Trump blows his own trumpet amid ruins

By RN Bhaskar

Image generated through https://deepai.org/machine-learning-model/text2img

Ever since Donald Trump assumed the office of the President of the US (for a second time), matters appear to be getting worse for the US. But Trump just keeps blowing his trumpet, about how good his policies are, how wonderful his bills and schemes are, and how he has rescued the world from near obliteration.

But look around, he is surrounded by ruins. He has destroyed the World Trade Organisation (WT0).  He has thrown to the winds conventional and universal principles of decency and propriety (when did you hear a US president say “kiss my a***”). The concept of morality, even humanity, lies in shambles. But his trumpet continues to blare out loud.

Disaster looms

Economists had predicted a disaster months ago.  At a public meeting in January this year, Taimur Baig, managing director and chief economist of DBS Baig had stated “as much as Trump is powerful right now and he seems immensely powerful . . . the world seems to be bending its knee to his will, I think the gravity of economics will bring him down.” (https://asiaconverge.com/2025/03/trump-tariffs-trouble/).

Today, the ruins confirm the January prediction. Worse, the US has abetted genocide, ethnic cleansing, even the repugnant assassination of negotiators. It has watched, with unconcern the slaughter of children.  Some had been shot in the head by Israeli snipers, not once, but twice to make doubly sure that they were dead.

Trump’s policies of tariffs and banning immigration have caused costs to soar both in manufacturing and for labour. His ban on selling goods to China has only made the latter more formidable with its own inventions and innovations.  Companies like Nvidia and Intel have lost both business and market share, making China more appealing to the rest of the world. Apple has, so far, defied the Trump exhortation that it should manufacture its phones in the US, not in India.

Had the US not been so reckless, there might have been a chance for both Ukraine and Israel to remain vibrant economies (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/the-us-dollar-under-siege).  Today, both stand on the brink of economic ruin. As for Iran, Russia, and China, it appears that those whom Trump seeks to destroy, actually end up becoming stronger, and even more vibrant.

Crisis of confidence

Not surprisingly, US citizens have communicated a fall in confidence both in the US and in Trump’s policies.  Bond rates are climbing, Trump says that inflation is down, but that could be an aberration.  High interest rates, soaring bond yields do not sit well with low inflation.

A joke

Trump’s pronouncements have become jokes, if not cause of alarm or consternation. Consider how he claimed that Iran’s nuclear sites had been obliterated.  The fact is that IAEA confirmed that there were no signs of radiation.

Dispersal of uranium should have happened if the sites had been “obliterated”.  The enriched uranium would have spilled out causing radiation deaths, and destruction for countries in the region.  Experts believe that Isfahan and Natanz had been abandoned a long time ago, and were “dead” sites.  As for Fodor, the nuclear facilities were over 400 metres deep underground.  Bunker buster bombs of the type the US had used could not have penetrated more than 50 metres.  Repeated bombings too would have gone up to 300 metres at best.

Another joke is Trump’s exhortation that Iran is now permitted to sell its oil to China (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-says-china-can-continue-purchase-oil-iran-2025-06-24/). Once again, the fact is that such sales have been going on for several years.  Nobody needed Trump’s permission.  As the Turkish says goes, when a clown moves into a palace, the palace itself becomes a circus.

But there was another factor that the US and Israel had not bargained for.  Iran had sensibly emptied this site of the critical centrifuges and the 400 kg of enriched uranium and had spirited them elsewhere to other secret locations. None of the intelligence agencies know where they lie. That explains the absence of radiation.  Nonetheless, Trump trumpets his successful obliteration of the nuclear arsenal.

He has challenged even the Pentagon’s assessment that the US strikes did not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The US subverted the IAEA from its policy of not disclosing its findings with third parties. Hence, the agency shared the nuclear locations and details with key people in the US and Israel.  Result: Iran is in the process of throwing out IAEA’s inspectors and will not have any more inspections.  Iran was open in the past.  Thanks to Trump, it is now secretive.

Of course, Trump’s assertions did allow Israel to save face by declaring total victory.

Abetting crime and ruination

Had Trump not been around Israel would have been a vibrant economy.  But the US president stoked the fires – first by allowing Israel to make Jerusalem its capital and shifting the US embassy to that city during his first term as the US president.  This was in violation of UN accords.  It whetted Israel’s appetite for more.

The US could have withheld military support, which would have limited Israel’s move to try exterminate the Gaza population, and bomb and kill people in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. Trump turned a blind eye to all these horrendous crimes.  Suddenly, Israel is no longer a nation of Holocaust survivors.  It has become a nation of murderers, who have even used starvation as a weapon in an attempt to try exterminating the Palestinian population in Gaza.

Trump added insult to the injury by offering to take up Gaza for resort development. The US and Israel have reached the depts of depravity.

FDI is the best indicator

While there are narratives being spun, the best indicator is the way investors look at any country.

Observe how, since 2022, inward FDI into Israel has begun falling.  This is after US has been pumping in money as aid, military weaponry and even encashing Israel’s debt instruments.  Bankers say that Trump’s son-in-law has been buying up these debt instruments through various hedge fund companies, which in turn have handed them over to Blackrock.  The role of Blackrock is visible in Ukraine as well, where it has taken up as mortgaged assets huge swathes of land in the (now Russia occupied) Donbas regions in Ukraine.

Had the US not supported Israel financially, it would have been declared bankrupt two years ago.

Not that the US itself has gone unscathed.  Both the Ukraine and the Israel wars have bled the US (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/america-weeps-trump-leaves-it-isolated). Expectedly, US deficits have soared, and its dollar is teetering.  On May 16, 2025, Moody’s decided to announce a downgrade of US debt (https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about-us/usrating.html). Yields on treasury bills have surged, pointing to a lack of confidence in the US economy.

Ukraine too

There was a time when Ukraine could have held its head high.  But it fell for the enticements of NATO and the US, who promised it the heavens if it joined NATO. Everyone knew that this would be poking the Russian bear in the eye.  In a ‘top secret’ cable to the US government, titled “NYET means NYET”, William Burns (as US ambassador to Russia) warned that such moves would result in a war.  The cable was leaked and made public by6 Wikileaks and was picked up by Robert Wade of the LSE (https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/61428/1/Wade_Ukraine_crisis_is_not_what%20it_seems.pdf).

What Burns predicted came to pass.  What the West called an unprovoked act of attacking and invading Ukraine was actually a reaction to several acts of grave provocation. The result: Ukraine too is on its knees – having lost its pride, its money and its territories (https://asiaconverge.com/2024/06/developments-that-could-rock-the-world-including-india/).

Once again, FDI data confirms this. Money has begun to flee Ukraine.  Over a million Ukrainians have become refugees.  And the longer Ukraine listens to the siren songs of the West, the more battered it will get.

People fleeing Israel and Ukraine

People have been fleeing Ukraine, especially the young who don’t want to get drafted into a war that is becoming a meatgrinder.

Israel too is losing people – some killed in the war, but many opting to leave Israel.  They are driven both by their conscience – killing children and women is horrifying to any decent human being.  They are also driven away from their country by a need for security.  Israel is no longer a country for young dreamers.

In May 2024, John Mearsheimer, noted geopolitical analyst, pointed out to an Australian audience that over 500,000 Israelis had already left their country ((see timeline 1:27:15 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAfIYtpcBxo ). Many more are believed to have left since then.  After the Iran Israel “12-day war” many more want to leave but cannot because the borders are closed. We will know when the borders are reopened. As Mearsheimer explains in that talk, the survival of Israel is itself a big question.  All this could have been prevented, had the US, especially Donald Trump, not egged on the Israelis both overtly and covertly.

Today, Trump can continue blowing his trumpet, as he is wont to. But around him lie ruins.  Even the US is in danger of imploding.  Germany and Italy, once diehard friend of the US, now prefer to have their gold inside their own borders.  They don’t think their gold is safe with the US any longer.

Even Japan has begun jettisoning the US dollar.

India’s inexplicable moves

India, however, refuses to bring back all its gold from the UK and other countries. When we wrote about this in June 2023 (https://asiaconverge.com/2023/06/india-stores-gold-overseas/), the RBI did bring back to India some of the hold held overseas.  But it has left some of it overseas, especially in the UK.  No justifications have been provided.  What is equally inexplicable, India continues to hold much of its foreign exchange reserves in dollars.  This is strange when most countries, including Japan, are reducing their dollar holdings. India is thus sitting on investments that have been downgraded and offer a low rate of return as well.

And yet, in spite of these blunders, the RBI goes about declaring the highest ever dividend to the government (https://www.livemint.com/industry/banking/rbi-dividend-rbi-to-pay-record-rs-2-70-lakh-crore-dividend-to-govt-for-fy25-27-higher-than-fy24-11748001180919.html).  India is becoming adept at becoming supplicants, first to the US and then to the government’s demands.  Not a pleasant prospect for a Viksit Bharat (a prosperous India).

In conclusion

Effectively, the world is sitting on some tectonic shifts.  Ukraine and Israel may never recover their past glory.  US too could implode.  India could also suffer because of its unwise investment policies.  Yet many are enthralled by the call of the trumpet.  Never mind the ruins surrounding the trumpeter.

———————–

Do view my latest podcast on India’s unwise aircraft purchases. You can view it at  https://youtu.be/piIqcUW7gNI

———————–

And do watch our daily “News Behind the News” podcasts, streamed ‘live’ every morning, Monday through Friday, at 8:15 am IST. The latest can be found at https://www.youtube.com/live/S0zGpzaYDeE?si=8Mp4znfH9fGq0xKU

———————–