President Trump's Five-Front Game of Chicken

The stakes are higher than they've ever been for our trade relationships across the globe. The odds seemed stacked against President Trump. Can he pull it off for America?

The effects of President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" moves are starting to be felt. The aftermath of the announcement itself is already making a huge impact across the globe and we're only in the initial phase of tariffs being rolled out. Around fifty nations had contacted the White House by the weekend and a handful of deals have already been been proposed. Meanwhile, the stock market is crashing and legacy media is giddy over it all.

Now, the hard part begins.

As he noted Monday on Truth Social:

Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION, and the long time abused USA is bringing in Billions of Dollars a week from the abusing countries on Tariffs that are already in place. This is despite the fact that the biggest abuser of them all, China, whose markets are crashing, just raised its Tariffs by 34%, on top of its long term ridiculously high Tariffs (Plus!), not acknowledging my warning for abusing countries not to retaliate. They’ve made enough, for decades, taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA! Our past “leaders” are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

The Trump administration is playing multiple games of chicken. In these game of chicken, there are four possible outcomes.

• The opponents back down and do President Trump's will

• President Trump backs down and tries to salvage the situation

• Both sides back down and meet in the middle to negotiate terms of a draw

• Neither side backs down, causing a collision

On paper, the odds seemed stacked against him because he needs to get all five opponents to back down in order to claim full victory. In reality, President Trump and America can come out on top if the victories and "draws" (which mean both sides get some of what they want) are more impactful than any defeats.

Here are the five opponents, in no particular order, playing chicken against President Trump right now:

• Wall Street - The crashing stock market is not an indicator of results of the tariffs. Their an indicator of the reactions to the tariffs from those who will benefit when the stock market falls and then rises again. Wall Street is shorting the market now knowing that they'll be betting on it again at some point in the future. Sadly, they're okay with smaller investors, especially those with their retirement accounts locked in the stock market, sweating through the ups and downs while hedge funds manipulate the outcomes to fit their desired timing.

• The UniParty Swamp - RINOs like Congressman Don Bacon and Senator Chuck Grassley are using this opportunity to try to take back power from the executive branch over tariffs. Their track record of fiscal failure for decades should preclude this, but in our low-information political world the RINOs and Democrats will point to short-term market drops to cover for their long-term self-aggrandizing.

• Corporate America Outsourcers - It isn't the foreign companies affected by tariffs that are a threat. In fact, they present the biggest opportunity for investment into the United States. It's the domestic companies that rely on cheap foreign labor and low-quality foreign parts who pose the biggest risk to tariffs from a corporate perspective. Some will take this as a signal for them to bring their infrastructure back to their home nation. Many of them will fight behind the scenes to subvert President Trump at every turn.

• China - This may be the hardest challenge for President Trump to overcome because of one factor: the Chinese Communist Party's pride. They don't like to lose but unfortunately their hand is far weaker than President Trump's. They need us far more than we need them but they desperately want the rest of the world to think it's the other way around. At question is whether or not they're willing to commit economic suicide for the sake of bravado, and unfortunately it could go either way with the Xi regime.

• Europe - Our friends and semi-friends in Europe are going to push back but there's a good chance they may recognize the opportunity President Trump is providing them. Of all those who will be impacted by the tariffs, Europe is the one that can benefit the most. They can and should break free from their own globalist ambitions and acknowledge that they can be far more self-sufficient if they stop relying on the rest of the world. This is unlikely, of course, but not impossible. If they choose to fight President Trump on this, they could very easily make it personal and allow it to metastasize into a full-blown confrontation with America economically and culturally.

The keys to victory for America in the so-called "trade wars" are a steady hand and a resolute stance. Wall Street will do whatever is in its best interests, which means that a handful of wins for the President could turn the market around quickly. Corporate America will fume but they'll get over it. China and Europe are wildcards.

It's the UniParty Swamp that poses the biggest immediate threat because they can drive sentiment with moves that make it look like they can reverse President Trump's tariffs. If Wall Street, the American public, and the world believe Congress can put an end to President Trump's maneuvers against his will, they will prolong the pain that is going to be felt.

President Trump said Sunday, "Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."

Short-term financial impacts from the tariffs are the medicine of which he speaks. I hate using graphic visuals to make a point but if we stay with President Trump's analogy, then what the UniParty Swamp is trying to do is to make America "purge" the medicine before it can take effect.

It is possible that Rep. Bacon and his RINO allies can get tariff clawback legislation passed, forcing President Trump to veto it. But even if they cannot take back the power to reverse the tariffs, they'll be sending a message of disunity that will give the other four groups playing chicken against President Trump the excuse to keep going.

The UniParty Swamp knows this. They WANT President Trump to fail. They NEED him to fail to benefit themselves, their portfolios, and most importantly the anti-American interests that control them. This is why it's extremely important that Americans let Bacon, Grassley, and the others know that we support the President's plan and we want him to see it all the way through. Only then can we defeat the globalists; I noted in a recent segment of my show that they're the real targets of all this.