pay for stuff in the private sector, it's a lot cheaper. You get better stuff for less money. When the government provides you with this stuff and you pay for it through taxes or inflation, you. You pay more and you get less. But the point I tried to make here before, I kind of went down a couple of tangents, is that we had one shot here to prove to the world that we could get our fiscal house in order, and we blew it. Where's Elon Musk? He's not in Washington anymore. They ran him out of town. The minute he tried to cut stuff, that was it. There goes Elon. Right? Gone. If the Republicans, who are supposed to be the party that doesn't like government. Right. If the Republicans refuse to cut spending and in fact, not only refused to cut spending, but increase spending. Right. All of the Biden spending that Republicans criticized, and as soon as they had an opportunity to do something about it, what did they do? Did they get rid of that Biden spending? Oh, no, they kept it all and then added onto it, and then they threw in some tax cuts for good measure so we would have bigger deficits under Trump than we had under Biden. So if the Republican Party, the party that doesn't like government and doesn't like government spending, won't reduce the deficit and won't cut spending, clearly the Democratic Party isn't gonna do it. They love government. They want the government to spend money. They don't trust you to spend your own money. They want the government spending more of your money. The bigger the better, as far as the Democrats are concerned. So what hope is there that anybody is going to cut spending? The world has finally come to this conclusion, and that is why we're getting rid of the dollar. That's why these central banks are selling dollars and buying gold, because they could read the writing on the wall. They know where the dollar is headed, and they're not going to accept the pitiful yield on U.S. treasuries because they know that that's not enough to compensate them for what they're about to lose, they would much rather earn nothing on gold than earn something on dollars when the something isn't enough to compensate for what they're going to lose. So the dollar is going to fall, and that's going to push oil prices up.

[A]

But what's also going to push the dollar down is our trade deficits. And Donald Trump has been making a lot about the fact that the trade deficits have come down somewhat. In fact, today he was out on truth social, predicting that not only would the trade deficits keep falling, but that they would turn into a surplus. Now, there is no way that that is going to happen, but somehow, in Donald Trump's imagination, it's going to happen. But not only are the trade deficits not going to become trade surpluses, the deficits are going to get bigger. And in fact, the deficit numbers, the trade deficits that we just got for December got way bigger. So we got two reports released today. Normally they're not released on the same day, but because of, I guess, all these government shutdowns that are taking place, like behind the scenes, like a lot of these numbers are getting released later. And so today we ended up getting both of the trade deficits on the same day. They're normally spaced out, I forget by how much, but we have the overall trade deficit, the unified trade deficit, which includes goods and services, and then we have just the goods deficit, which back in the day we used to call it the merchandise trade deficit. I don't know when we stopped calling it merchandise and started calling it goods. But also back in the day, the merchandise trade deficit was the one everybody cared about. They looked at that as more important than the overall trade deficit. Now, the overall trade deficit includes services. Where we have a surplus, we actually export more services than we import, which is a good thing. And that offsets the goods deficit. But taken on its own, the goods deficit is huge. Now, the overall deficit, I'll start with that one. The Forecast was for 55.8 billion for December, it came out at 70.3 billion, way above estimates. The prior month was revised down a little bit to 53 billion. So if you compare the increase, we went from 53 billion in November to over 70 billion in December. That is a huge increase. And it shows that all this so called progress at reducing the trade deficit is just another one of the Trump lies, another figment of his imagination. If you look at the merchandise trade deficit, the goods trade deficit, that one came out at $99.3 billion. I'm not sure what the expectation was. It was a lot lower than that. The prior month was 83.6 billion. And the reason that the numbers got worse, and this is from, I'm going to give you November and December. In November, imports were up 5.9% and exports were down 5.2%. And in December, imports were up 3.8% and exports were down 2.9%. So this is the opposite of what Trump has been promising. This is the opposite of what the tariffs were supposed to deliver right. The tariffs were supposed to shrink the trade deficit. We were supposed to import less because the tariffs made imports more expensive. We were supposed to export more because we were going to make more stuff ourselves because the tariffs would mean that we would produce more here or also too, we wouldn't have to import as much because we made stuff ourselves. The opposite is now happening. Imports are going up and exports are going down. Now why is that? And why with these tariffs that are supposed to be helping increase our exports and diminish our imports, why is the opposite happening? Well, stick around. I'm going to answer that question on the other side of this commercial break One thing no one tells you about hiring globally is how unclear the cost can be. It looks simple at first and then the fees start stacking up. Pebble brings clarity with upfront all in hiring costs and enables you to hire the world world. I've dealt with this firsthand. 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Maybe initially producers, US Companies will absorb some of the hit, but ultimately all of the hit will be born of by the consumer. That's how taxes work. The indirect taxes work that way. Indirect taxes are taxes that you pay indirectly. The reason that it's indirect is you don't send a check to the government. You send your check to the company that then sends a check to the government. So tariffs are tax, but it's an indirect tax. Right. The Constitution describes it that way. And that's. And that's what it is. But the Trump administration has been pissing all over that study. They're out there criticizing New York Fed for the study. I mean, the only reason I would criticize him for the study is that it was completely unnecessary. I mean, you don't even need a study to prove something so basic. I mean, it's econ 101. It's not even econ. It's common sense 101. It's obvious that we pay the tariffs. I don't have to study what's obvious. We already know that. You know, what's amazing is that the Trump administration doesn't know this. I mean, can they really be this dumb? And if they know this little about something so simple, man, how are they gonna understand more complex economic problems if they don't even get tariffs? Right? And apparently, you know, Donald Trump keeps saying that tariff is his favorite word in the dictionary. Well, he can't even define it. He doesn't even understand what it is. So what about all the other words that he doesn't know the meaning to that aren't his favorite word. But so the study shows that we're paying the tariffs. But the problem with these tariffs, apart from that, is that they are not protecting American industry, because most of the stuff we're tariffing, we don't even make. We don't even have the capacity to make it. Or if we do make it, we don't have the capacity to make enough. We've got to import it. And now the tariffs are just making those imports higher. And you can see that in the, in the data, in the import, export data. I mean, it's obvious. See, the only way that foreigners, if they were really paying the tariffs, you would have to see the price of the goods that we're importing go down because the tariffs are paid. Here in America, we pay them, we write the checks, the importers send the money to the government. So the only way that foreigners would be eating the tariffs would be if they lowered their prices so that when Americans buy the goods with the tariffs, they buy the good at a lower price.

[B]

And then the tariff just brings the

[A]

price back up to where it was before. But that's not happening. Our imports are not going down. We're paying more to import the products. So that means by definition that the

[B]

foreigners are not eating our tariffs. And one of the ways they were

[A]

supposed to swallow our tariffs was because

[B]

the dollar was supposed to go up, their currencies were supposed to go down. So it wasn't supposed to cost us as many dollars to buy their products. And that was going to offset the tariffs. And so they would eat it because they would be getting fewer units of their own currency or they would get fewer dollars rather for their exports. But that's not happening because the dollar has gone down.

[A]

The dollar is lower today than it

[B]

was on Liberation Day. So not only are Americans paying the tariffs, but they're paying more to get

[A]

the foreign currency to buy the goods. So the goods are more expensive. And on top of that, we've got

[B]

to pay the tariffs. But the tariffs don't just hit the American consumer. They hit American businesses that are producing the goods that are subject to tariffs, and it makes their goods more expensive. Well, now, if we're going to export those goods, our goods are less competitive than they were before because it now cost us more to make them than it did before. And also depending on the tariff rate and the particular good, if American manufacturers have to pay these higher tariffs, but foreign competitors don't. And if the tariff coming in from a particular country is not as high as collectively the particular tariffs that were paid by the American company, even American companies could be rendered less productive because they're paying tariffs that their competitors are not. But the proof is in the pudding because exports are falling and imports are rising. So the tariffs are backfiring in that respect. And remember, Donald Trump did the same thing during his first term. He was elected on a platform of lowering our trade deficits. He made a campaign issue out of our record high trade deficits under Biden. He was going to do something to bring those deficits down. Instead, we hit new records. Under Trump, the trade deficits went up every year. I think that Trump was president and when he left office, trade deficits were at an all time record high. And I think we're going to get the same Thing. Even though the tariffs are bigger now than they were during his first term, they're not going to be any more effective at reducing our trade deficit. And one of the things that's going to even backfire is going to be the weakness in the dollar. Because a lot of people think, well, you know, if a weak dollar, if we get a weak dollar, that's going to reduce our trade deficit because we're going to sell more stuff, right? Because our stuff's going to get cheaper when the dollar is down, so we'll sell more. And because our stuff is cheaper, we won't import as much. So people think the weaker currency will reduce our trade deficit. It may in the long run, because we're so poor, if our currency loses so much value, we're too broke to afford anything. So, yes, in the long run, that may be the case, and it eventually will be the case. But in the short run, it's actually the opposite. When the dollar goes down, all the stuff that we need to import but can't produce ourselves becomes more expensive. And so our imports get more expensive, and so our trade deficit goes up because the things that we buy cost more, so our imports go up. Now, maybe the volume of imports might go down somewhat because we buy less, but. But we pay more for what we buy. So net we end up with a bigger trade deficit because the cost of our imports goes up. Now you might think, well, maybe we'll export more because our exports get cheaper for foreigners to buy, but our imports are a much bigger number, right, because we have a trade deficit. So by definition, we import a lot more than we export. So even if our exports go up because our currency went down, if our imports also go up by a similar amount, the trade deficit gets bigger. It doesn't get smaller. And that's what's gonna happen. We're gonna see a weakening dollar resulting in even bigger trade deficits, which is gonna scare foreigners out of their dollars. Because it's not only going to be the trade deficits going up, it's going to be the budget deficit is going to be going up. And with the twin deficits going up, that puts downward pressure on the dollar, which puts upward pressure on consumer prices, which puts upward pressure on interest rates, which puts downward pressure on the whole economy. In fact, you can see that in

[A]

the housing data we got, the pending home sales for January that came out today. Now, December was a big drop. They revised the drop a little less big. It was 9.3% and it was revised to 7.4%. But it was a huge, huge drop in pending home sales and the index was at a record low, 71 and a half or actually it was 71.8, the original number. Well, even though they revised the drop to a smaller drop, they revised the index to a lower number, 71.5. Now they were expecting a bit of a bounce back in in January they looked for a 2 1/2% bump in pending home sales. Instead they dropped again 0.8%. Nobody expected a drop again. Everybody thought that we would have a bounce maybe point two percent on the low end to up to six and a half percent was the high end. We dropped point eight and that drove the index, the pending home sale index down to 70.9. That is an all time record low. I mean, even if you go back, I think to the financial crisis, most of us are trying to get healthier, better diet, better habits, maybe a few supplements. But let's be honest, half the time we're just guessing. What if you could measure how your body is actually aging and get a clear plan based on real data? That's what True Diagnostic does. They test your biological age plus key health markers like vitamins, inflammation and nutrient levels. Then give you a personalized 90 day plan showing what your body needs. No guesswork, just science. Order online and the K ships right to your door. I recently took the test myself. It was easy, a simple at home finger prick. Drop it in the prepaid envelope and that's it. Now I'm waiting on the results and I'm genuinely curious to see where I stand. Especially when it comes to things like inflammation and nutrient absorption. It'll be good to know what's actually worth changing and what's just noise. They offer two core True Age, which measures your biological age versus your real age and includes organ level aging and True Health, which tests over 100 markers focused on your metabolism, energy and immune health. Or get the Combo Kit for the full picture, your long term trajectory and your current baseline, your only job. Follow the three most important actions you can take for 90 days. Then retest to see progress trusted by top longevity clinics and health professionals, not just consumers at home. Right now my listeners can get 20% off at trudiagnostic.com using code Gold20 at checkout that's true diagnostic.com and use code Gold20 for 20% off today. Choose Truage, Tru Health or the Combo Kit as a one time purchase or subscription. Did you know Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and more than 2 million happy customers. They have all the plants your yard or home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants, all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere you live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else. Whatever you're looking for, Fast Growing Trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space and lifestyle. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to get your dream yard. Just click, order, Grow and get healthy, Thriving Plants delivered to your door. Their Alive and Thrive guarantee promises that your plants arrive happy and healthy. No green thumb required, just quality plants you can count on. Plus, get ongoing support from trained plant experts who can help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants and learn how to care for them every step of the way. Shopping for plants the traditional way can be a hassle. You drive around to multiple nurseries, try to figure out what actually works in your climate, and then you're loading dirt and plants into your car, hoping they survive the trip home. Fast Growing Trees makes the whole process a lot easier. Fast Growing Trees is a company we've been using for my home in Connecticut for several years. My wife loves shopping their website and choosing the plants for our yard. And now with spring on its way, she's already planning to order more plants and trees for our property. Right now they have great deals on spring planting essentials up to half off on select plants and listeners to our show get 25% off their first purchase when using the code GOLD at checkout. That's an additional 25% off. Better plants and better growing at fast growing trees.com using the code Gold at checkout. Fast Growing Trees Code Gold Now's the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use Gold to Save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply if someone

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[A]

So why is it that homes aren't selling? Because they're too expensive. That's why the prices are too high. People can't afford them. Now. What does that mean? That means that prices are going to come down. They have to, because houses are just worth what people can afford to pay. Because if you have to sell your house, you have to take the highest bid you can find. Now, what's happened for a while is people haven't had to sell. They want to sell. They put their house on the market, but they don't get any takers. Eventually, the offers have to come down to meet the bids. And the bids are way down. Because even though mortgage rates have gone down recently, thanks to Donald Trump getting the GSEs to start buying mortgage backed securities, we've been able to bring down mortgage rates. That's still not enough. Because even though mortgage rates have gone down, it's not nearly enough for people to afford the home prices. Home prices have to come down? I'd say about a third, which is about how much they came down, you know, in 2008, 2009, 2010. We need about the same decline in housing prices as we had after the housing bubble burst, because we got another housing bubble. It's a bubble because the prices are too high. How did they get too high? The government kept interest rates at zero for so long. People were able to borrow money at 2.53, 3.5% and bid up home prices. Well, you can't borrow money that cheap anymore, which means you can't afford to pay so much for a house. The houses have to come down. It's just like a bond, right? When interest rates go up, bond prices go down. Well, the same thing should happen to houses, because houses are a function of debt. If mortgage rates go up, home prices have to come down. Otherwise nobody can afford to buy. And that's what determines the price. It's what the buyers could pay, what the market will bear. Now, we know Trump doesn't want housing prices to come down. He said that. He made that clear. Yes, he wants houses to be more affordable, but only with higher prices. Not only does Trump not want housing prices to come down, he wants them to keep going up because he wants homeowners to continue to operate under the delusion that they're rich. He doesn't want to pierce their bubble. So his solution is cheap credit, more money. That's why the Federal Reserve is trying to find ways to lower capital requirements, so banks can issue more mortgages and keep more mortgages on their books. And that's why Trump wants to stack

[B]

the Fed and push down interest rates. It's all a sustained bubbles to keep prices artificially high. But the longer you keep prices artificially high, the more damage you do to the economy. And there's a lot of damage that's been done and there's a lot of damage in the housing market. Prices need to come down and they will come down one way or another. And if they don't come down in nominal terms, it's because they're collapsing in real terms. And yes, maybe your house doesn't crash, but in relation to the cost of maintaining your house, it will. And maybe the price of your house doesn't go down, but the cost of everything that you put in your refrigerator is going to go way up. And the cost to heat the house or cool the house electric, all that stuff is going to be going up because of all the inflation that they have to create to prevent your house from going down. Now, I know I spent a lot of time on my podcast criticizing the Trump administration and that's because there's a lot to criticize. And there are people out there that say, but you never give Trump credit for the good stuff that he does. Well, I'm gonna do that now because he does do some good stuff. He doesn't do only bad things. I mean, there was a reason that I told people to vote for Trump over Kamala Harris right? Now, I didn't expect it to be this bad. But he has done some things that are good. And what he did today with the FDA is good.

[A]

Now it's not good enough.

[B]

Right? So I'm not gonna give him an A, cuz he could have done better. But you know, I'll give him maybe a B minus because he did something the Democrats would have done nothing. So what did he do? So the FDA requires two studies to prove that a drug works. And before you can get your drug approved, you've got to prove to the government that it works not only once, but twice. And I guess the reason for twice is you got to show the government that the first time wasn't a fluke. So you got to have a study, big random, double blind study, cost a fortune. And Even if that study shows that the drug works, you gotta do it all over again for the government, right? So finally, the Trump administration said, no, one study is all you need. You don't have to do a second study. Do one study. If it proves the drug is effective, that's good enough, we can approve it. Right? That is a major improvement because it cuts a lot of cost and takes a lot of time out of the approval process, because doing all these tests increases the cost of the drug, increases the risk of developing the drug.

[A]

And remember, for every drug that gets approved, there are several drugs that never get approved, which means all the money that the drug companies invested in research and development and doing a bunch of studies, they never get it back from those drugs because they never were able to sell them. So when they finally get a drug approved, they don't have to just recover the cost of that drug. They have to recover the cost of all the drugs that didn't get approved. So that's why drugs cost so much in the United States. It's not because the rest of the world is ripping us off. It's because the US Government is ripping us off by requiring pharmaceutical companies to spend so much money for the government to say it's okay for us to buy the products. It wasn't always this way in America. This didn't start until 1962. Prior to 1962, the drug companies didn't have to have any studies, let alone two. They didn't even need one. You did not have to prove that your drug worked. You only had to prove one thing, that the drug was safe. As long as you could prove the drug was safe, the government didn't care if it worked. That is better than what we have today. Why do we need the government? Why do we have to prove anything to the government? If this is a free country and somebody develops a drug and I want to give it a try, who the hell is the government to tell me I can't if my doctor wants to prescribe it. Guy went to medical school, right? Thinks the drug is good, he wants to prescribe it to me. Who is the government? Say no. Sorry, you can't do that. Not until the drug company proves to me that it's safe. I don't care if the government thinks it's safe or not. If my doctor thinks it's safe, I'm gonna try it, but the government says no. But up until 1962, that was the way it was in America. All you had to do is prove that the drug wasn't Harmful that is easy to prove. Proving that a drug doesn't harm people is way easier and way cheaper than proving that it works. Because it may work for some people, may not work for others, who knows? And then there's always the placebo effect, right? You give somebody a drug and they'll just feel better. So you have to account for that. So it's really hard. And a lot of times it's subjective. Sometimes it's a close call. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. You know, there's a lot of drugs that probably would work for a lot of people, but they never got approved cuz it didn't work for enough people. And so, you know, people never got a chance to use a drug that may have really improved their lives. Maybe it would have saved their lives, but they never got a chance. And so up until 1962, that was it. So if it worked back then, if drug companies didn't need to prove their drugs were effective before 1962, why do they have to prove it now? I mean people, we had a perfectly good health care system back then, plenty of drugs. But I'll go one better because up until 1938 you didn't even have to prove that the drugs were safe. Before 1938, anybody could introduce a new drug. You didn't have to prove it was safe, you didn't have to prove it worked. You just launched it, come up with a drug and advertise it. That's all you had to do. It was a free market. Now did that mean that people were dropping dead from poisonous drugs? Of course not. What company would want to introduce a drug that starts killing people? I mean, there goes their reputation. No one's gonna trust them anymore. Before the government got involved, we had the free market. I mean, if a trustworthy company introduced the new drug, you tried it. But the doctors, usually you wouldn't use a new drug unless your trusted doctor who knew something about the drug, maybe he was talking to the manufacturers, he looked at their own. I mean, you don't think the companies would do their own studies before they want to put their brand on something. They're not just going to sell crap. They're not snake oil peddlers. Not that there weren't any of those. Sure, there's always going to be some fraudsters out there selling that. But a reputable company is not going to put its reputation on the line. It's not gonna bring out products that it hasn't tested that it isn't confident will work. They're not Guaranteed to work, but they think they might work. And they're gonna make sure that at a minimum, they're not gonna harm you.

[B]

Right?

[A]

You don't wanna have that reputation. So we were fine up until 1938. The country started in 1789. We made it all the way to 1938, and we had companies developing drugs. You didn't have to prove they were safe, you didn't have to prove they were effective. You just had to have them. And it was up to the public, up to the doctors, up to the patients. They decided if the drugs were effective. If they weren't effective, they didn't take them.

[B]

If they were effective, they kept taking

[A]

them, more people took them.

[B]

Right?

[A]

If it works, you tell your friends, hey, I just took this drug.

[B]

It's great.

[A]

You should get some. Right? That's how it worked. And, you know, we didn't even have an FDA at all until 1906. So we made it through the entire 19th century, the century that Donald Trump talks about, the 1880s, 1890s, when we were our richest. The FDA did not even exist. There's nothing in the Constitution about the fda. Why do we have an fda?

[B]

I'd like to get rid of the entire thing.

[A]

Let's go back to 1905, when the

[B]

FDA did not exist.

[A]

Then we'll have a much better health care system, and our drugs will be a lot cheaper and a lot more plentiful. We'll have a lot of stuff to choose from. But at a minimum, let's go back to before 1962, you know, which is the year before I was born. But in 1962, when you didn't have

[B]

to prove that it worked, you just

[A]

have to prove that it's safe. I mean, one step at a time, I'd be okay. I mean, Donald Trump got rid of the requirement to do two studies.

[B]

Okay, now let's get rid of the

[A]

requirement to do any studies on efficacy. Let the market decide, let the doctors, let the patients, you know, before 1938, the FDA did have a role, and that was if the government could prove that your drug was unsafe, the FDA can order it off the market. So you didn't have to prove that it was safe. The onus was on the government to prove that it wasn't safe, that it was harmful. That's what the FDA was doing. The FDA was looking at drugs, testing them, and if they found a drug that turned out to be harmful, they were able to order it to be removed. But they couldn't force you to prove that it wasn't harmful. They had to prove that it was. And you know what? That makes sense. I mean, if there's no proof that something is harmful, why can't people take it? And how can the government force the drug company in a free country, hey, prove your drug doesn't hurt people. Well, I don't know. I don't think it does prove that it's harmful. That makes more sense. Right? You're innocent until proven guilty. No, as far as the government is concerned, all these drug companies are guilty and they have to prove their innocence. You came up with a new product. Great. We're not gonna let you sell it until you can prove, A, it doesn't hurt people, and B, it actually helps people. Why? In a free country, drug companies should be free to develop whatever drugs they want, and I should be free to buy them if I want. I don't need the government, I don't need the nanny to protect me. And no, I'm not just gonna shove anything down my throat. Yeah, I'm gonna do research. And if I'm not gonna do the research myself, I'm gonna talk to doctors who have. I'm not just gonna take something just because it's there. Right. I'm gonna, you know, and that's the beauty of a free market. But right now, I mean, it's all screwed up, but at least Donald Trump made a step in the right direction. There's. We need. The problem is we got so much government that even a little less is not enough. We need a lot less. We can't just tinker around the edges. We have to dismantle this entire thing.

[B]

Anyway.

[A]

That's it for today's podcast. Don't forget, if you like the podcast, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to this YouTube channel. Tell your friends about it. Also, again, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter. At Shift Sovereign, we've been putting out a lot of really good content recently. And I've noticed, you know, more people have been signing up. So that is. That is great. And again, you know, go to Shift Gold. Gold is now dropped back below. No, it's back above 5,000. It's been, you know, bouncing around. It's back up to 5006. When I checked it last, it was like 49.95 or something, so. But it's. I think it's right on support buying gold anywhere near 5,000. I think, you know, we're going to 6,000 before the year's over. Maybe quite a bit higher than that. But at least six I'd say would be my minimum target. And you know, silver's still below 80 cents around low 70s is the support. But you know what, who cares if it goes down, it's going back up. And again, it's the premiums you gotta worry about. It's not just the price of silver because all this noise is in the paper market. The action in the physical market is totally different. These premiums are going up, I can see it. And so you gotta buy them while the supplies are there. So go to Shift Gold. We still got great prices on silver. And go to Euro Pacific Asset Management. Check out our investment strategies, check out our mutual funds. The money is going to keep on flowing out of US Dollars, out of US Stocks, into foreign stocks. You know, Trump keeps talking about how we got the hottest economy. Well, we definitely have the coldest stock market. And even though the stock market is up, it's up small, barely up compared to what's going on outside the United States. That's where the action is.

[B]

And the action is going to really

[A]

heat up as the dollar cools off more, which is what I expect. So check out all of our investment strategies. We can do separately managed accounts at Euro Pacific Asset Management or you can buy the funds. We are going to have a ETF class launching hopefully by the middle of the year. We're waiting for the government of course to approve our application. The SEC has to approve this and for a long time they didn't even allow it and now they finally allowed us to do something that I've wanted to do for years and now I'm going to do it, assuming I get this approval, which I should. And once that happens then I'll have ETFs of all of my funds. And there are a lot of platforms where you can't even buy open ended mutual funds but you will be able to buy the ETFs that will be managed ETFs that will, you know, I'll be able to manage them with the funds so I won't have to increase the cost. So. But between now and then you can still buy the open ended funds. No load at any discount brokerage firm. That's it for now. I will be back tomorrow, actually Friday on the Schiffgold YouTube channel. If you're not a subscriber, go there now and subscribe. I'm gonna be doing the Shift Gold Friday market wrap live tomorrow, so don't miss it. Bye for now.

[D]

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