Zerohedge

Frustrated by repeated delays in Boeing’s new Air Force One production timeline, President Trump has reportedly commissioned defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to retrofit a Boeing 747 previously used by the Qatari government as an interim presidential aircraft. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that L3Harris has been tasked with retrofitting the Qatari 747 with communications systems and other equipment to transform the luxury aircraft into Air Force One. 

According to the people familiar with the matter, President Trump requested that L3Harris complete the needed retrofitting of the jumbo jet by as early as fall.

In February, FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence confirmed that Boeing had suffered global supply chain snarls that changed project timings and delayed the completion date to 2029. 

White House communications director Steven Cheung told FOX Business at the time: “It is ridiculous that the delivery of a new Air Force One airplane has been delayed for such a long time,” adding, “The president working on identifying ways to speed up the delivery of a new plane, which has been needed for a while.”

Months later, WSJ’s L3Harris report may suggest that there were very limited options to speed up the Boeing delivery. 

Here’s more from the report:

Before Trump’s inauguration, White House Military Office and senior Air Force officials considered canceling Boeing’s contract for the new planes, according to people familiar with the matter. White House officials under Trump have also discussed whether they can sue the plane manufacturer, some of the people said.

Trump initially tapped the bloated defense contractor to build the next-generation presidential aircraft during his first term, aiming to replace the aging fleet. Boeing’s failure to deliver on time has become emblematic of the broader military-industrial complex: bloated, sluggish, and unaccountable.

The military-industrial complex’s failures must urgently be corrected. For now, L3Harris is stepping in, aiming to deliver a retrofitted Qatari 747 as an interim Air Force One jet by this fall.

America’s defense space needs more domestic competition if it wants to compete in the 2030s. 

Authored by Alex O’Donnell via CoinTelegraph.com,

US dollar-pegged stablecoins are on track to reach an aggregate market capitalization of approximately $2 trillion by 2028, according to the United States Department of the Treasury’s Q1 2025 report.

Stablecoins’ cumulative market cap currently stands at roughly $230 billion, but “[e]volving market dynamics [have] the potential to accelerate stablecoins’ trajectory to reach ~$2tn in market cap by 2028,” the Treasury said in the April 30 report. 

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to a traditional asset like the US dollar. According to the report, such tokens are already “ubiquitously utilized as ‘cash on-chain,’ effectively serving as a new payment mechanism.”

Additionally, the emergence of “tokenized [money market funds] has recently created an alternative option to stablecoins, primarily given their yield-bearing feature,” the report reads.

Treasury on stablecoins’ impact. Source: US Treasury

Embracing tokenization

The report is the latest example of how the US government is embracing blockchain technology, especially after US President Donald Trump commenced his second term of office on Jan. 20. 

The Treasury previously endorsed cryptocurrency in December, noting that the technology promises to create a “new financial market infrastructure,” potentially increasing global demand for US Treasury bills. US dollar-pegged stablecoins such as Tether and USDC  invest fiat backing into yield-bearing instruments such as US Treasurys. 

“[B]ecause most stablecoin collateral reportedly consists of either Treasury bills or Treasury-backed repurchase agreement transactions, the growth in stablecoins has likely resulted in a modest increase in demand for short-dated Treasury securities,” the Treasury said in December.

The current state of stablecoins. Source: US Treasury

In its April report, the Treasury said that pending stablecoin legislation would “require stablecoin issuers to hold [short-dated] T-bills,” thus solidifying the link between stablecoin adoption and US Treasury bill demand. 

The report also noted that the proliferation of stablecoins could put pressure on retail banks to pay higher interest rates to depositors. 

As of April 25, Tether’s USDt is the dominant stablecoin, commanding approximately 66% of market share, according to a report by researcher Nansen. 

The token has a market capitalization of roughly $150 billion, according to CoinGecko. Circle’s USDC ranks second, with a market capitalization of approximately $60 billion as of April 30.

The first wave of the trade downturn is already affecting the U.S. West Coast, with the Port of Los Angeles experiencing a sharp decline in containerized imports from Asia, following months of elevated frontloading by U.S. importers. 

For those tracking trade developments in recent weeks, this freight downturn was entirely predictable:

• Amazon Cancels Orders, Walmart Pulls Forecast As Tariffs Take Hold

• Are China Road Traffic Indicators Set To Collapse As Tariff War Cancels Factory Orders

• Chinese Sellers On Amazon Panic After Trump’s Tariff Bazooka

• Liberation Day Fallout: China’s Port Volumes Sink After Trump’s Tariff Blitz

• Chinese Plastics Factories Face Mass Closure As U.S. Ethane Supply Evaporates

• “Our Export Orders Disappeared”: Chinese Factories Shutting Down, Laying Off Workers, FT Finds

• All Quiet On The Western Ports… Is This The Calm Before The Trade War Storm?

• First Tariff Shock Set To Hit Port Of Los Angeles, With Ripple Effects Across The Broader Economy

• Trade War Shock Looms For Port Of Los Angeles As Goldman Identifies Most-Impacted Products

• Imported High-Volume Staple Goods From China Are About To Dry Up

Last month, Chinese manufacturers shut down production lines, and exporters suspended shipments to the U.S. in response to President Trump’s 145% tariff trade wall. The one-month delay in the U.S. economic impact reflects the time it takes cargo ships to sail China-US West Coast shipping lanes.

The latest scheduled import volume data from Port Optimizer, a tracking system for vessel operators, shows that the economic impact of the tariffs on Chinese goods has already begun to take effect. 

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, laid out a presentation for clients of what to expect in the weeks ahead:

The consequence will be empty shelves in U.S. stores in a few weeks and Covid-like shortages for consumers and for firms using Chinese products as intermediate goods.

In addition, we will soon begin to see higher inflation because there are a significant number of product categories where China is the main provider of certain goods into the U.S. market.

In May, we will begin to see significant layoffs in trucking, logistics, and retail—particularly in small businesses such as your independent toy store, your independent hardware store, and your independent men’s clothing store. With 9 million people working in trucking-related jobs and 16 million people working in the retail sector, the downside risks to the economy are significant.

In a separate note, Goldman analyst Trina Chen outlined which Chinese products are most likely to be impacted if shortages materialize over the next couple of months.

Slok’s chart above illustrates that the front-loading surge in imports ended abruptly just ahead of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. The sharp drop in containerized volumes from China came off previously elevated levels. More or less, this was a natural lull that developed and quickly reversed due to tariffs. 

The consequences of the tariffs could lead to Covid-like shortages of high-volume staples from China once warehouse inventories run dry. However, no retailer will allow shelves to go empty—they’ll be forced to reorder at higher costs and pass those increases on to consumers. That’s why inflation could see a resurgence. Still, this may take months—possibly a full quarter—to fully unfold, by which point a broader U.S. economic downturn may already be in motion. 

President Trump’s trade war is pushing both multinational giants and small businesses to either friend-shore or re-shore their critical supply chains out of China. Some of these firms have even considered bringing critical manufacturing operations to the United States. 

One such company, Seattle, Washington-based Wyze Labs, a popular seller on Amazon of smart home and wireless camera products, revealed on X that their “first tariff bill” has “accelerated” efforts to leave China in two months, with serious consideration of restoring supply chains in the United States. 

“Just got our first tariff bill. We imported $167k of floodlights and then paid $255k in tariffs. That’s more than any of our founders were paid last year,” Wyze wrote on X. 

Just got our first tariff bill. We imported $167k of floodlights and then paid $255k in tariffs. That’s more than any of our founders were paid last year. 😅😅😅

— Wyze (@WyzeCam) April 30, 2025

Wyze posted an image of their tariff bill for floodlights that nearly doubled. 

For those who say we made it up… pic.twitter.com/3wEL6u1VTQ

— Wyze (@WyzeCam) April 30, 2025

“We’ve been working on moving manufacturing out of China for over a year now, but those efforts have been…accelerated. We’ll probably be out in 60 days,” the Seattle start-up said, adding, “Obviously we’d love to move our factories back home to Seattle. We just need to figure out to make the rain in Seattle power an assembly line.” 

Obviously we’d love to move our factories back home to Seattle. We just need to figure out to make the rain in Seattle power an assembly line.

— Wyze (@WyzeCam) April 30, 2025

Some of Wyze’s products on Amazon have tens of thousands of reviews, making them a popular choice among consumers. 

Earlier on Thursday, Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks provided CNBC with an update about tariffs: “I think that actually, the threat of tariffs is already bringing back critical supply chains into important industries, chips, and pharma.”

Perhaps the Trump administration should consider launching a public counter to track the success of friend-shoring and re-shoring efforts, as the 145% tariff on Chinese imports acts as a powerful lever in the ongoing trade war, reshaping critical supply chains and accelerating the exodus from China.

Authored by David Bell via The Brownstone Institute,

One way to determine whether a suggestion is worth following is to look at the evidence presented to support it. 

If the evidence makes sense and smells real, then perhaps the program you are asked to sign up for is worthy of consideration. 

However, if the whole scheme is sold on fallacies that a child could poke a stick through, and its chief proponents cannot possibly believe their own rhetoric, then only a fool would go much further. This is obvious – you don’t buy a used car on a salesman’s insistence that there is no other way to get from your kitchen to your bathroom.

Delegates at the coming World Health Assembly in Geneva are faced with such a choice. In this case, the car salesman is the World Health Organization (WHO), an organization still commanding considerable global respect based on a legacy of sane and solid work some decades ago. 

It also benefits from a persistent misunderstanding that large international organizations would not intentionally lie (they increasingly do, as noted below). The delegates will be voting on the recently completed text of the Pandemic Agreement, part of a broad effort to extract large profits and salaries from an intrinsic human fear of rare causes of death. Fear and confusion distract human minds from rational behavior.

WHO Likes a Good Story?

The Pandemic Agreement, and the international pandemic agenda it is intended to support, are based on a series of demonstrably false claims:

• There is evidence of a rising risk of severe naturally occurring pandemics due to a rapid (exponential) increase in infectious disease outbreaks 

• A massive return on financial investment is expected from diverting large resources to prepare for, prevent, or combat these

• The Covid-19 outbreak was probably of natural origin, and serves as an example of unavoidable health and financial costs we will incur again if we don’t act now.

If any of these were false, then the basis on which the WHO and its backers have argued for the Pandemic Agreement is fundamentally flawed. And all of them can be shown to be false. However, influential people and organizations want pandemics to be the main focus of public health. The WHO supports this because it is paid to. 

The private sector invested heavily in vaccines, and a few countries with large vaccine and biotech industries now direct most of the WHO’s work through specified funding. The WHO is obligated to deliver what these interests direct it to.

The WHO was once independent and able to concentrate on health priorities – back when they prioritized the main drivers of sickness and premature mortality and gained the reputation they now trade from. In today’s corporatized public health, population-based approaches have lost value, and the aspirations of the World Economic Forum hold more sway than those dying before sixty. 

Success in the health commodities business is about enlarging markets, not reducing the need for intervention. The WHO and its reputation are useful tools to sanitize this. Colonialism, as ever, needs to appear altruistic.

Truth Is Less Compelling Than Fiction

So, to address these fallacies. Infectious disease mortality has steadily declined over the past century despite a minor Covid blip that took us back just a decade. This blip includes the virus, but also the avoidable imposition of poverty, unemployment, reduced healthcare access, and other factors that the WHO had previously warned against, but recently actively promoted. 

To get around this reality of decreasing mortality, the WHO uses a hypothetical disease (Disease X), a placeholder for something that has not happened since the Spanish flu in the pre-antibiotic era. The huge Medieval pandemics such as the Black Death were mostly bacterial in origin, as were probably most Spanish flu deaths. With antibiotics, sewers, and better food, we now live longer and don’t expect such mortality events, but the WHO uses this threat regardless. 

Thus, the WHO has been reduced to misrepresenting fragile evidence (e.g. ignoring technology developments that can explain rising reports of outbreaks) and opinion pieces by sponsored panels in order to support the narrative of rapidly rising pandemic risk. Even Covid-19 is getting harder to use. If, as appears most likely, it was an inevitable result of laboratory manipulation, then it no longer even serves as an outlier. The WHO’s pandemic agenda is squarely targeted at natural outbreaks; hence the need for “Disease X”.

The WHO (and the World Bank) follow a similar approach in inflating financial Return on Investment (ROI). If you received an email promoting over 300 to 700 times return on a proposed investment, some may be impressed but sensible people would suspect something amiss. But this is what the Group of Twenty (G20) secretariat told its members in 2022 for return on investment on the WHO’s pandemic preparedness proposals. 

The WHO and the World Bank provided the graphic below to the same G20 meeting to support such astronomical predictions. It is essentially subterfuge; a fantasy to mislead readers such as politicians who are too busy, and trusting, to dig deeper. As these agencies are intended to serve countries rather than fool them, this sort of behavior, which is recurrent, should call into question their very existence.

Figure 1 from Analysis of Pandemic Preparedness and Response (PPR) architecture, financing needs, gaps and mechanisms, prepared by WHO and the World Bank for the G20, March 2022. Lower chart modified by REPPARE, University of Leeds.

A virus like SARS-CoV-2 (causing Covid-19) that mostly targets the sick elderly with an overall infectious mortality rate of about 0.15% will not cost $9 trillion unless panicked or greedy people choose to close down the world’s supply lines, implement mass unemployment, and then print money for multi-trillion-dollar stimulus packages. In contrast, diseases that regularly kill more and much younger people, like tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, cost far more than $22 billion a year in contrast. 

A 2021 Lancet article put tuberculosis losses alone at $580 billion/year in 2018. Malaria kills over 600,000 children annually, and HIV/AIDS results in similar numbers of deaths. These deaths of current and future productive workers, leaving orphaned children, cost countries. Once, they were the WHO’s main priority.

Trading on a Fading Reputation

In selling the package, the WHO seems to have abandoned any attempt at meaningful dialogue. They still justify the surveillance-lockdown-mass vaccinate model by the logic-free claim that over 14 million lives were saved by Covid vaccines in 2021 (so we all have to do that again). The WHO recorded a little over 3 million Covid-related deaths in the first (vaccine-free) year of the pandemic. For the 14 million ‘saved’ to be correct, another 17 million would somehow have been due to die in year two, despite most people having gained immunity and many of the most susceptible having already succumbed.

Such childish claims are meant to shock and confuse rather than educate. People are paid to model such numbers to create narratives, and others are paid to spin them on the WHO websites and elsewhere. An industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars depends on such messaging. Scientific integrity cannot survive in an organization paid to be a mouthpiece.

As an alternative, the WHO could advocate for investment in areas that promoted longevity in wealthy countries – sanitation, better diet and living conditions, and access to basic, good medical care. 

This was once the WHO’s priority because it not only greatly reduces mortality from rare pandemic events (most Covid deaths were in people already very unwell), but it also reduces mortality from the big endemic killers such as malaria, tuberculosis, common childhood infections, and many chronic non-communicable diseases. It is, unequivocally, the main reason why mortality from major childhood infectious diseases like measles and Whooping cough plummeted long before mass vaccinations were introduced.

If we concentrated on strategies that improve general health and resilience, rather than the financial health of the pandemic industrial complex, we could then confidently decide not to wreck the lives of our children and elderly if a pandemic did arise. 

Very few people would be at high risk. We could all expect to live longer and healthier lives. The WHO has elected to leave this path, instill mass and unfounded fear, and support a very different paradigm. While the Pandemic Agreement is not essential to it, it is an important part of diverting further funds to this agenda and cementing this corporatist approach into place.

The United States has done well by stepping out of this mess, but continues to push many of the same fallacies and was instrumental in sowing the mess we now reap. While a few other governments are questioning, it is hard for any politicians to stand with truth when a sponsored media stands squarely elsewhere. 

Society is once more enslaving itself, at the behest of an entitled few, facilitated by international agencies that were set up specifically to guard against this. At the coming World Health Assembly, the pandemic fairytale will almost certainly prevail. 

The hope is that a well-deserved erosion of trust will eventually catch up with the global health industry and too few countries will ratify this treaty for it ever to come into force. To fix the underlying problem though and derail the pandemic industry train, we will need to rethink the whole approach to cooperation in international health.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino spoke on Wednesday at the Possible conference in Miami, offering new insights into how America’s Generation Z (Gen Z), those aged 13 to 28, is reshaping news consumption. In what may come as a shock—and a source of frustration—for legacy corporate media and its imploding censorship cartel, Gen Z now makes up roughly one-third of X’s daily user base. 

“The growth is really coming from Gen Z—I think that’s a surprise to a lot of people in the room. Gen Z now makes up 31% of our audience. Since they value authenticity, they come for the humor, real-time information, memes, and trends,” Yaccarino told the audience.

She continued: “They’re projected to have $36 trillion in spending power by 2030. So when you consider all of that—the power of X, our presence in the real-time zeitgeist, and this accelerating growth—we’re pretty excited about the future of X.”

“X has bypassed—or leapfrogged—legacy media because the new generation is fueled by technology and unrestricted access to information. The way data and content are consumed has changed forever,” Yaccarino said.

🚨🇺🇸 LINDA YACCARINO: GEN Z IS NOW 31% OF OUR AUDIENCE — THEY COME FOR THE MEMES

“The growth is really coming from Gen Z. I think that’s a surprise to a lot of people in the room.

Gen Z is now 31% of our audience, and since Gen Z values authenticity, they come for the humor,… https://t.co/2vUVsHziLF pic.twitter.com/ahCdfzv0xk

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 30, 2025

Yaccarino makes a valid point: Younger generations increasingly value authenticity over scripted messaging.

This massive shift was reflected in the rising popularity of long-form podcasts, such as Joe Rogan’s, which gained substantial traction during last year’s election cycle, particularly during high-profile appearances by figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The unscripted, teleprompter-free format resonated with youngsters who sought unfiltered, real-time conversations.

Much different than the fake news… 

Most Americans are tired of corporate media lies and their censorship cartel that has only tricked the nation into endless wars, lied about Covid origins, called everyone they disagreed with ‘Russian disinfo’, lied about Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell, lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state, and the list goes on and on and on. 

It’s our time.

We must unite. It’s time to RESCUE THE REPUBLIC.

Join us in Washington D.C on 9/29/24 #RescueTheRepublic #JoinTheResistance #Unite pic.twitter.com/lbkZXMmpk0

— RescueTheRepublic (@RescueRepublic) September 18, 2024

X has given America’s future leaders transparency. The matrix has been cracked. The Overton Window shifted. The Davos elite have lost control but are hellbent on starting World War III. 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Russia can expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine…

Russia has long warned that any unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine of the 30-day sort that Zelensky has proposed could create an opening for NATO to expand its military influence in that country. Hitherto dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the West, Radio Liberty just let the cat out of the bag. The unnamed officials who they cited in their recent article confirmed that they envisage this “buy[ing] the Europeans time to assemble a ‘reassurance force’ in the Western part of Ukraine” and organize “air patrols” there.

Their reported game plan is “keeping the Americans onboard” the peace process, “sequencing” the conflict by clinching a ceasefire that’ll later lead to a lasting peace, and using the aforesaid interim period to carry out the abovementioned military moves for pressuring Russia into more concessions. 

What’s omitted from Radio Liberty’s article is that Russia has threatened to target Western troops in Ukraine, who Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth earlier said wouldn’t enjoy Article 5 guarantees from the US.

Even if Putin agrees to this concession that’s assessed to be among one of the five significant differences between him and Trump that prompted Trump’s angry post against Putin, Radio Liberty reported that this still wouldn’t lead to de jure European recognition of Russia’s territorial gains. 

The same goes for them lifting sanctions or returning any of its €200 billion of seized assets. More sanctions might even soon be imposed and the windfall profits from those assets will “bankroll Ukraine’s military needs”.

Given what Radio Liberty revealed, Russia can therefore expect nothing in return from the EU if Putin concedes to allow their troops and aircraft to deploy in and patrol over Western Ukraine. Any hopes of restoring Ukraine’s antebellum buffer state status would be crushed, and it can’t be ruled out that the EU’s zone of military activity could later expand to the Dnieper or beyond. One of the special operation’s goals was to prevent the West’s eastward military expansion so that would be another major concession.

Putin’s decades-long close friend and influential senior aide Nikolay Patrushev just told TASS earlier this week that “For the second year in a row, NATO is holding the largest exercises in decades near our borders, where it is practicing scenarios of offensive actions over a large area – from Vilnius to Odessa, the seizure of the Kaliningrad region, the blocking of shipping in the Baltic and Black Seas, and preventive strikes on the permanent bases of Russian nuclear deterrent forces.”

Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu told the same outlet several days prior that “Over the past year, the number of military contingents of NATO countries deployed near the western borders of the Russian Federation has increased almost 2.5 times…NATO is moving to a new combat readiness system, which provides for the possibility of deploying a 100,000-strong group of troops near the borders of Russia within 10 days, 300,000 by the end of 30 days, and 800,000 by the end of 180 days.”

When the EU’s prioritization of the Baltic Defence Line and Poland’s complementary East Shield are added to the equation, coupled with plans for expanding the “military Schengen” to speed up the eastward deployment of troops and equipment, the trappings of Operation Barbarossa 2.0 are apparent. Putin can’t influence what NATO does within the bloc’s borders, but he has the power to stop its de facto expansion into Western Ukraine during a ceasefire, which could partially hinder its speculative plans.

Conceding to them, which he might agree to do for the five reasons mentioned in the second half of this analysis here from early March, would lead to Russia’s mutual defense ally Belarus being surrounded by NATO along its northern, western, and then southern flanks. That could make it a tempting future target, but Western aggression might be deterred by the continued deployment of Russia’s Oreshniks and tactical nuclear weapons, the latter of which Belarus has already been authorized to use at its discretion.

Conceding to Western troops in Ukraine in exchange for the economic and strategic benefits that Russia hopes to reap from the US if their nascent “New Détente” takes off after a peace deal would therefore entail conventional security costs that could be managed through the means that were just described. At the same time, however, hardliners like Patrushev, Shoigu, and honorary chairman of Russia’s influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Sergey Karaganov could dissuade him from such a deal.

Putin must therefore decide whether this is an acceptable trade-off or if Russia should risk losing its post-conflict strategic partnership with the US by continuing to oppose NATO’s de facto expansion into Western Ukraine, including via military means if EU forces move into there without Russian approval. His decision will determine not only the future of this conflict, but also Russia’s contingency planning vis-à-vis a possible hot war with NATO, thus making this the defining moment of his quarter-century rule.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, a total of 45 countries and one territory had managed to eradicate malaria as of January 2025, according to data from the World Health Organization. 

 

You will find more infographics at Statista

A place is eligible to apply for a WHO certification of malaria-free status once it has had zero indigenous cases of malaria for three consecutive years. 

In 2025 so far, Georgia is the latest country to have met this requirement, following after Egypt and Cape Verde last year.

The United States was declared malaria-free in 1970, alongside Italy and the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, India still is endemic with more than two million cases reported there in 2023.

Worldwide, malaria is still endemic in 83 countries.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,

Tesla owners in Vienna are increasingly finding threatening flyers placed on their vehicles, warning them of potential vandalism and public backlash if they do not sell their cars.

The notes, which have appeared on multiple vehicles in recent days, are part of an apparent campaign by left-wing extremists who have made Tesla — and its CEO, Elon Musk — a target due to his political positions and support for populist parties across Europe.

One flyer, titled “Our condolences! It’s not your fault. It will only be your fault if you don’t act now”, warns Tesla owners that they are driving a vehicle associated with “right-wing agitator” Elon Musk.

The note urges drivers to sell their cars while they still can, hinting at consequences such as public shaming and criminal damage to the vehicle.

The leaflet reads: “Now you own a car that you may be ashamed of, whose value has gone to its knees and you have to be afraid every night that someone will scratch a big ‘fuck Tesla’ into your paintwork.” 

The document continues with suggestions such as speaking to employers about removing Tesla vehicles from company fleets, and even discussing the matter with friends and family in an effort to ostracize the brand.

The campaign is not limited to Vienna. Similar anti-Tesla actions have been reported in several other European cities. In Berlin and Paris, Teslas have been defaced with spray paint and stickers labeling drivers as supporters of “right-wing conspiracy.” In Amsterdam, demonstrators have held protests outside Tesla garages and engaged in confrontations with drivers, calling their cars “capitalist machines” and demanding they abandon them.

In March, an arson attack that knocked out power to a Tesla factory and parts of Berlin was claimed by a left-wing terror group.

“Together, we are bringing Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla. Greetings to everyone on the run, in the underground in prisons and in the resistance! Love and strength to all Antifa,” read a letter by the perpetrators published in the German media.

The vandalism is, in part, fueled by left-wing politicians who have made inflammatory remarks about Musk and his company.

In January, after Musk endorsed the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the country’s federal elections, Poland’s Sports Minister Sławomir Nitras said, “I can only say this much, listening to these words: Probably no normal Pole should buy a Tesla anymore.”

Berlin Senator Cansel Kiziltepe, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), went further earlier this week, comparing Tesla to “Nazi cars.”

“Who wants to drive a Nazi car? Manufacturers of electric cars are experiencing a sales boom – apart from Tesla,” she said.

Authorities in Vienna have not yet commented on the distribution of these flyers, but some Tesla owners have expressed concern for their safety and the security of their property, according to Austrian news outlet Exxpress.

Read more here…

The first rule of diplomacy is you never directly say what you mean, and you never, ever say what you mean you say.

Japan’s finance minister, Katsunobu Kato, forgot the first rule and it can cost Japan dearly.

Addressing a question on a Tokyo TV program on Friday, Japan FinMin Kato said the country’s $1.1 trillion in Treasury holdings – the highest of any foreign creditor – could be a “negotiation card” in its trade talks with Washington but “whether or not we use that card is a different decision.” In other words, Japan is threatening to sell some/all of its $1.1 trillion in bonds if tariffs are imposed.

Well, of course, such a move could be a “card”… and as we saw so vividly on April 8 when yields exploded higher amid a furious liquidation of basis trades and/or dumping by both China and Japan, it already has been a “card.”

But the last thing Japan would want to do as its enter the critical tariff negotiation phase, is remind Trump that it may well have a, pun intended, trump card against the US, if only enough to infuriate the president and shake the Fed out of its stupor by forcing it to re-engage QE and purchase anything Japan has to sell… which is precisely what Trump wants! 

Or, as the Treasury strongly hinted yesterday, failing debt monetization by the Fed, Bessent could just dramatically expand its Treasury buyback program and gobble up any sell orders emerging from Tokyo and/or Beijing.

In short, this is the nuclear button for Japan… but good luck engaging in “amicable” trade negotiations, as a result of which the export-heavy Japan simply has to reach a deal – by daring to speak of the one thing everyone in high finance should know is unspeakable. And certainly everyone in Japan, a nation in demographic crisis with 400% in total debt/GDP which has trillions in direct and indirect dollar exposure via the current account and unhedged foreign holdings, which is faced with just as powerful a nuclear button in the form of the Fed’s USD swap lines. 

Because if Japan were to start dumping Treasuries, sure – it will send yields surging for a few days – but then the Fed/Treasury will step in to buy all the excess supply, but not before Trump orders a global dollar funding squeeze margin call on counterparts such as Japan, one which will require Tokyo to quickly spit up a few hundred billion, and Japan simply does not have absent the Fed wiring the cash instantly via swap lines… as it did every day for months on end during covid

So no, the reality is that Japan does not have a long-term bargaining chip, unless its political elite is so dumb it believes it can threaten the US by going after the very thing Japan desperately needs, the world’s reserve currency.

Which apparently is the case, because as a shocked Tsuyoshi Ueno, executive research fellow at NLI Research Institute said just minutes after the TV remarks, “Katsunobu Kato’s comments on US Treasuries could be interpreted as  dangerously provoking the US government.“

He added that for the US, unstable long-term rates are a concern, and having Japan continue to hold US Treasuries is beneficial, while maintaining fiscal soundness and the dollar’s status as the reserve currency are important issues that would have positive effects in the medium to long term. Translation: chaos in the US would be painful, but it would be catastrophic for Japan.

Furthermore, Ueno noted that while Japan has never easily sold its holdings of US Treasuries, the fact that it is now actively seeking other options is evidence of its desperation. Worse, Japan’s stance is to keep exchange rate policy separate from tariff policy, and using this card could lead to spillover effects on exchange rate issues. Translation: today’s sharp drop in the yen could become an unstoppable waterfall, which finally sparks the hyperinflation that Japan has been fighting for decades.

Others were just as stumped: a befuddled Daisaku Ueno, chief currency strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ, said that given that negotiations are underway between Japan’s top trade representative Akazawa and US Treasury Secretary Bessent, the statement was likely made to avoid confusion, with a focus on playing it safe. Unfortunately, it came off as just the opposite, potentially threatening to derail any deal, which would be a catastrophic outcome for Tokyo.

Westpac also chimed in, noting that Japan is “clearly disappointed” with trade negotiations so far given the nation is a strong ally with the US. “As Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ — and Treasuries are a big stick,” Martin Whetton, head of financial markets strategy, said of Japan Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato’s comments on US government debt as a negotiation card

“It means when the trade negotiations start, they have some cards” adding that “Japan is clearly disappointed that as such a strong ally, they have been treated this way.” Of course, it will be far more disappointed if it starts dumping Treasuries.

Finally, as Win Thin, global head of markets strategy at BBH said, Kato’s threat is “a double-edged sword” as “threatening to dump an asset that you are sitting on huge pile of means that you can hurt yourself in the process.”

He added that “as far as I can recall, China has never played that card before and so I’m a bit surprised that Japan is thinking about it.”

His conclusion is that “the key takeaway is that Japan is not going to roll over easily to US demands and is starting to push back.”

And now we wait and see how Trump reacts when Japan decides to “push back” – surely, the measured US president’s reaction will be cool, calm and collected, and result in the best possible outcome for all…