THE NEWS

Authored by Gerry Nolan via The Ron Paul Institute

Italy’s decision to stand with Belgium against the confiscation of Russian sovereign assets is not a diplomatic footnote. It is a moment of clarity breaking through the fog of performative morality that has engulfed Brussels. Strip away the slogans and the truth is unavoidable: the seizure of Russian sovereign reserves will not change the course of the war in Ukraine by a single inch.

This is not about funding Ukraine, it is about whether sovereign property still exists in a Western financial system that has quietly replaced law with cult-like obedience. That is why panic has entered the room.

The European Commission wants to pretend this is a clever workaround, a one-off, an emergency measure wrapped in legal contortions and moral posturing masquerading as hysteria. But finance does not function on intentions, rage, or narratives. It functions on precedent, trust, and enforceability. And once that trust is broken, it does not return.

The modern global financial system rests on a single, unglamorous principle, that State assets held in foreign jurisdictions are legally immune from political confiscation.

That principle underwrites reserve currencies, correspondent banking, sovereign debt markets, and cross-border investment. It is why central banks like Russia’s (once) accepted euros instead of bullion shipped under armed guard. It is why settlement systems like Euroclear exist at all. Once that rule is broken, capital does not debate. It reprices risk instantly and it leaves.

Confiscation sends a message to every country outside the Western political orbit: your savings are safe only as long as you remain politically compliant.

That is not a rules-based order. It is a selectively enforced order whose rules change the moment compliance ends. What we have is a compliance cartel, enforcing law upward and punishment downward, depending on who obeys and who resists.

Belgium’s fear is not legalistic. It is actuarial. Hosting Euroclear means hosting systemic risk. If Russia or any future target successfully challenges the seizure, Belgium could be exposed to claims that dwarf the sums being discussed. Belgium is therefore right to be skeptical of Europe’s promise to underwrite such colossal risk, given the bloc’s now shattered credibility. No serious financial actor would treat such guarantees as reliable.

Italy’s hesitation is not ideological. It is mathematical. With one of Europe’s heaviest debt burdens, Rome understands what happens when markets begin questioning the neutrality of reserve currencies and custodians.

Neither country suddenly developed sympathy for Moscow. They simply did the arithmetic before the slogans.

Paris and London, meanwhile, thunder publicly while quietly insulating their own commercial banks’ exposure to Russian sovereign assets, exposure measured not in rhetoric, but in tens of billions. French financial institutions alone hold an estimated €15–20 billion, while UK-linked banks and custodial structures account for roughly £20–25 billion, much of it routed through London’s clearing and custody ecosystem rather than sitting on government balance sheets.

This hypocrisy and cowardice are not accidental. Paris and London sit at the heart of global custodial banking, derivatives clearing, and FX settlement, nodes embedded deep within the plumbing of global finance. Retaliatory seizures or accelerated capital flight would not be symbolic for them; they would be catastrophic.

So the burden is shifted outward. Smaller states are expected to absorb systemic risk while core financial centers preserve deniability, play a double game, and posture as virtuous.

This is anything but European solidarity. It is class defense at the international level.

The increasingly shrill insistence from the Eurocrats that the assets must be seized betrays something far more revealing than hysteria or resolve: the unmasking of a project sustained by delusion and Russophobic dogma, in which moral certainty did not arise from conviction, but functioned as a mechanism for managing cognitive dissonance, a means of avoiding realities that any serious strategy would already have been forced to confront.

Not confidence, but exposure. Exposure of a war Europe never possessed the power to decide, only the capacity to prolong. Exposure of a financial system discovering that money, once stripped of neutrality and weaponized, forfeits its credibility as capital. And exposure of a ruling class confronting the reality that performance, however theatrical, cannot substitute for power that has long since been exhausted – power Europe relinquished decades ago when it outsourced real sovereignty to Washington.

Looting Russian reserves will not shorten the conflict. It will not pressure Moscow into capitulation. It will not meaningfully finance Ukraine’s future. And this is not because Europe has miscalculated, it is because Europe has knowingly abandoned reality.

There is no serious actor in Europe who does not understand how wars are won. They know that Russia’s war effort is driven by industrial throughput, manpower depth, logistics resilience, and continental scale and that on every one of these axes Russia has expanded its advantage while Europe has accelerated its collapse. Russia has retooled its defense-industrial base for sustained output, secured energy and raw materials at scale, reoriented trade beyond Western choke points, and absorbed sanctions as a catalyst for growth. This is not conjecture. It is observable fact.

This move will permanently accelerate reserve diversification away from the euro, expand bilateral settlement, hasten gold repatriation, and entrench non-Western clearing systems, and it will do so immediately.

What is being exposed here is not Russian vulnerability, but Western exhaustion. When economies can no longer compete through production, innovation, or growth, they turn to banditry. Asset seizure is not a sign of strength, but he terminal behavior of a rentier system that has exhausted surplus and begun consuming its own foundations.

This decision does not defend any lingering illusion of Western dominance. It advertises its expiry. The turn toward policing speech in Europe did not happen in a vacuum.

The Digital Services Act, platform intimidation, and the policing of dissent is all about pre-emptive damage control. European elites understand that the consequences of this policy will land squarely on households.

The people who will pay for this are not sitting in Commission buildings, they are the ones whose pensions, currencies, and living standards are being quietly offered up to preserve a collapsing illusion of power.

That is why dissent had to be neutralized before confiscation could be attempted. Not after. Criticism was pre-emptively reclassified as disinformation. Debate was recoded as existential danger. Speech itself was reframed as a security threat.

In their desperation to punish Russia, Europe’s leadership is handing Moscow something far more valuable than €210 billion. They are validating every argument held by the Global Majority about Western hypocrisy, legal nihilism, and financial coercion. They are demonstrating that sovereignty within the Western system is provisional, granted conditionally, revoked politically.

Empires do not collapse because they are challenged. They collapse because they cannibalize the systems that once made them legitimate.

This seizure will not be remembered as a blow against Moscow. It will be remembered as the moment Europe told the world that property rights end where obedience begins.

Once that message is received, there is no reset.

Shares of Ford in New York have yet to hit a new high since the debut of the all-electric F-150 Lightning in April 2022. What was pitched as a flagship EV push has since devolved into an epic miscalculation, with the automaker now preparing to take $19.5 billion in charges, mostly in the fourth quarter, as it unwinds and overhauls its electric vehicle strategy.

Ford is overhauling its entire electrification roadmap. The reset includes the cancellation of three future EV programs, the termination of the current F-150 Lightning, and a shift toward new offerings across multiple powertrains, including a future extended-range hybrid vehicle variant of the F-Series.

The pivot also entails a complete restructuring of battery operations, highlighted by the breakup of its partnership with South Korean battery maker SK On. The next chapter of Ford’s strategy is a pivot toward grid-scale energy storage systems.

We’ve explained to readers that lithium prices are on the rise as EV battery makers pivot to energy storage systems:

• Grid-Scale Battery Boom Sparks Lithium’s Comeback

• Wall Street Eyes Lithium as Battery Storage Demand Poised to Spark New Upcycle

Last year, Ford lost a staggering $5.1 billion in its EV division and expects this year to be even worse. The pivot puts the struggling automaker’s EV division on track for profitability by the end of the decade.

Here are the key highlights of the pivot:

• Offers broad choice with gas, hybrids, and EVs: Ford will offer a range of hybrids to complement efficient gas engines. The Universal EV Platform will underpin multiple models. By 2030, about 50% of Ford’s global volume will be hybrids, extended-range EVs, and electric vehicles, versus 17% today.

• Fills U.S. plants with affordable new models: New Built Ford Tough pickups will be assembled at BlueOval City in Tennessee, and a new gas and hybrid van will be produced at the Ohio Assembly Plant. Ford plans to hire thousands of new employees in the U.S. in the next few years.

• Launches battery energy storage business: Ford will leverage wholly owned plants in Kentucky and Michigan and leading LFP technology to provide solutions for energy infrastructure and growing data center demand. Ford plans to begin shipping BESS systems in 2027 with 20 GWh of annual capacity.

• Improves profitability: Actions are expected to drive accretive returns and accelerate margin improvements across Ford Model e, Ford Pro, and Ford Blue. Ford Model e is now expected to reach profitability by 2029, with improvements beginning in 2026.

• Rationalizes U.S. EV-related assets and product roadmap: Ford expects to record about $19.5 billion in special items, with the majority in the fourth quarter. The company expects about $5.5 billion in cash effects, with most paid in 2026 and the remainder in 2027.

• Raises guidance: The company raised 2025 adjusted EBIT guidance to about $7 billion, citing continued underlying business strength and cost improvements. It reaffirmed adjusted free cash flow guidance, trending toward the high end of the $2 billion to $3 billion range.

Goldman analysts led by Mark Delaney offered clients their first take on the restructuring of Ford’s EV unit:

We believe the realignment and restructuring actions will help improve the P&L as Ford reduces Model e losses and increases production of more profitable Blue and Pro vehicles. Over the longer term, we expect a key debate will center on how these actions impact Ford’s ability to reach Model e profitability, particularly as it increasingly competes with Chinese OEMs outside of China. We think successful execution on the UEV platform and EREV technology, as well as software and digital services, will be key factors. On the ESS business, industry participants have historically seen varied margins, and we believe costs and the company’s ability to deliver a full solution will be important determinants of long-term profitability.

On capital allocation:

We do not expect these charges to affect Ford’s dividend. Recall that Ford’s dividend target is based on 40% to 50% of adjusted free cash flow, and we believe these charges will be excluded from the adjusted FCF calculation. In addition, the company has a strong cash position on the balance sheet, in our view.

Goldman maintained a Neutral rating on the stock, raised EPS estimates to $1.16, $1.65, and $1.80 for 2025, 2026, and 2027, respectively, and lifted its 12-month price target to $14 from $13, based on an unchanged 8x multiple on normalized EPS.

Ford shares have yet to recover since the F-150 EV debuted in April 2022.

In November, we reported that Ford mulled scrapping the EV truck:

• Ford Mulls Scrapping F-150 Lightning After Dismal Demand, Mounting Losses

The F-150 EV is shaping up to be America’s first major EV casualty. Henry Ford would likely be turning over in his grave after such a massive miscalculation in chasing the “green” narrative. The question now is whether the board will hold management accountable for drinking the green Kool-Aid.