← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
America First Unveiled: Trump’s High Stakes Gamble and the Future of Global Power | Tom's Deepdive
00:28:08
Tom Bilyeu breaks down Trump's dramatic shift to an aggressive America First strategy, unraveling the risks to global order, U.S. dominance, and personal finance in today’s era of economic and geopolitical upheaval.
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- [00:01]
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- [01:00]
Political Commentator
If you think Trump's shift from being the peace president to the smash and grab president is just random chaos, you do not understand the moment we are living in. This moment is an unprecedented moment of disruption and danger and what America does next is going to have a massive impact on the world order and your finances. In a turn of events so sudden it has given even some of Trump's most most die hard supporters whiplash. Trump has gone from settling a bunch of wars all over the world to flash invasions, snatching up dictators and threatening military action against Europe. If Denmark doesn't hand over Greenland, he said, and this is almost a direct quote, Greenland has to be ours for national security reasons. We are going to get it and we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The man refuses to rule out military invasion of one of Denmark's territories. Denmark, a country in Europe. This is wild. It is a turn of events that for most seems completely incoherent. Most people, especially those that already hate Trump, are thinking this is simply Trump being the dictator they they always knew him to be. In fairness, that's a pretty reasonable take for someone to have given that Trump has explicitly said he doesn't care about international law and the only thing that governs what he does is his own morality. But if you think Trump is just some power mad lunatic running riot, you're not seeing what's actually happening. And I don't think it takes a big leap to get to the heart of what's really going on. We'll get into more of this shortly, but first you have to understand the liberal world order has broken down. It is once again obvious that the world we live in is actually governed by raw power and there is no country currently more powerful than the US And Trump knows that. But he also knows that as of right now, today, our power is an ice cream cone melting in the sun of inflation and reckless spending. And he only sees one way forward. The reality is that Trump is not afraid to bully, and if he's going to keep America in the lead, even if only in the Western Hemisphere, then he's going to have to press the advantage that we currently have, because it's not going to last forever. But while it does, Trump believes we need to cement our authority, and given the consequences of not doing so, he's almost certainly right about that. As such, Trump is running what I'll call a dominance or bust strategy. It's an insane gamble that puts the entire world order at risk. But honestly, it's better than capitulating to Klaus Schwab and the global elite, who have given us 30 years or more of an increasingly K shaped economy, or just simply managing America's decline and letting China become the global hegemon, bullying everyone. But no matter how necessary reaffirming our leadership may be, Trump's dominance or bust strategy is incredibly risky. And if it doesn't pay off, the dollar could decline rapidly and or we could see ourselves taking another massive step towards a literal World War iii. So here is the very uncomfortable what Trump is doing right now isn't about one man's ego, or at least not just about one man's ego. It's about a nation locked in a cold war with its largest rival jockeying for global position and re establishing our dominance so that we don't have to face any unnecessary challengers who might think we're weak. The global order America helped build after World War II gave us decades of prosperity. But over time it morphed into something extractive, something that was financialized and globalized and allowed the infamous global elite to use debt and money printing to quietly rob the masses while rewarding the connected few. So to understand what's happening and respond in a way that will allow you to win, even if at only the individual level, even if cracks appear in society that get serious enough to disrupt countries, you have to understand the this is a populist moment. They have happened many times before in history. They are moments of tremendous inequality. And the politicians that rise up during these times are what is known as strongmen. They're bullies. They come in left leaning flavors and right leaning flavors, and regardless of what side they're on, they're elected to flip the tables over, slap the other team around and grab as many slices of a shrinking pie as they can for their own side. Trump did not create the frustration that led to populism. He was summoned by it. And no one should be surprised that citizens would hold hands around a summoning circle to call forth a chaos agent. When globalism combined with debt and inflation has made it impossible for the average person to get ahead, he was elected by the people who could feel their future being stolen from them. When inflation began eroding the value of the dollar, Asset prices skyrocketed as people fled the dollar, and the average person who doesn't own assets, which is the vast majority of humanity, got crushed. That's what happens when the system is rigged to the benefit of elites. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before a figure like Trump arrived on the scene. The more inequality, the angrier people get. And once they're struggling to make ends meet, they will find a populist leader to come and flip the tables. Okay, hopefully that explains why people want a change in America. But I know it does not explain why Trump is being so reckless with the entire world order that has given us so much prosperity. So why is Trump being so aggressive internationally, especially with our allies? Why risk overplaying our hand? Our entire way of life is predicated on being able to export some of our inflation. And that only works if the dollar is the reserve currency. And if we piss off enough countries, they will find a way to get out from under the dollar. In fact, even without our current recklessness, countries have been trying to get out from under the dollar for decades. In the late 90s, over 70% of global trade happened in dollars. Now we're down into the 50s. If it drops too much lower, there won't be enough appetite for US Debt to continue to prop up our way of life, because our way of life requires us to find buyers for roughly $2 trillion a year in debt just to cover the annual federal deficit. Given that, why won't Trump rule out invading Greenland? To understand that, we're going to need some historical context. America came out of World War II in a position no other nation could even dream of. Europe and Asia were in ruins. Bombed out cities, shattered infrastructure, entire economies wiped out. The U.S. though, was virtually untouched. No major damage on the homeland. We had the factories still humming, the workforce intact, and we emerged holding a massive chunk of the world's gold reserves. And Europe owed us billions from wartime loans and aid. That leverage was massive, and we used it. We made the dollar the world's reserve currency. At Bretton woods, the whole economic system of the world was built around the dollar. People, companies, and countries the world over traded in dollars, settled in dollars, and held their savings in dollars. That gave us the power to run the world's strongest economy, largely built on debt. We could borrow cheaply, spend massively, buy the world's goods, and everyone else was forced to cater to us. It allowed us to build an incredible way of life as Americans. For decades, it was rising wages, cheap imports, home ownership, the full American dream. Unfortunately, that age of seemingly endless prosperity lulled us to sleep, allowed us to fall prey to what every empire before us has fallen prey to. Debt and the subsequent need to print money. Inevitably, when you hold the reserve currency, your government and your central bank are going to abuse the privilege. Everyone ever has done it as such. Ours created money out of thin air through what's known as fractional reserve lending. And then they charge interest on this money that they just created out of thin air. The Fed became the ultimate money printer. We made anyone trading, settling and saving dollars share in the burden of our budget shortfalls. And the world simply had to accept it, because the dollar was the only game in town. Fast forward to the end of the Cold war and the USSR collapses in 1991. Suddenly, it's a unipolar world. America stands alone as the superpower. But globalism starts accelerating like never before. And elites worldwide begin to understand how they can abuse this system. Bankers, politicians, multinational corporations, the Klaus Schwab of it all, they all begin to fantasize about coordinating everything. It would allow them to extract value from everyone, everywhere, all at once, using debt. No more national barriers getting in the way. And thus the era of the global K shaped economy begins to boom. And the populace begins to hate the global elite. The top 1% pull away from everyone else at warp speed through asset ownership. And everyone else, unbeknownst to them, gets robbed blind via inflation. And thus the populace begins to hold hands around the summoning circle to find that agent of chaos that is going to give a big middle finger to the global elite to break the world order. And then a series of crises hit, one after another. The dot com bubble bursts in 2000, weakening the system. The 2008 housing collapse sends the global economy into free fall. And then COVID 19 pushes the world economy to the edge. And all the people around the Summoning circle have found their man. Because each time the response is the same. Money printer go brrr. And that drives inequality massively. More debt and more money printing to avoid acute catastrophe. But it's going to bring a prolonged, much bigger catastrophe down the road because trillions of dollars get poured into the system, balance sheets are ballooned, interest rates.
- [12:40]
Podcast Host
Slash to zero or below.
- [12:42]
Political Commentator
And all of it worked, but only in the short term. The markets roared back, but the debt kept growing, and every bill eventually comes due. And that's where populism comes from. When the system feels rigged, when inequality hits extremes, people do not politely ask for change. They summon a rule breaker. Trump and so many other leaders around the world were brought forth specifically to break things, to smash the rules, to reject the globalist One world government agenda, to close the border and put America first.
- [13:17]
Podcast Host
Hang tight. We'll be back in just a moment.
- [13:20]
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- [17:16]
Political Commentator
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- [17:20]
Podcast Host
All right, we're back.
- [17:21]
Political Commentator
Let's get into it. So when you look at Trump's aggressive posture, the threats, the hideous bullying, the America first hardball, recognize it as a response, for better or worse, to a system that stopped working for most people a long time ago. Now, to complicate matters even more, all of this is playing out inside of a historical pattern known as Thucydides Trap. It is a tragic sequence of events first documented by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides nearly 2,400 years ago. What he noticed was that war becomes inevitable whenever a rising power threatens to displace an established power. In the last several hundred years, 75% of the time we see a setup like the rise of China threatening an established power like America. The result has been war. It's certainly not an ironclad law of nature, but at 75%, the odds are definitely not in our favor. And the costs of losing power are often dramatic. This brutal reality elevates the risks of Trump's aggression right now that much more. And tragically, it also makes his actions that much more predictable. On the scale of history, humans are largely predictable. And that's why being paranoid right now is historically justified. We are Living through the classic setup. The United States is the ruling power, China is the rising power. They are rapidly ascending in economic size, military capability, technological innovation and global influence. The fear is mutual. America worries about losing its edge, its dollar dominance, its ability to shape rules and alliances, its and China believes that its moment has come to claim what it believes is rightfully its own, namely complete control of its own sphere of influence and an opportunity to quickly pass the US as the dominant player on the world stage. This structural tension explains the urgency behind Trump's dominance or bust strategy. Doing nothing means manage decline. Watching China quietly overtake us in key areas, erode our alliances and challenge the dollar outright. Ostensibly that would end our current debt fueled way of life. In that light, Trump's aggressive moves, the bullying, the threats, the hardball over Greenland, Venezuela, Iran and others are a gamble to gain control of a chessboard as quickly as possible before our turn is over. If Trump succeeds, we secure resources, control energy flows, enforce the Monroe Doctrine and keep our adversaries out of our hemisphere.
- [20:03]
Podcast Host
We block China's access to cheap oil.
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Political Commentator
We control new lanes of travel, make our sanctions more enforceable, and we force the world back into line under U.S. leadership. And that, if all goes well, buys us time to grow our way out of the death trap, re solidify the dollar as the world's reserve currency and hold power for another generation, possibly more. But if it fails, if we overplay our hand, alienate too many allies, push adversaries into tighter alliances with each other, or trigger retaliation, the current world order could unravel rapidly. The dollar's reserve status would erode faster, inflation would balloon, markets could crash under the uncertainty. By the way, that's already a risk. And the kindling of proxy conflicts could ignite into something much worse. Now, as each of us decides how to react to the hyper uncertainty that we're all facing right now, examining what the America first doctrine actually means when applied to the big issues of today is going to be critically important. Doing so should at least give us some indication of our likely direction of travel. Alright, first, let's start with a definition. America first isn't about ideology or morality without any sugar coating. I think it goes something like regardless of sovereignty, historical alliances, international agreements, or even international law, America will do whatever advantages America most right now. Please note, I am not saying how I think it should be, I'm just saying how I think it actually is. It's largely a first order consequence mentality and it goes if it strengthens the US security, gives us access to critical resources Gives us more global control, improves our energy dominance, or gives us economic leverage. And especially if, if it does any or all of that and weakens rivals like China, then it's on the table. No sacred cows, no automatic deference to old friends or treaties if they cost us our edge in a world where naked power, not paper, actually governs. With that, let's start with a look at the approach to Greenland. Trump has made it clear Greenland has to be ours for national security reasons.
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Podcast Host
Why?
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Political Commentator
Because the Arctic is ideal for watching Russian launched ballistic missiles. Both the Russians and the Chinese have boats and submarines in the area. And due to climate change, enough ice is melting to potentially open up an entirely new shipping lane that all major powers will want to control and the US will want to do it first so they can claim it for both economic and security reasons. Greenland also sits on massive rare earth elements critical for tech, EVs, batteries, defense systems, all the stuff that China currently dominates globally and uses as leverage against the us. If Russia or China were to gain sufficient influence or control over Greenland, they would have a base of operations from which to project power over all of North America. Therefore, Trump sees it as a non negotiable. Secure the Arctic now before someone else does. Sovereignty of Denmark. Who cares? It's America first. Next, let's look at Venezuela. The flash invasion and seizure of Maduro is not about helping the Venezuelan people. At least not only that. It's a strategic move to block out China and shore up the Petrodollar. Venezuela supplies a global shadow fleet of tankers that allow countries to get around US sanctions. This includes a meaningful chunk of China's crude imports. And because it's sanctioned, China gets it at a cheap discount by taking control. The US denies China. That cheap flow disrupts the shadow fleet, forces Cuba and other South American nations back into line and reinforces the Monroe Doctrine. This hemisphere is ours and China and other adversaries are no longer allowed to build relationships here. Next, let's look at Iran. Support for protesters, threats of strikes, regime change, pressure. None of it is primarily altruistic. It's more oil leverage and support for a close ally. Iran supplies China with up to 20 to 23% of its crude imports at peak times. And China absorbs a staggering 80 plus percent of Iran's total exported oil. That is insane. Cutting that flow not only hits Beijing hard, it effectively cripples Iran, enemy number one of Israel, one of our strongest allies. As a bonus, if the regime falls, the largest funder of global terrorism falls and you open the opportunity for a friendlier regime to take its place. And this pattern of aggression also extends to Cuba and shockingly, at least in rhetoric, the to Mexico. Even Canada has been harassed and hit with tariff threats. And given that Greenland is actually a territory of Denmark, even the EU is getting bullied. The problem with a doctrine that is largely only about first order consequences is that it feels a little like a husband who gets from his wife what he wants, not because she agrees, but because she's afraid. As John Wayne Bobbitt will attest, that strategy might work in the short term, but but it can have serious consequences when you next fall asleep. The Maduro move has spiked tensions with Russia and China, who are already coordinating very closely. And every country watching will be thinking some variation of if the US can do this to Venezuela and Denmark, what's stopping them from targeting us if we have something they want? Denmark is threatening to arm up and fight. Germany is openly discussing ditching U.S. arms deals and and the EU is talking about NATO independence from the U.S. when you're bullying people, do not expect them to ride to your rescue when things get tough. Our actions risk isolating us. It might not be a big deal today, but the risks will compound if we're not careful. All of this only serves to accelerate the very thing that Trump fears that all of us should fear. Nations ditching dollar reliance, building alternative payment systems, and hedging against US Dominance in general. It's not going to unravel overnight, but it will unravel eventually, and our actions will determine whether that happens slowly or very rapidly, especially if there is additional strain on the US Economy and we are forced to take on more debt and print more money. The America first strategy is already prompting Trump to push for a massive military budget increase. He's proposing a $1.5 trillion budget in 2027. That's up from 900 billion. And while our budget is already massively underwater, our interest payments are already the second biggest line item in the budget, and fraud is bleeding millions from taxpayers. If growth doesn't materialize fast, all we will have done is hasten the dollar's death and America's bankruptcy. And instead of having allies that want to help, we'll have a bunch of bullied former allies that are cheering on our demise and the cherry on top. All of this creates so much uncertainty about the future and markets, a necessary escape from inflation. Absolutely despise uncertainty. One brash move too many and the bubbles that have already formed are going to burst violently. Massive suffering follows recessions, job losses, wealth destruction and a whole lot more. The world is already a tinderbox. The Russia, Ukraine war grinds on. Israel and Gaza still simmering in the background. China vows to take Taiwan by 2027 and we have historic defense promises. Venezuela's new leadership is fragile at best. Cuba's economy is collapsing. Iran's protest could topple the regime. Days, weeks, I'm talking near term. Japan's economy is flashing red. Alberta is even voting on seceding from Canada. Europe continues its decline. And the Mac Daddy of all the risks on the horizon, AI AI is transforming everything faster than people are going to be able to sensibly adapt. And none of that is to mention the massive internal strife ripping at America right now. As you would expect by the way, for many country with 123% debt to GDP, that's bad in normal times. But for an empire at risk of overextending itself and alienating its allies, it could turn catastrophic very quickly. Now all of that's the landscape. But as a reminder, Trump's actions aren't random. He has a return America to prosperity through growth and by re establishing ourselves as the dominant global superpower. That's what we are. And he does have a strategy. America first, whether it works or not is a totally different story. But knowing which way the wind is blowing should be enough for you to understand how to adjust your sales. I don't know that we're going to be able to walk America or the world back from this incredibly precarious moment. I am cautiously optimistic about our ability to grow. I am cautiously optimistic about people's desire to have things normalized, for people to yearn, to breathe free, for people to simply want their children's lives to be better than theirs. I hope that that calms everything down and brings everybody back together. But I have learned one immutable truth in my life. Only the paranoid survive. You need to have a strategy. This time is incredibly uncertain. The path that we're on is incredibly uncertain. And if we want to avoid the debt spiral, we are going to have to make incredibly careful decisions that allow us to move forward as a country. But regardless of all of that, as a reminder, you can win even if the game is rigged against you. You can still win if you know how to play. And I want to focus everybody's attention on the things that you can do. All right, if you guys are getting value out of this, make sure that you leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care peace.
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