No More Wars

The no-more-wars president is at war. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows The Donald. Common thinking is that if the entirety of the Epstein files were released, even Trump couldn’t survive the blowback. Though I doubt that. Nothing is too heinous for Trump and his cult members.

The Iran war serves multiple purposes at once for Trump. It’s a major distraction from the Epstein files. He doesn’t have to commit arms for Ukraine, because he needs them for his own war. It sends a message to any other country that if you don’t go along to get along, you’re on the menu for being bombed and perhaps invaded. It distracts from the killing of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by ICE agents, while claiming the Iranian government crackdown on domestic protest is horrible and a reason for going to war. It gives defence contractors production contracts which pays off in local employment across the U.S. spurring economic activity. It diverts attention from an inflationary economy directly resulting from his tariff levies. It helps solidify his MAGA base because he’s “putting it to them damned ‘ranians who deserve it” because there’s nothing like picking on someone to make a bully feel good about himself.

But I think this is just a side show to help Russia.

Russia’s economy is fiscally strained. They’re spending approximately 38% of their federal budget on defence and security for 2026. With an economy that is stagnant, this is unsustainable for the near and long term. Contrast this with Ukraine, that spends almost half of their federal budget on defence. But Ukraine has secured billions of euros in loans from the European Union to help offset the cost of the war. Russia has no similar financial support.

Here’s where Trump comes in. Long a Russian ally but unable to provide Russia with direct support, it was simple to foresee an attack on Iran would have an effect on the world price of oil. The price jumped from approximately $60 U.S. dollars to $80 per barrel almost overnight, and will likely continue to rise as the export of oil from the Middle East grinds to a halt. Gas station prices have already increased because any change in the world price is now reflected immediately at the pump, rather than waiting three months for the price increase to filter through the system (i.e. more profit for the oil companies).

This puts billions of dollars back in Putin’s war chest. We have already seen that four years of war is nothing to a country that sustained it for nine plus years in Afghanistan. Putin may want to make Russia great again, but it will come at a tremendous cost.

Trump just gave Putin a helping hand, all subsidized by the American taxpayer with the assault on Iran. However, we’ll all get to help pay the cost of this at the gas pump and to heat our homes.

So if you think you’re not affected by what’s going on south of the 49^th, don’t blame Mr. Carney for the surge in oil prices. The out-of-control leadership in the United States is doing what they want, when they want. Every action reinforces Mr. Carney’s text from his Davos speech. They are unreliable partners and are not to be trusted.

Unless you’re Russia.

I'll leave you with the path to be taken when you're late feeding the cats.