trump's economic team is saying is look china's the rising dragon we are the declining superpower we either take our shot now and we negotiate a deal that's to our benefit now while we are still the big dog or we basically accept our fate and suffer the consequences. Give Trump his due. He's saying, fuck that. This is America. We're the best. We're going to take our shot while we have the chips, while we have the cards. Like, I get that. As a business guy, I respect that. Now, as a libertarian, it causes me some concern, just to be honest. You guys may have noticed that I didn't vape throughout this episode. How did I do that? You might be thinking. How did you possibly stop vaping for an entire hour? You unbelievably in control savage you. Here's the answer. Z-I Zipix. I love these things. They're basically toothpicks that have helped me cut down. And if you are in the market for that, if you're interested in doing that i would highly encourage you to do so get your health in order zippix toothpicks.com use promo code clint 10 for 10 off a really great product you must be 21 or older to order warning nicotine is an addictive chemical so yeah zip more smoke less with zippix nicotine toothpicks they have helped me cut back tremendously again that's z-i toothpicks.com promo code clint10 to get 10 off your first order using the code clint10 at checkout zippix toothpicks.com as ron paul and have famously stated, as long as you're sending goods across borders, troops don't go across borders. That is my fear, is that if you take the biggest thing that has kept, in my opinion, America and China from going to a hot war, even as they've risen and there's been all this contention over Taiwan and everything else, is that we need each other. They buy our treasuries, we buy their goods, they take our cash, they basically diffuse the inflationary pressure that exists here. It was a mutually beneficial exchange in some regard. In some regard. So that kind of kept us from becoming enemy nations. And I think that's preferable to a Cold War a la the USSR versus the US. I would prefer to continue to trade with them and maintain as good a relationship as we can, as opposed to becoming enemies. Some people in America are already convinced that's intractable. Like we are going to end up in some sort of conflict with China at some point. I don't agree with that. And I think that it is avoidable. But I think that you have to be treated fairly and you have to treat them fairly. Kind of a golden rule of geopolitics. You have to recognize that, yes, they are a rising superpower. Yes, we are a declining superpower. Can we come to some sort of mutual agreement where they get to control their sphere of influence and we control our own? And now I don't know if Trump's willing to allow that. Maybe he'll negotiate some deal where, look, we're going to basically back off on this whole Taiwan thing. You guys figure it out. I'm not saying conquer it, but like, we're going to basically take a hands-off approach here. We just want the semiconductors. Okay. Like that's, that's the only reason that our government cares about Taiwan, by the the way, there's no fucking concern about human rights or anything like that. So it's going to be interesting to see how that, how that negotiate, how the negotiation plays out. But I think it is very dangerous. I think it's very dangerous to take an antagonistic approach with the largest nation by population size, the second largest economy, expecting it not to become, you know, real contentious potential for war. I don't know. I don't know. I can't give you an answer on that. But I do think that it is true that they've treated us unfairly in some regards in trade, and we are still the largest consumer economy. Therefore, hey, you're the president of America. Negotiate the best deal for Americans. I can't help but respect that. I hope you can tell I'm trying to give you as fair an analysis of this as I can. I think that Trump did have a master plan. He did have an end goal in mind. This was a contingency plan. He did back off because the bond market fucking lost its shit last night. So this is not like perfect 4D chess where he knew exactly and, oh, he was going to do this today and this was the plan no they're lying to you if you tell if they tell you that but he is a smart enough businessman and negotiator to have read the tea leaves and said let's go to the contingency we've had the contingency plan laid out now we're doing it so i think that's the truth it's in between as is usually the case he's not super genius 5gD chess guy, but he's also not bumbling idiot that has bankrupted casinos and how could you possibly bankrupt a casino? Those people. He's in between. And I'd say I'd even give him more 60% to 70% credit on the advanced chess playing, because that's really what we witnessed. I hope this explains some of this. I spoke really fast, but I tried to be concise as to what exactly transpired and why. If you have any questions, please drop them in the comments. I will reply to you guys. And if you appreciated the advice, please do support the show at Liberty Lockpot on Axel. Subscribe there. I'll follow you back. Kind of the final takeaway here, and I think this is actually the most important thing. This is only a 90 day pause. So what you get to take away from this is you now know what a full rollout of 25, 50% tariffs on most of the rest of the world, what that will do to the economy. No excuses. If we get back to the 90 day window here and they say, we're starting these. Don't expect the economy to deal with it well. The economy is going to fucking take a shit. So you need to be prepared with your investments. You have to actually understand this is what's likely to happen. Now, here's the key, and this is why I can't give you firm advice. Once they get to that 90-day window and they say, okay, we've negotiated deals with XYZ countries, but we haven't negotiated deals with ABC countries. We're going to be increasing the tariffs on ABC countries.