April 10, 2025
Prelude: The Emperor’s New Tariffs
Donald Trump campaigned as the man who would end forever‑wars and “make great deals.” Four months into his second term, the United States is lurching through simultaneous crises:
-125 % duties on Chinese goods, a 10 % blanket levy on almost everyone else, and a 90‑day “pause” that even Senate Majority Leader John Thune admits is improvised rather than strategic. https://time.com/7276262/trump-tariff-pause-republicans-democrats/?utm
-A bombing campaign in Yemen, renewed weapons for Kyiv, and threats of “military action” against Iran—all while missile stockpiles run dry and the key explosive ingredient antimony is mined mainly in… China.
-A financial revolt in the Global South, where ASEAN’s ten nations plus six Gulf states have just wired China’s digital‑yuan rail into their settlement systems, allowing 38 % of world trade to bypass SWIFT and the dollar entirely. https://africanpropertymagazine.com/2025/03/25/chinas-digital-rmb-revolution-the-end-of-dollar-dominance/?utm
If candidate Trump promised “peace through strength,” President 47 is delivering chaos through bluster. And every blast of tariff or Tomahawk seems to push the rest of the planet closer together—against us.
I. The Politics of Punitive Tariffs
In early April the White House boasted that 75 countries were “lining up” to negotiate exemptions. Yet the list, according to Capitol‑Hill briefings, omits the only economies that really matter for U.S. supply chains: China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Republican Senator Thom Tillis put the unease bluntly during a Finance‑Committee grilling of USTR Jamieson Greer: “Whose throat do I get to choke if this turns out to be wrong?” https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/gop-senators-show-unease-on-tariff-war-as-ustr-greer-testifies?utm
Even habitual loyalists are fidgeting: Rand Paul calls the levies “Biden‑style industrial planning with red hats,” Roger Marshall quietly brokered the 90‑day reprieve, and farm‑state representatives such as Dusty Johnson warn of “self‑inflicted wounds.” https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-republicans-congress-9a5c1eba72514d77c3cdfa3861cb6d4c?utm
The rest of the world is not waiting to be clubbed into compliance. Within forty‑eight hours of Washington’s tariff decree, Beijing’s People’s Bank linked its e‑CNY to ASEAN and six Middle‑East clearinghouses. A pilot payment from Hong Kong to Abu Dhabi settled in seven seconds with 98 % lower fees than SWIFT. https://africanpropertymagazine.com/2025/03/25/chinas-digital-rmb-revolution-the-end-of-dollar-dominance/?utm That single software switch moved more trade than the entire NAFTA corridor.
“The U.S. is a paper tiger,” Ray McGovern warned during a recent livestream, quoting Mao’s 1946 verdict. The CIA veteran added a 2025 twist: “It’s a paper tiger with nukes, but the conventional edge is gone.”
II. Military Overstretch and the Myth of Infinite Arsenal
Former analyst Larry Johnson lays out the math: the United States now produces fewer than 50 HIMARS rockets and 500 ATACMS missiles per year—quantities Ukraine burns in a fortnight. “Patriot interceptors, same story,” Johnson told viewers. “Once a ship fires its VLS cells in the Red Sea, it has to sail back to port—and we don’t have the reloads.”
Meanwhile the White House just re‑opened the weapons pipeline to Kyiv after a one‑month pause that infuriated both hawks (Lindsey Graham) and doves (Josh Hawley) for opposite reasons. https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/03/07/the-hill-republican-senators-urge-trump-to-reconsider-ukraine-aid-pause-saying-it-helps-putin/?utm The result is a strategic triple drain: money, munitions, and moral capital.
Yemen is proving even more embarrassing. The Houthis have downed three MQ‑9 Reaper drones in three weeks—$90 million in smoking scrap—while still lobbing missiles toward Eilat. Each Houthi launch forces a U.S. destroyer to expend a $3‑million interceptor. Even the Washington Post now describes the operation as “a billion‑dollar game of Whac‑A‑Missile.”
The Pentagon’s supply‑chain dependence is the punch‑line: China controls 85 % of global antimony processing, plus decisive shares of rare‑earth magnets, lithium, and solar wafers. Tariffing your sole‑source supplier is less “Art of the Deal” than art of self‑strangulation.
III. When Blowback Comes Home: The Ryan Ralph Affair
Then comes the grotesque irony: U.S.‑supplied weapons appear on the darknet, priced in crypto, ready to be aimed at U.S. leaders. In September 2024 would‑be assassin Ryan Ralph allegedly tried to purchase Ukrainian‑sourced surface‑to‑air missiles to shoot down Trump’s plane. The public learned of it only in April 2025, after months of prosecutorial delays.
Investigative researcher Mike Benz calls Ralph a “sub‑contractor of a sub‑contractor”—a rogue cog in the CIA/Pentagon machinery that launders regime‑change operations through NGOs. “There should be a new category called Ukrainian‑support maximalist terrorism,” Benz quipped.
The deeper scandal: Ralph’s plot eerily mirrored an “Iranian cartel scheme” briefed to Trump ten days later. Were intelligence agencies re‑branding the same threat to fabricate a casus belli against Tehran? Remember the Iranian Manpads mentioned on "The Shawn Ryan Show?The drip of court filings suggests complicity or catastrophic negligence from multiple U.S. entities: CBP, DHS, even embassy staff in Kyiv. Imagine the deep state thinking they have to hire Ralph to assassinate Trump and blame it on Iran so the MIC and Israel can finally have a justified reason to attack Iran, and their guy gets caught and what do they get for their troubles? They still find a way to manipulate Trump to break his promises and prepare to attack Iran. SMH.
Here is the global perception, distilled: Washington prints money, ships weapons, seeds coups—and the ordnance boomerangs.
IV. Enter BRICS‑Plus‑ASEAN: A Counter‑System with Critical Mass
Congratulations to @realDonaldTrump advisors. They have successfully failed to Unite The country and have also successfully divided the entire world and driven the other half to find a successful way to survive without The United States while devaluing our currency.
Population: 4.3 billion
Share of world GDP (PPP): 35 % and rising
Share of trade routed outside SWIFT after the e‑CNY bridge: 38 %
BRICS expansion in January—adding Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia—already put the energy heartland inside a non‑Western tent. Now ASEAN’s digital pivot bolts Southeast Asia’s manufacturing and shipping lanes onto the same chassis.
Financial sanctions lose bite when the sanctioned own the pipeline. Trade embargoes collapse when alternative clearing rails settle in seconds. And every tariff tantrum from Washington drives another capital city to install the Chinese software stack.
V. The Republican Cracks Widen
Contrary to MAGA mythology, skepticism is no longer confined to Mitt‑Romney centrists. Recent hearings and op‑eds reveal a roster of GOP dissenters:
- @RandPaul – warns tariffs are “Bidenomics with a red hat.”
- @SenThomTillis – demands accountability “if this blows up in our face.” https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/gop-senators-show-unease-on-tariff-war-as-ustr-greer-testifies
- @RogerMarshallMD – brokered the 90‑day pause, calling for “predictability.” https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-republicans-congress
- @VP – privately furious that resumed Ukraine funding contradicts the 2024 peace plank.
- @HawleyMO – calls Yemen strikes “a forever‑war re‑run.”
- @RepMTG – tweets that the tariff plan “punishes rural America.”
- @RepChipRoy, @RepThomasMassie, @RepKenBuck – each raising constitutional alarms over undeclared wars.
- Warhawk and MIC sell out Lindsey Graham and Dan Crenshaw – paradoxically angry that Trump’s Iran threats are “all talk.”
When a coalition spans Graham to Greene, you know the seams are splitting.
VI. The Road Not Taken: GEMV (Global Economic / E‑commerce Manufacturing Venture)
In “The Republicrat – A Plea to Humanity,” WLBJ sketched an alternative grand strategy—GEMV, sometimes rendered Global Economic Mega Venture or Global E‑commerce Manufacturing Venture. The blueprint:
1. Re‑shore without war – Use targeted tax credits and cooperative investment zones to lure supply chains home, instead of tariff shock‑therapy that triggers retaliation.
2. Digital trade corridors – Partner with BRICS‑plus rather than bully them, building neutral e‑commerce platforms where American SMEs can sell directly to the Global South.
3. Debt‑for‑Development Swaps – Convert portions of the $34‑trillion U.S. debt into joint infrastructure bonds, aligning creditor interests with U.S. industrial revival.
4. Conflict‑Dividend Fund – Redirect the $850‑billion Pentagon budget by 5 % per year into venture pools for medical tech, green energy, and AI—creating jobs faster than bombs.
5. Transparent Supply‑Chain Ledger – A blockchain registry (ironically similar to China’s) that tracks inputs from mine to market, choking off slave labor and black‑market arms.
GEMV is not pacifism; it is geo‑economics over geo‑ballistics. Trump received a copy of the plan in late 2023. He chose tariffs instead.
VII. Prophetic Tremors: Daniel 8 and the Coming Crack‑Up
In biblical terms the United States now resembles the “great horn” grown arrogant, trampling until “a little horn” rises to shatter it. Whether one reads Daniel 8 as Persia versus Greece or a future clash of empires, the pattern fits: overreach, division, collapse.
Domestically, the tariff shock has already deepened blue‑red fault‑lines: coastal states threaten legal challenges; farm belts flirt with “Food‑OPEC” cooperatives; militias recruit on Telegram. If the dollar’s external privilege erodes, internal subsidies—from Social Security to defense‑industry paychecks—will face the guillotine. Civil‑war talk that once lurked on fringe podcasts now surfaces in mainstream polls.
VIII. A Final Accounting
“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” the apostle Paul wrote, “that each may receive what is due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.” (2 Cor 5:10) Tariffs, drone strikes, and clandestine coups are not mere policy instruments; they are deeds that accrue to a nation’s moral ledger.
Steve Bannon proclaims Donald Trump “the greatest president in history.” Scripture reminds us that greatness is measured at the end, not in the opening act. So far the balance sheet reads:
-Promises of peace—met by new wars.
-Promises of prosperity—met by soaring import prices and supply‑chain panic.
-Promises of national unity—met by rallies that demonize half the electorate.
Unless the administration repents of bullying and embraces cooperative ventures like GEMV, the United States risks becoming the very caricature its critics paint: a fading empire that prints money, exports chaos, and calls the wreckage “greatness.”
On that Day when records are opened, tariffs and tweets will not suffice as excuses. Nations, like individuals, will be judged by the fruit they bear. America still has time to graft a healthier branch—one rooted in mutual benefit, honest commerce, and humility. But the hour is late, and the axe is already laid at the root of the tree.
Postscript: Names on the Watchtower
Republican voices warning of the cliff: Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, Roger Marshall, John Thune, Dusty Johnson, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, J.D. Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Chip Roy, Thomas Massie, Ken Buck, Dan Crenshaw, Mike Lee, Tim Scott, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins. They come from every faction—libertarian, populist, neocon, moderate. Their common plea: change course before the Republic breaks apart.
Will the president listen, or will future historians file 2025 under the long ledger of empires that could not tell the difference between power and pride?
To learn more about the forces pulling the strings on the world stage and the prophetic events that will consummate the end of this earth age, Please see my book: "The Republicrat - A Plea To Humanity" here: https://amazon.com/Republicrat-Plea-Humanity-WLBJ
May the Grace, Mercy, And Peace Of The Lord Jesus Christ Be With You All.
In His Love,
~WLBJ~
Watchman, Biblical Scholar, U.S. Citizen, Civil Rights Activist.