Update (1545ET): After a three hour Digital Assets Summit, President Trump will deliver remarks on the outcome:

President Trump Delivers Remarks at the White House Digital Assets Summit https://t.co/U6JvLZlmgt

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 7, 2025

*  *  *

President Trump’s executive order establishing a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a National Digital Asset Stockpile is expected to be a catalyst for wider Bitcoin adoption, according to investment analysts and crypto industry leaders.

On March 6, Trump acknowledged the need to “harness” the power of digital assets while signing the executive order for crypto assets, which states:

“Because there is a fixed supply of BTC, there is a strategic advantage to being among the first nations to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve.”

Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick sees the main points here as:

1. BTC currently held will be added to the reserve. Nothing in the reserve will be sold

2. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are also authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies have no incremental costs on American taxpayers

3. The non-BTC coins held will be added to the Stockpile. No more will be bought. Treasury Secretary could sell them. Arkham data show the government’s current holdings, of 198,109 BTC, 56,035 ETH, 122mn USDT etc U.S. Government (arkm.com)

Bitcoin prices have recovered most of the kneejerk decline on last night’s EO signing…

As CoinTelegraph reports, Ryan Rasmussen, the head of research at Bitwise, anticipates a cascading effect where other countries and private investors will invest in Bitcoin with renewed confidence. 

“The end game was never ‘the US government buys all of the world’s Bitcoin,’” he said.

Source: Ryan Rasmussen

Large institutional investors, such as wealth managers, financial institutions and pension schemes, now have “no excuse” for not increasing exposure to Bitcoin and other crypto assets endorsed by the Trump administration. 

With the sell pressure reduced, the probability of the US government and individual states procuring Bitcoin has increased, Rasmussen said, adding:

“Probability the government outlaws Bitcoin is definitively zero.”

Andrew O’Neill, digital assets managing director at S&P Global Ratings, noted that the Bitcoin reserve would only include BTC already owned by the US government, specifically assets forfeited through criminal or civil procedures.

The presidential order to hold Bitcoin “is mainly symbolic” for Bitcoin to be formally recognized as a reserve asset, O’Neill said. It also created a clear distinction between Bitcoin and other crypto assets: 

“The order does contemplate the possibility of acquiring additional Bitcoin for the reserve, provided it can be done in a budget-neutral manner.”

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, said he anticipated Trump unveiling more details about the strategic crypto reserve on March 7 at the White House crypto summit.

According to Lee, the summit’s outcome may significantly influence the regulatory landscape and institutional sentiment toward digital assets, shifting toward clarity on token classification, tax incentives and reduced enforcement actions, possibly dismantling barriers for banks and funds.

“A successful summit could see Bitcoin reclaim $100,000 and crypto assets like Ether, XRP, and Solana soar, cementing US leadership in global crypto markets. Conversely, a lack of actionable steps might disappoint investors, underscoring the high stakes of this event.”

So, what next for bitcoin?

Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick is positive…

The next question is what could constitute budget-neutral strategies.

In theory, the following:

1. Sell gold, buy BTC. The US government holds USD760bn of gold

2. The Treasury can use the Exchange Stabilisation Fund (ESF), which has USD39bn net assets. This would be a clear change of direction for the ESF which is mostly used to shore up liquidity in extreme events

3. The Bitcoin Act 2024 (sponsored by Senator Lummis) could be passed and worked into a budget neutral way (possibly). Buy 200k BTC a year for 5 years

VanEck had some other ideas (nearly all of which would require congressional approval):

4. Reduce the Fed’s permissible surplus (requires congressional approval, but doesn’t require specific on use of proceeds). For background: Pre-2015, Fed had limitless surplus, then lowered to $10B (highway bill), then reduced to $7B in 2018.

5. Lobby IMF to include BTC in SDRs (last review 2022, next in 2027). Phased integration like CNY in 2016? Likely no congressional vote needed, but would require lobbying from lawmakers.

6. Bitcoin Bonds – U.S. Treasury issues bonds priced above par, with a small portion of the proceeds used to buy Bitcoin and the remainder financing government operations. The Bitcoin would be held as collateral and returned to bondholders in-kind upon maturity, potentially alongside principal repayment in dollars (would likely require congressional approval as “material change” to structure of US debt.

7. Sell the 1.433 Billion pounds of Cheese stored in Missouri caves. Estimated value = ~$2 to 4B. (Most of the cheese is privately held, but USDA can sell excess dairy without congressional approval.)

8. % of DOGE savings? Unclear if general savings like this fit the bill.

President Trump is expected to deliver remarks at today’s White House Digital Assets Summit at 3pm EST. In reality I cannot see any of these 3 solutions being delivered today. Rather they would all require Treasury Secretary Bessent to propose something (given the importance placed on Bessent in the executive order).

So it is difficult to see today’s 3pm EST Trump comments driving BTC prices higher.

But how low should they fall?

I have written previously about how a US strategic reserve, whatever it looks like, can embolden other sovereigns.

At the end of December Abu Dhabi held 4.7k BTC equivalent of IBIT. Other sovereigns will now surely join the buying.

We previously noted the potential for buying by the Czech National Bank, which is considering investing as much as 5% of its EUR 140bn of reserves (EUR 7bn) in Bitcoin. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is also in the early stages of Bitcoin ownership

An official strategic reserve may also embolden others in the US, like the states and/or long term pension money.

While BTC remains in a 80-95k range it is probably choppy an there’s not a lot to do. But I think the next move is out the top of this range.

Buy weekend dip caused by lack of news from Trump tonight, look for a break out of the top of this range soon (especially if the tariff noise can slow down for a while).

The critical mineral used in many defense and military applications—particularly munitions—is facing a severe global shortage. This crisis threatens supply chains across the US and Europe at a time when stockpiles of bombs and bullets have been depleted due to prolonged war in Eastern Europe. 

Bloomberg reports that antimony prices have jumped nearly fourfold compared to a year ago after Beijing tightened exports last year. This has triggered a scramble among Western defense firms to secure new supplies of the critical metal, which is essential for bullet cores, explosives, and shrapnel weapons.

There is hope for the West: A new Australian mine, operated by Larvotto Resources, is set to become operational next year, providing a new antimony supply stream for Western defense firms.

Larvotto’s managing director, Ron Heeks, told Bloomberg in an interview that the war in Ukraine has depleted Western weapon stockpiles that will need to be replaced.

“The antimony and lead from these munitions would normally be recycled into new weapons, but those have gone to the front line in Ukraine,” Heeks said.

Bullets and bombs remain a small segment of the demand for antimony, which is dominated by flame retardants, lead-acid batteries, and the chemicals industry. 

Excluding battery use, Heeks noted that global demand for the critical metal is about 120,000 tons per year, while current production stands at only 80,000 tons.

Chinese exports of antimony, gallium, and germanium to the US were hit with trading restrictions in Decemeber over the Biden administration’s AI chip war with Beijing. 

China’s dominance in the global mining and processing of rare earth metals is alarming… 

President Trump’s ‘America First‘ policy includes strategically decoupling critical supply chains from China, covering rare earths, critical metals, base metals, AI chips, and other essential materials crucial for the US defense industry.

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on March 6 that he’s considering whether to rescind the temporary protected status for thousands of Ukrainians who fled to the United States during their country’s war with Russia.

Early on that day, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was moving to revoke temporary protected status for roughly 240,000 Ukrainians sheltering in the United States after Russia’s 2022 invasion, which could potentially lead to their deportation. Hours later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt disputed the report and said a decision had not yet been made.

Trump reiterated that his administration was considering the move.

“We’re not looking to hurt anybody, and we’re certainly not looking to hurt them,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. 

“And I’m looking at that, and there were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making a decision pretty soon.”

The president said Ukrainians had “gone through a lot” since the war began.

In January, the Biden administration said it was extending temporary protected status for Ukrainians until October 2026 “due to armed conflict and extraordinary and temporary conditions in Ukraine that prevent individuals from safely returning.”

President Joe Biden had expanded these kinds of programs to create temporary legal pathways, using them as humanitarian relief.

Trump campaigned on ending these programs, saying they went beyond the scope of U.S. law.

His administration has also pursued other actions limiting temporary legal pathways, including suspending the refugee program and the temporary protected status of roughly 600,000 Venezuelans living in the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who ordered the Venezuelan suspensions on Jan. 28, said the action shows “we were not going to follow through on what [Biden] did to tie our hands, that we are going to follow the process, evaluate all of these individuals that are in our country, including the Venezuelans that are here.”

Trump also signed an executive order on Jan. 20 directing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “terminate all categorical parole programs that are contrary to the policies of the United States established in my Executive Orders, including the program known as the ‘Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.’”

Trump’s consideration of revoking Ukrainians’ temporary protected status comes as his administration engages in high-stakes negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a cease-fire plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

On March 3, days after Trump and Zelenskyy’s highly publicized clash in the White House, the Trump administration paused all U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Zelenskyy announced hours later that talks between Ukraine and the United States on a mineral rights deal would soon resume.

The nonprofit behind children’s show “Sesame Street,” Sesame Workshop, revealed in an internal memo to staff this week its plans to “downsize significantly,” including layoffs, due to what its CEO described as “current economic challenges inherent to the drastically changing media landscape.” 

Washington Post explained that the layoffs at Sesame Workshop came shortly after those workers unionized and Warner Bros Discovery nixed a deal to renew the distribution of new episodes. 

In a memo to staff on Tuesday, Sesame Workshop President and CEO Sherrie Rollins Westin warned about the urgent need to “downsize significantly.” 

Thank you for your attention earlier. I know there is a lot to take in and I wanted to offer a recap of what we covered.

First, I want to underscore my gratitude for the enormous contributions each of you have made to our work and the impact Sesame Workshop has had on the lives of children and families around the world.

Unfortunately, Sesame Workshop is not immune to the current economic challenges inherent to the drastically changing media landscape. Combined with the end of our current distribution deal and the policy changes affecting our federal funding, we’re confronted with a perfect storm. These factors, among others, have left us with a significant budget gap that we must solve for as we head into the next fiscal year.

Given that our largest single expense is people and benefits, we must downsize significantly and make what we hope will be temporary changes to our benefits and bonus program. These changes are necessary to ensure that the Workshop is poised to continue to deliver on its mission for years to come, but that does not make the human impact of these reductions any less painful.

Tomorrow will be a fully remote day. US employees who are in roles that have been eliminated will receive a calendar invitation from HR no later than 9:30am for a meeting tomorrow with your department leader and an HR representative. All others will receive an email regarding a department meeting on Thursday.

We will have an All Staff meeting next Tuesday to share the new organizational structure and our plan to ensure the Workshop’s future ability to deliver on our mission.

These are big changes—for all of us as individuals, and for us as an organization. But what remains unchanged is the need for our mission, and our dedication to ensuring that Sesame will be here for children and families for decades to come.

Thank you. I remain grateful to each and every one of you.

Sherrie

Just one day after unionizing, Sesame Workshop’s CEO announced layoffs, per a note to staff shared with me https://t.co/2sLyC0HC9h pic.twitter.com/iICVm4tDG5

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) March 5, 2025

Besides blaming Warner Bros. for Elmo’s downfall, Sherrie pointed to “policy changes affecting our federal funding.” We suspect this may be due to DOGE’s neutering of USAID.

Sesame Workshop Funding Per Agency

It appears that Sesame Workshop functioned more as a propaganda arm for the government’s dirty tricks of statecraft, wielding soft power influence across the world’s youth.

If that’s the case, it would explain why Sesame Street went extremely far-left – targeting children with the woke mind virus.

This woke propaganda even ended up in the US.

On our Street, we celebrate inclusion, belonging, and freedom of authentic self-expression. Happy #PrideMonth to all the people in our neighborhoods! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💗🤍🤎🖤 pic.twitter.com/4ErE22oCh4

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) June 12, 2023

Sesame Street has introduced a family with two gay dads for the first time https://t.co/JWnEcCSV0y pic.twitter.com/A7RBswl7Mf

— CNN (@CNN) June 26, 2021

Our street is home to friendship.
Our street is home to love.
Our street is home to everyone.
Happy #PrideMonth!
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💗🤎🖤 pic.twitter.com/NASdaRReeh

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) June 7, 2022

Bert and Ernie are gay, Sesame Street writer says: https://t.co/PXOhFP3YEt #abc15 pic.twitter.com/91gk5cBAr9

— ABC15 Arizona (@abc15) September 18, 2018

Keep in mind, this show is for 3yos…  

Yes, it’s true… the Deep State used Elmo to push an untested vaccine on children. 😳 #NeverForgetpic.twitter.com/mfRJPuR6FQ

— Wise Squirrel (@WiseSquirrel_) January 31, 2024

Taxpayers funded this brainwashing psychological operation against the youth.

Good riddance, Elmo.

Hunter Biden celebrating the pardon… pic.twitter.com/mMdwrVRtOz

— AB (@AB84) December 2, 2024

. . .

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The EU swiftly responded to Trump’s decision to freeze all military aid to Ukraine by having European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen unveil the bloc’s “ReArm Europe Plan” the very next day. It calls for: 

1) boosting Member States’ defense spending by 1.5% on average for a collective €650 billion more in the next four years; 

2) offering them €150 billion worth of loans for defense investments; 

3) leveraging the EU budget; 

4) and mobilizing private capital for this through two existing institutions.

The estimated €800 billion in defense spending that this is supposed to lead to might sound impressive, but it becomes much less so when considering the difficulties in optimizing this. 

For starters, no mechanism exists for dividing defense investments among Member States, nor might any such as the proposed “Army of Europe” ever come to fruition due to concerns over Member States’ sovereignty. 

NATO can’t suffice for this either since it’s dominated by the US whom many Europeans now distrust.

Even if some mechanism was agreed to for organizing the division of defense investments among Member States or they agreed to follow their shared senior US partner’s advice on this, then the next challenge is expanding production capabilities and purchasing the remainder abroad. It’s here where the €150 billion worth of loans becomes relevant for placing advance purchases that justify producers expanding their capabilities, but there might then be competition for this among leading Member States.

France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden would naturally want to produce as much of their own wares as possible while also selling as much to other Member States as they can, while Poland might ramp up domestic production to further diversify from its dependence on imports (including for ammo). That segues into the next point about purchasing the remainder of Member States’ needs abroad since there’ll likely also be fierce competition for this too.

The US and South Korea are some of top suppliers to EU Member States, but they’ll also have their own needs to meet as the Asian front of the New Cold War inevitably replaces the European one, which could lead to European customers not having all their own needs met due to these evolving dynamics. In the event that they meet all or at least most of their needs, however, they’ll then have to expand the “military Schengen” across bloc to facilitate the movement of troops and equipment throughout it.

Progress is already underway on this after Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland pioneer this initiative last year, following which France declared that it wants to participate too, but there’s still a lot of bureaucratic work that must be done to bring the rest of EU into this ambitious arrangement. The preceding three objectives associated with the “ReArm Europe Plan” can be advanced in parallel with building the “European Defense Line” along the Baltic States’ and Poland’s border with the Union State.

This project can serve as a litmus test of how effectively the EU can organize a multilateral defense initiative since the results or lack thereof will be evident for everyone given its tangible nature. The “European Defense Line” also implies these four states hosting others’ forces for deterrence purposes, both in rapidly responding to speculative provocations but also being forward-positioned to cross the frontier if the decision is made, which is also much more difficult to organize than it might seem.

And finally, the last obstacle to the “ReArm Europe Plan” might end up being Poland, which now boasts NATO’s third-largest army. It’s the most likely launching pad for European armies – whether individually, via “coalitions of the willing”, or as part of an “Army of Europe” – against Russia, both in the potential Belarusian and Ukrainian battlegrounds, but only the latter might see action. That’s because European countries are unlikely to invade Russia’s mutual defense partner while Ukraine has no such guarantees.

Poland already ruled out participating in the “Army of Europe” and might not want to risk any potential EU-Russian hot war in Ukraine spilling over into its own borders by letting Member States use its territory for staging military operations there that Warsaw doesn’t have a veto over. From Poland’s perspective, the US is the most reliable security provider and will accordingly be prioritized over any European analogue, to which end it’s actively courting the redeployment of US troops from Germany.

With these five obstacles in mind, the “ReArm Europe Plan” will most probably underperform, especially if Poland doesn’t allow itself to be larger Member States’ launching pad against Russia. Even if defense investments are effectively divided among Member States, the “military Schengen” is agreed to, and the “European Defense Line” built to last, it won’t amount to much if European armies aren’t on standby in Poland with the authority to proactively intervene in Ukraine without Warsaw’s permission.

For these reasons, and remembering that Poland is doing everything to become the US’ top ally in Europe, the “ReArm Europe Plan’s” ultimate success is largely dependent on Poland. This gives it huge influence over the post-conflict European security architecture, but only if its leadership understands this and has the will to advance national interests, not subordinate itself to Germany like some expect that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition will do if their candidate wins the presidency in May.

If the conservative candidate or the populist-nationalist one wins, however, then there’s a greater chance that Poland will keep aligning with America at Europe’s expense. That could then see the US using its influence there to contain those Europeans who might plot to provoke a hot war with Russia in the future if they had full access to the Polish launching pad. In any case, even if Poland was fully on board everything that the “ReArm Europe Plan” entails, it’ll still likely fall far short of expectations.

Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

Yesterday Rep. Thomas Massie reintroduced legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve.

I just reintroduced “End the Fed.”

Title: Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act, HR 1846.

Americans would be better off if the Federal Reserve did not exist. The Fed devalues our currency by monetizing the debt, causing inflation. pic.twitter.com/0U2NkbBZsX

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 5, 2025

Joining as original sponsors of the House bill are ten other members, including Rep. Andy Biggs, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Eric Burlison, Rep. Kat Cammack, Rep. Michael Cloud, Rep. Elijah Crane, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep.  Harriet Hageman, Rep. Scott Perry, and Rep. Chip Roy.

This was shortly followed by a corresponding bill in the Senate, introduced by Senator Mike Lee.

Feeling dangerous…

I think I’ll take a page from @RonPaul and get together with my friend @RepThomasMassie to END THE FED. pic.twitter.com/xHB1KrhSci

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) March 5, 2025

This comes at a time of greater political scrutiny being placed upon both the Federal Reserve and general questions about American’s monetary future. In recent weeks, Donald Trump has pledged to audit the gold holdings of Fort Knox while also embracing a pro-cryptocurrency agenda in his new administration.

It is also notable that Elon Musk, whose shadow looms large over the Washington, has himself taken several public positions that also pit him against America’s central bank. At CPAC recently he discussed the possibility of auditing the Fed, has called it “absurdly overstaffed”, and has himself flirted with the idea of its abolishment.

While Fed abolition remains a minority view within the Republican Party, these moves do signal movement within the Overton Window on the topic in recent years, a testament to Ron Paul’s lasting impact on American politics. 

For more on why it is time to End the Fed, watch our new documentary, Playing With Fire: Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve

President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, urging the negotiation of a new deal on the country’s nuclear program. The letter was conveyed on Thursday.

Trump himself revealed the overture in a Friday interview with Fox Business, a first such significant engagement of the administration with Tehran, which is somewhat surprising given Trump’s tone regarding Iran has been hawkish, especially on the prior campaign trail. Wide-ranging sanctions are still on the banking, energy, and defense sectors – and have been for years.

“I’ve written them a letter saying I hope you negotiate, because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump confirmed to Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo.

“The other alternative is you have to do something because Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he followed with, echoing his prior message warning that Tehran can either sign a deal or potentially get bombed.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has described that the Islamic Republic’s current stockpile of 60% enriched uranium – if enriched to 90% – would be enough to produce six nuclear bombs.

Trump has recently brought back ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran, and has even this week advanced the possibility of cracking down on sanctions-busting Iranian oil exports on the high seas, using naval intervention. Clearly this is part of the big stick package of actions meant to push Tehran to the table.

An earlier Fox News interview in February marked the point at which Trump first laid out that Iran has two choices. “Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them,” Trump had said at the time while discussing potential Israeli military action against Tehran.

“I would prefer that not happen. I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it,” the president continued.

That’s when he made one of the more provocative and threatening comments: “There’s two ways to stopping them: With bombs or a written piece of paper,” he had previously said.

The US is now increasingly worried that given last year’s tit-for-tat exchange of major strikes with Israel, Tehran leaders are more incentivized than ever to secretly develop a nuke.

However, the CIA has long assessed, even recently, that Iran’s leadership has not yet ordered the pursuit of a bomb. The Ayatollahs throughout the decades have also condemned atomic weapons as ‘unIslamic’.

But Iranian leaders have balked at Trump’s extended hand. While it’s unclear what the reaction will be from the newly sent letter, both the Iranian president and Ayatollah have earlier explained that a perfectly good deal was already in effect – the 2015 JCPOA under Obama – but that Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of it in April 2018.

The Ayatollah has said that Iran simply can’t trust Washington to abide by any deal, given any future administration can overturn it, just as Trump did.

The game of headline pong is firing on all cylinders this morning, because moments after stocks slumped and oil spiked after Trump threatened new tariffs on Russia (even though virtually every possible product and service out of Russia is already sanctioned and tariffed by Western nations), Bloomberg reported the opposite, claiming that Putin is “willing to discuss a temporary truce in Ukraine, provided there is progress toward a final peace settlement” citing Russian sources.

Algos read “temporary truce” and immediately slammed toil, the same oil they had spiked just an hour earlier after Trump’s threat.

The only problem is that they did so before reading the rest of report which basically said… well, nothing new at all, to wit:

In the first signal of a positive response from President Vladimir Putin to US counterpart Donald Trump’s call for a ceasefire, the offer was conveyed at last month’s talks in Saudi Arabia between top Russian and American officials, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing internal policy. In order to agree to a cessation of hostilities, there would have to be a clear understanding about the framework principles of the final peace accord, two people with knowledge of the matter said. 

… and the punchline

Russia will insist in particular on establishing the parameters of an eventual peacekeeping mission, including agreement on which countries would take part, said another person familiar with the issue.

…

Russia has said it won’t accept the presence of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, rejecting a proposal by European countries to put together a “coalition of the willing” to help monitor any peace accord. It doesn’t object to countries such as China that have been neutral in the conflict deploying forces to Ukraine, the two people said.

In other words, this is about as actionable as Zelensky saying he will resign as president the moment Ukraine enters NATO, which of course is a non-starter to Russia. Likewise, Russia’s “conditions” for a ceasefire are completely unacceptable (at least as of this moment) to Europe.

And just to underscore this, Russia on Thursday rejected a Franco-British plan for a partial one-month truce covering air and maritime operations including a halt to strikes targeting energy infrastructure.

The details emerged as the US and Ukraine plan to meet in Saudi Arabia next week for their first direct talks since Trump’s Oval Office bust-up with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week. US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the meeting aims to reach “a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire.”

Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has overturned US policy on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to try to bring a rapid end to the three-year-long war that’s Europe’s worst conflict in 80 years. He held phone talks with Putin last month and the pair agreed to hold a summit, though no date has been set yet. Trump abandoned US support for Ukraine’s eventual entry into NATO, and his top officials said it was unrealistic to expect a return of all Ukrainian territory seized by Russia since 2014.

After the confrontation with Zelenskiy at the White House, Trump paused military aid to Ukraine and has suspended some intelligence-sharing with Kyiv, shocking European allies who say the US risks rewarding Russia’s aggression in starting the February 2022 invasion.

Putin has repeatedly brushed aside Trump’s bid for a quick halt to the war. During his annual news conference in December, he said: “We don’t need a truce — we need peace: long-term, durable, with guarantees for the Russian Federation and its citizens.”

Earlier:

US and Russian delegations have in the last three weeks had two rounds of ‘successful’ face-to-face talks, but President Trump is trying to keep up the pressure on Moscow, also as preparations are reportedly moving fast toward a landmark Trump-Putin bilateral meeting.

Trump sent a strong warning and message on Friday, writing on Truth Social, “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.”

Of course, there are already far-reaching sanctions on Russia’s banking sector, but the threat of more punitive action to come on top of what Biden put in place was accompanied by a warning to get to the table before it’s “too late”.

“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late,” Trump added. This message seemed also geared toward building or maintaining leverage. These “large-scale” sanctions would be on top of an already significant and unprecedented sanctions regimen applied as a result of the Ukraine war.

Yet Trump plainly spoke the reality during last Friday’s meeting with Zelensky at the White House – stressing multiple times that Ukraine has “no cards” to play. Indeed as far as battlefield momentum goes, Russia holds all the cards.

Much of the international media has been focused on back-and-forth statements on the diplomatic front, but the Kremlin has continued proclaiming consistent gains in the Donbass area. As for the latest TASS reports Friday:

Russian troops liberated four communities in the Donetsk region over the week of March 1-7 in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.

“Battlegroup Center units improved their tactical position and liberated the settlement of Andreyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic… Battlegroup East units kept advancing deep into the enemy’s defenses and liberated the settlements of Skudnoye, Burlatskoye and Privolnoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the ministry said in a statement.

Overnight also saw more major Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. This included more drone assaults.

Russia’s defense ministry newly states that “Last night, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a combined strike by air-launched, sea-and ground-based long-range precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles on facilities of gas and power supply infrastructure of Ukraine’s military-industrial sector. The goal of the strike was achieved. All the targets were struck.”

After spending a month working on economic rapprochement with Russia and flirting with lifting sanctions, Trump now says he is close to imposing more sanctions on Russia instead pic.twitter.com/pM77AM0u5G

— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 7, 2025

As for potential new Russia sanctions, the timing is a bit ironic and Moscow is likely to pass over it in silence, seeing in it a ‘bluff’ toward building up negotiating leverage.

After all Trump actually started the week by drawing up options for sanctions relief on Russia. He’s doing a carrot-and-stick approach for both the Moscow and Kiev sides, it appears. The Kremlin is unlikely to take this new threat very seriously.

By Philip Marey, Senior US Strategist at Rabobank

The global bond sell off continued yesterday. Bund yields continued to rise and peaked at almost 2.93% early on Thursday, as the usually austere country is planning for a huge increase in defense spending. The 10 year US treasury yield continued its rebound from the 4.10% low on Tuesday and peaked at 4.34% yesterday. The 10 year Japanese government bond yields continued to rise and peaked at 1.545%.

At yesterday’s EU summit in Brussels, which included Ukrainian president Zelensky, all 27 leaders of Europe greenlit proposals that could free up billions of euros to boost defense spending. Except for Orban, 26 leaders signed a text calling for a peace deal that respects Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, while including Ukraine in the neogotiations. Meanwhile, Russian president Putin reminded Macron (‘Micron’) of Napoleon’s ill-fated Russia campaign in 1812.

In the US, President Trump questioned Article 5 again and Europe’s willingness to come to America’s rescue. He clearly missed that so far only the US has invoked Article 5 in reaction to 9/11 and that over 1,000 European soldiers lost their lives fighting alongside US forces in Afghanistan. Trump also questioned the US defense treaty with Japan, conveniently forgetting that after WW2 the US forced Japan to become semi-pacifist.

Yesterday, the ECB cut the deposit facility rate by 25 basis points to 2.50%. The ECB signalled that today’s rate cut will probably be one of the last in this cycle. We have postponed our forecast for the final rate cut from April to June, but the prospect for further cuts hinges on US trade policy and European defence spending. The ECB’s growth forecasts were revised down, factoring in uncertainty about trade policy. However, the ECB did not specify how much of this uncertainty was factored into the inflation estimates. More importantly, the forecasts are already outdated – primarily owing to Europe’s initiatives to increase defence spending. For more details, please read Bas van Geffen’s ECB postmeeting comment.

A day after Trump gave the auto industry a one month delay from the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, other sectors that are USMCA-compliant also got a reprieve. In response, Canada said it would not proceed with the second installment of retaliatory tariffs on $87 billion of imports from the US later this month. However, Canada left in place the first installment of tariffs on $21 billion of goods, such as fruits, vegetables, household appliances and alcohol. Given the complexity of the USMCA compliance rules, estimates of the share of traded goods that are USMCA-compliant vary wildly. However, a White House official put it at 50% for Mexico and 38% for Canada. Some experts would attach a higher figure for Canada though. Anyway, this still means that the 25% tariffs continue to apply for a large fraction of imports from Canada and Mexico.

At the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network Summit  yesterday, Fed Governor Waller said that Fed rate cuts can come either after good news of falling inflation or after bad news. He said “I’m still kind of believing that the good news rate cuts are in place.” Waller said he wouldn’t support lowering interest rates in March, but sees room to cut two, or possibly three, times this year. He admitted that there are early signs the economy could be slowing, but those aren’t yet borne out by the most-watched economic figures.

The White House has just announced that President Trump will deliver remarks from The Oval Office at 11ET, providing no context or theme for what he will discuss.

There’s plenty of speculation as he has been busy over the last 24 hours:

Will he mention the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve?

Will he discuss blocking all funding to South Africa?

Will he bring up Ukraine‘s minerals deal and his Russian sanctions threat?

Will his adjustment from “hatchet” to “scalpel” approach for DOGE come up?

Will he bring up Europe’s “ReArm” plan?

Will he mock Congressman Green‘s outburst?

Will he announce a federal ban on China’s DeepSeek app?

Will he explain why he temporarily folded on his sanctions threats against Mexico and Canada?

Or, is Trump trying to front-run Fed Chair Powell‘s speech at 1230ET on the economy and jobs report today?

Your guess is as good as ours…

Watch live here:

*  *  *

And while you’re waiting, Anza Knives are back In Stock! We just got a huge delivery.

Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back, lifetime guarantee. If you’re looking for a great daily carry, check this one out.