Gold-Backed US Bonds in 2026 – The Death Blow That Could RUIN the Globalist Agenda: Tom Luongo
Summary
Monetary Regime Shift: Guest outlines a likely move to issue US gold-backed bonds in 2026 as a financial weapon that could upend Europe’s leverage and reprice global capital flows.
Precious Metals: Extensive discussion of draining London’s pricing power (LBMA/LME) in gold and silver, with operations shifting toward New York/Shanghai to re-anchor metals markets.
Silver Squeeze: Ongoing silver operation since August, potentially explosive for the industry, with talk of structural tightness and elevated prices as part of a broader metals strategy.
US Treasuries: Scenario analysis of a two-tier treasury market tied to gold cover clauses, potential capital inflows to the US, and constraints on European attempts to weaponize UST sales.
Energy Dynamics: Geopolitical realignment in oil and gas via Israel–Egypt gas deals, Gazprom JV shifts, and Europe’s rearm/deindustrialization pressures reshaping supply security.
Japan: Positive outlook on Japan’s strategic “liberation,” potential BOJ normalization, unwinding of the yen carry trade, and eventual rearmament as a counterweight to China.
Europe Risk: Thesis centers on precipitating a peace outcome that exposes Europe’s banking fragility, undermines its commodity pricing power, and forces a financial reset.
Companies Mentioned: JP Morgan and Gazprom cited in context of metals and gas flows, but no single public-company pitch; emphasis remains on sectors and macro themes.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is December 18th, 2025 and I'm thrilled to welcome Tom Lewango to the show. A former research chemist, libertarian, Austrian economist, and the publisher of the Gold Goats and Guns blog and podcast. Tom believes the US is going to be launching goldbacked bonds in 2026, but not for the reasons you might think. Tom outlines how these bonds would be devastating to the power brokers in London, the EU, and the globalist agenda as a whole, and this financial weapon could completely change the geopolitical landscape and the global economy. He breaks down how along with discussing why the EU is so intent on war with Russia, why Trump's threats towards Venezuela are not what they appear to be on the surface and so much more. Do you like silver? I sure do. And that is why I created the stack silver not fiat t-shirt, a shirt by a stacker for stackers. You can get one using the link in the description below. And now on to my interview with Tom Luango. Tom Luango, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to start with the absolute tragedy that is the so-called peace negotiations to end the Russia Ukraine conflict. Now, the US initially put out a framework that the Russians said they could work with. Obviously, it contains some points that the Russians would never agree with, but nonetheless, there seemed to be a chance that they could hammer something out. The EU leadership then lost their collective minds and had their own private meetings with them and Zalinski and decided to put forth terms that would be completely impossible for Russia to accept along with attempting to essentially steal Russia's frozen assets. An an event that I believe is still ongoing. It's interesting that Belgium is one of the countries stepping up and saying no, we can't do this. um when Belgium is saying not to do it, it seems uh a foregone conclusion that they're going to be breaking international laws in a big way if they actually do go through with it. What it feels like to me is that the European leadership wants the war to continue until the absolute bitter end, no matter what. Am I missing something here? >> No, you really aren't, Jesse. I I wish we were wrong about this, to be honest with you. I've been, you know, I I I've been expecting this the entire time. What's really funny, if you go back over it, um we've known they were going to lose their minds over this um when the first version of the 28 point peace plan was uh leaked, announced, whatever you want to call it. And I took one look at it and I went, "Oh, there's point I think it was point number 14 where the the uh Trump had pledged the frozen Russian assets to not only help pay for rebuilding Ukraine, but also joint USRussian um projects, right? So that would be like the Bearing Straight Tunnel, you know, Siberian oil and gas assets or timber assets or whatever. And that the European Union would have to put a hundred billion dollars into the fund." And I was like, "Oh, that's rich." That I mean, if you I mean, if you read the subtext on this, this was Trump effectively saying, "Uh, yeah, you guys aren't stealing Putin's money." As a matter of fact, uh, I want they they want their money back and they want to want you to pay for having stolen their money. Now, the subtext of everything you just laid out in your intro to that in the question to me is that they've already spent the money. They've already pledged Russia's assets to whomever um creditors, whatever. And so they've already used that money as collateral for loan obligations to either keep Ukraine running or, you know, for the future to keep Ukraine running because they've always thought that they were either going to get Russia to capitulate or they were going to get the US to come in and force and or they were just going to win the war, right? And um so the and I and this is something that Alex Crraer and I have been talking about I think since the war started that the whole purpose of the Ukraine war was to let's in the in the broad sense of the term Europe has a debt problem that they can't avoid right they can't avoid the fact that they've got trillions and trillions of dollars worth of debt they can never repay so what did they what did George Soros always talk about he talked about hey let's exit let's exit the debt currently let's issue it won't reissue it all as perpetual debt. Basically, steal the the creditors um capital, never pay the debt back, issue them perpetual bonds, and then reset the balance sheet and go forward. Well, that was always that plan was always predicated on winning the Russia Ukraine war, breaking Russia up, stealing their trillions of dollars worth of mineral and and natural resource wealth and then using that as c using that cash flow to underwrite the perpetual bonds and any new debt that they want to issue under the any new monetary system which would obviously be some kind of digital euro as in lagard you know and all of that stuff. So that's what their plan was and clearly Trump is like yeah nuts to that. Putin was like, "That's cute and all, but we're going to bomb Ukraine into the Stone Age." No. Um, and that and here we are three and a half years later or almost four years later now and um they've now been forced into the maneuver where they have to literally say, "Okay, we have to fight this war." Because they don't have any other options cuz it's if they don't keep the war going. And this is a there was a great post I think I saw on Twitter this morning that I I reposted. It's like it this kind of laid it out. if the peace Trump's you you understand why Trump why I believe and I think it's very clear that Trump is um uh is antithetical or he's he's he's aggressively um opposed to the perpetuation of the war is because he wants to bankrupt Europe and he understands that a peace treaty ends the possibility of these loans ever being made good and what does that mean it means the collapse of the European banking system. So you've got Scott Bessant. I think we think it's pretty clear that Scott Besson has been running a um an operation to drain the European markets of their pricing leverage in gold and silver, copper, and everything else. We've talked about, you know, I'm sure you've talked to Vince Launchie about this. We Vince and I have been talking about this for for months now, right? That this that you've got to get rid of the pricing leverage if you want to be the industrial powerhouses of the world, China and the United States. Well, you got to take London's ability to price commodities, especially strategic metals commodities away from them. So, you have to kill the LBMA. You have to kill the LMA. You have to you have to move those the the pricing mechanisms, the leverage on that to either New York or Shanghai or a mixture of both or to exchanges you control. So, that ties directly back into what I'm talking about here. It's almost like you force the the endgame for Trump against Europe is to force a peace settlement that they can't abide by in order to detonate their banking system after having drained the world of gold, silver, now copper. Clearly copper at 4 545 or 540 a pound is clearly another operation to to to drain the LME. So that's the way I see it from a you know kind of a geostrategic perspective. And you know, if I were Trump investment, this is exactly what I would be doing if I hated London, which I do. So, um, you know, you know, if I had the, you know, literally, if I were the general in charge of this, this is how I would be running my operation against them. And I would go, okay, yeah, you want to do X, Y, and Z. You've already done X, Y, and Z. You're not obligating us to that. Nuts to that. We're still the pre-minent military power in the world. We're still the pre-minent financial market in the world. We're still, you know, we still have the deepest and liquid, most liquid financial markets and the best corporate and tax policy of any major country in the world and the best rule of law, recent grandstanding by Democrat, you know, activist judges notwithstanding. But all with all of those things together, if you put all of that on the table and tell Europe no, what are they going to do? Well, they have to go to war. And then they and then we get to say, "Oh, that's great. You get to buy our weapons for us. You want to go to war? That's fine. We'll we'll sell you the weapons. The the fun part's going to come, and this is what I think is on the table, is that we're going to demand gold for that. Why wouldn't we? Why would we take their euros, right? You can sell our treasuries and give us dollars, but maybe we don't want dollars from you or, you know, fine. Well, you're going to sell our treasuries." And that's the other thing they've done. they've done is to say, "Hey, um, if you don't go along with our plans for war, we're going to sell our we're going to detonate your financial markets by selling your treasuries." I mean, have you noticed this? And I I I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody thinks that um that um that framework is uh is valid. Like it's it's one of those things where it's an announcement that's designed to cow squishy members of Congress who don't understand finance to then oppose Trump's plans, right? Because that's kind of the the way they always op these people operate. They always say to you, "Hey, if you don't go along with what we want, um we'll kill your major industry. Canada will kill your oil industry. Zimbabwe will kill your, you know, I don't know, your gold or your copper industry or whatever it is. In the United States, it's our financial system. So that's why they Lagard's been running part of the reason why Lagard has been running this ridiculous yield curve control program while the Bank of England buys ridiculous amounts of our debt in order to well one keep a cap on their bond yields and two create a war chest that they can then point at the United States and go you know these you know financial nuclear weapons. But these are weapons that when they turn them on us, they're really turning them on themselves because what they're saying is, "Oh, we're willing to detonate the entire global economy." Well, that just turns you into the bad guy and and everybody can then turn around and go, "Oh, I see you're at war with everyone. Fine, we cancel the QIPS. We'll just cancel the debt." Not that I think that that's what's on the horizon, but that's the I mean, if you want to continue walking up this escalatory ladder, that's ultimately the the thing. And the and the reality is is that you know Martin Armstrong's made this point many many times and I agree with him completely on this point which is that the US's superpower as a financial center is that we've never defaulted on our debt. But you know if you're at war with someone it's your obligation to not honor debts that are I mean that's what the Europeans are saying like we're stealing we're stealing Russia's money because we're at war with them. Like, okay, well, with people like that, why would you honor the why would you honor your debt debts with people like like that who are known thieves? Like, when it when when when you get down to brass tax, I don't see Russia, I don't see Russian or Chinese or or Middle Eastern investors being angry with the US or oh my god, they may, you know, you know, get the vapors because we canled Europe's debt, right? I'm just playing this scenario out. If you think about it that way, like I don't do them getting the vapors. I see them see them getting religion and going, "Yeah, finally somebody finally told these people to to to stop blackmailing the world with, you know, with the the the vestigages of their old power, their soft power." And so in that scenario, um, yeah, like that's I think the like the whole escalatory framework from a financial perspective, uh, laid out, laid bare, and it's all down to that original peace plan that Trump put on the table, which said, "Oh, no, Europe, you're not only going to not steal this money, which you've already stolen, but you're going to put another hundred billion dollars on the table." And that's in in you know, I'm sorry if that that that sounds like I know there's a portion of the audience that just thinks I'm spinning spinning tails here, but I'm like you just don't understand the situation if you if you can't play that scenario out in your head. Like it's not that hard. Um it really isn't. You just have to accept the fact that Trump's not a neocon or a neoliberal. That's it. It's all you got to do. If you if you take that if you take that idea out of your head and stash it somewhere else and just say no, he's at he's at war with the old European order first before he so that he can then pivot to China or the United States can pivot to China after he's off the table, right? He's, you know, no longer president and JD Vance or Rubio was president 2028 and beyond, then we can pivot to China. But we can't do that pivot geopolitically until we deal with our European partners as Putin would have put it. So there you go. Sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell them of course that commodity culture sent you. And now back to the interview. Very interesting breakdown. A couple things I just want to follow up on there. One is you mentioned Scott Bessant and a strategy involving commodities and Europe. I'd love you to expand on that and and how you think that is uh moving forward. And then se the second question is about war because is Europe actually preparing to go to war or are they using the potential of going to war the threat of a conflict to hang over the heads of their people? You know they're sending out pamphlets now in places like uh the Netherlands and France to you know prepare stock up on food because a conflict could be coming. Mertz is on TV there in Germany talking about, well, we're going to try to get people to volunteer for the military, but those who do not, we may have to introduce mandatory conscription. I mean, are they just doing this as a way to cover themselves, as their economies collapse, as they get more as their surveillance state expands, and as they prepare to roll out the digital euro to be able to say, "All of this is happening because we're preparing for war with Russia." So, kind of a two-part question there. Um, break it down for us. I think that's a very astute observation and and it is exact. I mean, it's like you can have one policy, you know, cover multiple bases, right? Like, and then, so if you think about it, like from Europe's perspective, hey, if you can somehow get the United States to help us go to war and go to war with Russia, we'll rearm, right? And if we don't and if they the United States doesn't go along, well, then we also have to deal with the fact that we've got civil unrest at home as we as the econ, you know, what's what's the flowchart here? US doesn't go along with it and we have some kind of peace agreement with Russia at some point in the nebulous future. Well, then we're going to have a collapse of our banking system. Therefore, we have to rearm. You also are watching them um de-industrialized. So, that's going to make the the uh the propensity for somebody to be willing to go on the dole because three hots and a cot are better than, you know, working for the military. Three hots and a cot are better than starving to death and watching your children um freeze in the winter time. Right? This is how they effectively in many ways blackmailed a lot of Ukrainians to go fight for fight against Russia even though they didn't want to, right? Because you first you crash the economy, you destroy their livelihood and then you offer them three hots and a cot, right? Um and a small stipen to send back to the family to be able to, you know, feed them. Well, that's what clearly what Europe is setting up. And then if they rearm significantly um across the European Union, then that's how you can have German troops stationed in Spain to keep the Spaniards down. And that's how you can have the Spaniards in Greece and the Greeks in the Netherlands and and the Dutch in France and the French in Germany, blah blah blah blah. Because men who are not you if you want to pacify a um you know if you want to pacify people using native troops to do so is not doesn't work very well. They know this like Europe you're if anybody knows this is the Europeans. You use men who are divorced from their homeland. They don't have any skin in the game. like a guy from, you know, Berlin has no skin in Barcelona, but if a guy from Berlin may have family in Saxony, right? And so, you know, now he's got divided loyalty. So, this is how you pluck them out of their um out of their normal headsp space into something where I'm just doing my job. I'm just providing for my family. I And they and men are really good at that kind of compartmentalization and they understand this very very well. Uh, these people are evil. I mean, at every level. So, I mean, what you implied with your question, Jesse, is like just how depraved are these people? Pretty freaking depraved, right? So, um, there's that part of the question. And then the other part of it is that they're clearly setting up to destroy their own economy anyway because they don't have any other way out of it. Now, that's the other interesting part about this. So let's talk about what your what your question actually implies because clearly now we have this potential framework multiple framework for why Europe would be willing to rearm >> right. >> Well this the second thing is what's the reaction to that? I mean again like moves on the game board if you if you you know don't happen in a vacuum. Well they're doing this. Oh yeah. Well then what's our reaction to that? If we're going to war against old Europe in order to end hundreds of years of colonization and chaos and slavery and everything else, which is what it looks like, that's what I posit Trump is actually doing. And I don't just mean Trump, I mean Trump and Putin and Xi and other sovereigntist forces, especially within Europe like Victor Orban and others. Then you have to ask yourself, how does he activate those people? Well, did any I know you didn't miss this and I know your audience didn't miss this, which is George Maloney going out a few weeks ago and saying, "Look, Italy's sovereign gold is for Italians." And then she follows up that statement by saying Italy's sovereign gold is not the property of the shareholders of foreign central banks. She used that phrase. That is a freaking howitzer aimed right at Brussels. And so you have that you have Victor Orban actively trying to stop the European Union from o openly steal Russia's money which supports Trump's desire for peace which which falls back on everything I said previously in the first 15 minutes of this podcast. So then you now you have to start thinking about what does that mean, right? does um you know what Trump has spent 2025 doing is building an alliance or building a network of friends internationally by ending conflicts all around the world by effectively giving Japan their independence for example ending Cambbo trying to end Cambodia, Thailand which is a French British proxy war um you know conga Rwanda blah blah blah all of them right what is he trying to do he's trying to build friendships. I mean, did anybody not notice that Israel and Egypt signed the biggest gas deal in either country's history yesterday? How does that happen if if Trump doesn't forge the peace plan over Gaza? I mean, regardless of, you know, the fact that the this the shelling and the killing hasn't fully stopped, but it's down significantly. I mean, that's just the nature of these conflicts that they don't turn on a dime overnight, right? Um, that that's a big deal. So there's Trump's influence creating allies around the world. Saudi Arabia, right? All of these things. So he's got all those people activated. They're all effectively stating quite explicitly they want to be out from underneath this Davosian, you know, sort of damicles that they always hold over people's heads. The EU does not stand without the tripod of France, Germany, and Italy. Take out one and the tripod falls. Right? This is why I've been, you know, focused for so long on French, Italian, and German politics to watch the the process since the moment Marina Le Pen entered the space back in like 2014, 2015, and then Matio Salvini and FiveStar Movement and then the rise of AFD. I've been watching these very carefully because without those without those three tri those three legs the European Union falls apart especially in the wake of Brexit with no European with no UK but the UK is now a sha shell of itself and it's only literally just the square mile of the city of London right in terms of actual honest to god power. So I think Trump is activating all of his assets around that he's garnered around the world to you know add the pressure necessary to to say to Europe look if you take this route if you decide to you know you know put on your Joker makeup and burn the world to the ground and light a big pile of money on fire literally um you know feeling froggy, take that leap, but no one's going with you and no one is intimidated by you and that it will have these consequences. So that's what I'm seeing and that's clearly what's happening with when you watch like Gazprom move their JV for Europe out of the Netherlands and re and move it to Budapest for Budapest for for example. When you watch all of these little moves happening around the around the region, people are shoring up gas and oil supplies. They're preparing for Eastern Europe, meaning basically the Balkans and Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria and and all the way to Poland. The Visigrads plus the Balkans basically walk away because if Italy walks away, then the whole of Eastern Europe walks away and then Ukraine security guarantees don't matter. Again, when I read that 28 point peace plan, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Look at all the guarantees. They're all Europe and NATO for Ukraine. Like, neither the EU nor NATO are going to exist in their current form in 5 years. So, there was no reason for Russia to to not sign most of that, agree to most of that, and you know, freeze the conflict there, take the four Oblasts that they've that that they've effectively taken." And then they're like, "Well, we'll get to Odessa in a couple years and we'll do it with we'll do it the same way we we took Crimea without firing a shot and having a referendum and there'll be nobody to oppose us at that point because the European Union won't really exist. City of London won't really exist and America's okay with it because we've already tacitly agreed to to that happening anyway, right?" And so that to me was you know that plan was the signal of all of these things coming together at one you in one basically one document and it should be and then of course the re reaction to that has been histrionic uh on the part of people who don't want to admit that Trump isn't a blithering idiot and a malignant narcissist. Like I'm I'm sorry you're just sorry you're just wrong. Um, I mean, he may not be the smartest guy in the world or the smartest guy in the room, but he's neither of the other two. He's not the other uh cartoon figure that you think he is either. That's just nonsense. >> And speaking to what you said here in Serbia, I believe for the first time in 14 years, Serbia is withdrawing from the EU Western Balkan Summit. They are not attending. Perhaps a sign of of things to come. That got me pretty pumped when I read that because I want I want >> I forgot that you're I want Serbian. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I I love this nation and and you know I I identify with Serbians much more than my fellow Canadians. Um so I really want them to stay away from the EU as much as possible. But just quickly to follow up on that second part of the question, Scott Bessant cutting off commodities from the EU. What walk us through what's happening there? Well, I just think that this is one of those things that it's been pretty obvious since um Q1 of last year that that Besson is just selling dollars to buy gold. Like his whole the whole weak dollar policy that we dealt with in the first half of 2020 five was, you know, Besson basically selling dollars and buying gold and draining and and draining the LBMA. And again, I can I think he's continuing to do this. Um, there are more and more signs that the United States is getting ready to change the way the monetary system is going to operate. Trump even said that this morning after his fire breathing side chat that he gave last night. I I I was not so I don't know if you watched it, but I was not surprised at all that he went in there with like both guns blazing. It wasn't going to be the hi, I'm Donald Trump and I'm, you know, teddy bear and he's like he's like patent heranging the country. It was hilarious. Um, I didn't agree with some of it and I thought some of it was ridiculously overstated, but I'm like, eh, whatever. What all I heard was, "We're supporting the military. Come and get us. M on a lobby." Like, no. Um, we're going to recapitalize the middle class. So, that's that's a great sign. But but Bess and and it's really not all that complicated that Jesse I would just say look it's very clear that there's a a multi-stage operation being run either through the Treasury directly pursue the weak dollar policy to weaken the dollar significantly like they did in the first half of last year to set up the tariff um negotiations and the trade deal negotiations and then back off effectively and then turn that operation over to the bullion banks. And um you know and then we start talking about what's happening in silver and how you know we then moved out off in that we moved off of gold effectively in October to a you know uh an operation in silver that's began in August and is continuing and is probably not going to stop anytime soon. Um now I was listening to something that Vince put out recently. Vince Lonie put out recently and you know he's just he clearly believes that JP Morgan is you know running a squeeze a massive squeeze and if so then you know great and um if you know I don't I don't I don't think that uh Vince is wrong about that um and if so then it could be explosive for the entire industry but you know like none of us should be complaining about 65 $66 silver at this point either right so it but you know everybody take you know, so but that's what I think is is is part of the uh is is the the fundamental thing. I I really do believe u and I may be wrong about this, but I really do believe that what they're both setting up with, but what Trump is setting up with what he's stating that the the old global monetary system doesn't work for us and we're going to change it and what Besson's been doing and all the rumors and everything else. I don't see how we don't go to some kind of gold back Treasury bond issuance sometime this year. I just don't see how that doesn't happen. There's too much smoke. So that if Europe thinks that they're going to because that's the perfect counter move, right? The perfect counter move is the Bank of England th tries to threaten us. I I just talked about the Q the cancelling the QIPS, but why why not just make them worth 30 cents on the dollar by offering a gold back treasury and then oh go ahead and sell them? You're not going to get any money for them. You know what I mean? like something like you you set up a two-tiered um US Treasury system and all of a sudden, you know, the world changes. I mean, I don't think that there now, now when I say that, there's two things that I want to see with the gold back treasury. And maybe I'm wrong, again, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe I haven't thought it through completely. But the first thing I would say is if we're going to do something like that, those should only be offered to US citizens and to countries or foreign actors that are buying, you know, that are investing directly in United States infrastructure. Meaning it can't go, this cannot be a a means by which to extract gold and have it go overseas. It's got to be ring for not that I think that's going to happen anyway. Well, these will be 50 hundredyear bonds that we'll that we'll never um we'll never call in or we'll never uh we'll never honor the gold. It's just going to be, you know, the value of the bond will be we'll have a gold cover clause on it. This goes all the way back to Jim Sinclair. I you know, it's like I when I had hair like seriously like Jim called this thing 25 20 years ago and uh he was right. You know, he said it's going to end with a gold cover clause and um with a US Treasury with a gold cover clause. He he always thought 5% but it may be more than that. Um we'll see but it's clearly what's coming. And then you you do something like that and all of a sudden you're talking about a massive capital inflow to the United States. We don't care about you know these things will everything will trade at at a discount versus the other and you know that'll serve as some kind of market access charge in order to get euro dollars because then you won't be able to go to the swap. You won't be able to go to the Fed for swap line at par. you'll, you know, the Fed's only going to give you 30 cents on the dollar or 60 cents on the dollar. I mean, we're already at that, but could you imagine that? Actually, that's like maybe now that I think about it, that's probably exactly the mechanism by which you do you blunt that weapon, right? Why would they do something like that? Why would Europe or the or England or anybody else dump our treasuries in order to try and, you know, create a bare steepener on the on the on the yield curve and force our borrowing costs up and force our interest rate costs up and everything else? Okay, that's that's cute and all. But if those bonds are selling at, you know, but if you need dollars that bad and then and there's no market for these things, then you're not going to get any money for them. And then you can't and then if that's the case, then the Fed will also or the eur the American banks will refuse to repo them at par because we have a different par, right? We have a different par value which at this point will be the gold back market. I don't know. I'm just like I'm just vamping here to be honest with you at this point. So just throwing stuff out there for you know people who know this stuff better than I do to like think about. Right. So >> well what you you you mentioned goldback bonds you expect them this year. Is that literally in the next two weeks or you mean in 2026? >> No I think probably I mean everything I think is setting up for July, right? I mean unless Europe decides that they want to accelerate the timetable further but I don't think we're ready for that yet. But it's clearly that Trump is setting up a whole rash of things to, you know, for July 4th. Like, let's, you know what I mean? Like, it's all coming to that. So, let's watch how he plays out the time between now and the State of the Union address. And I think that that's going to be the the pivotal time. That's going to probably tell us everything we need to know about where his head is and where he's and where things are heading um in Q1 and Q2 of of 2026. And you know, the big thing for him is, can he pull any of this off? That's the obviously I'm sure the I can hear the audience like asking the question, what do you I don't know if Trump can pull any of this off. I don't Well, and it's because of the Congress, right? Congress is in full revolt against him. We're going to watch Congress very carefully to see if he and Vance and and NNN can ride her over everything and actually force through what needs to be forced through. It's that's the big question. You're going to have to just watch the minations in the House. I'd watch honestly I would watch Speaker Mike Johnson far more than John Thun. But if Thun, for example, um finally rams through all of the DA appointments, for example, that they've been that Grassly's been sitting on or they get rid of the filibuster, they do and they change the rules of the Senate, that would be amazing because it needs to be done. Okay. Um, and then the same thing on the House side. If if you know, Johnson keeps pushing forward, you know, um, reforms to Obamacare, you know, codifying all of Trump's executive orders into law and then forcing them in the Senate, the Republican Senate to to vote against that, that's a that's putting them in a box. If Mike Johnson does that and he's able to ride herd over his thin majority in the house getting thinner by the day thanks to Marjgery Taylor drama queen then um yeah it becomes a very interesting if that happens like that's that's telling you that do that that all rumors of Donald Trump being a lame duck coming into the midterms are way overblown and he's got at least two or three other things he's going to drop on everyone in January. So we'll see what happens. I got to follow up on one point because people have already jumped to the comments and and and said this, I'm sure, because you mentioned Trump wants to end wars. He's he's forging new alliances, etc. But yet, it looks like we could be on the verge of a war with Venezuela. Now, at first, there was a lot of talk about drugs coming into America. Obviously, there have been boats struck and people killed. Um, I do not believe the US government's provided any hard evidence to the public that these were actually drug smuggling vessels, which to me is a little concerning. But then also now Trump going on camera and saying this is about oil now and that Venezuela has stolen its oil or taken its oil. He wants to take it back. What is going on there? Venezuela is Trump versus Langley. This is not about any of those things. I know this is a commodity uh podcast. And I know that's why you're coming at it from this perspective, Jesse, and that's what you should do. I'm not going to, you know, but this is about um the military going after intelligence assets and about organized crime. Like, you know, the other day, for example, when they um I I I hardly recommend a lot of people sit down and listen to guys who have this kind of um experience. I don't have this kind of experience. Almost everybody in the audience does it. But my friends Blaine Holt and the Berling game have been doing great work to explain what's actually going on. They did a thing with my friend Crypto Rich um a short video about 18 19 minutes. I I absolutely recommend everybody listen to about what was actually on the boat that we seized the other day. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna walk some people through this. This is going to sound like a digression, but it's not. Um it's really kind of important. So supposedly it was an oil tanker, right? Well then why did we not find out what country it was flagged under, what we took off the boat or anything else? We learned nothing about. All we heard was that if they were if there were traffic children andor women on that boat, we would have seen them, right? Because they would have been happy to show the world that we stopped you know, human trafficking. I mean, that's a that's a political win. So, the fact that we had nothing come out about what they actually seized, who they who andor what they actually seized and where this thing was either headed or that we knew nothing. That's a tell. And the tell is it was something they did not want anyone to know about. meaning it was em happens to think it's leadership of like ASO guys that they were trying getting ready to smuggle into the United States to start kinetic operations on the ground. It could have been a dirty bomb trigger. It could have been nuclear material. It could have been any of these things, but it certainly wasn't Venezuelan oil because if it was, they would have mentioned it. It's that simple. And they would have said it was, you know, flagged on. No, the ship was flying flagless and that's that. And the kicker, and this is the best part about this, and it is that there were six other oily tankers in the in five or six other ships moving through the area. They weren't stopped, right? So, what Trump is doing is what Trump always does, which is that he he says a lot of stuff that is absolute strategic misdirection, but these are all signals to the intelligence services. If you think you're going to start a civil war in the United States because that's your only move on the board, which I everything I've laid out already this morning tells you that at the end of the day, what is Davos's big move against the US? Start a civil war on the ground. Start a race war. Start a start something. You got to start something. And that's what the Sedicious Six video is all about. That's why Peg Seth is going hard after Mark Kelly, right? as why these things are happening. This is the military and the president against the intelligence services. Let's go back to Trump's statement during his fireb breathing side chat the the other night. What was the big centerpiece? Giving a Christmas bonus to the entire military. That was the most powerful thing in the speech. Everything else was boiler boil, you know. stuff that the administration's been saying for months. But it was good for him to say all that and say it that way. But that was the signal to me out of all the other noise. That's what stuck out to me. Oh, by the way, you think you're going to you're going to take the military out? Uhuh. Well, I'm telling the entire country, they're the most important people right now. They're getting a bonus check. Hm. That's a huge signal. So that's what this is about. Venezuela is, you know, it's kind of like the, you know, if Zurich is the center of the gold trade in Europe, right? And, you know, money laundering and all that other stuff. Well, Venezuela is the Zurich of the global um um organized crime trade in the Western Hemisphere and it needs to be removed. Now, I don't think that he's actively moving Maduro out of he just wants Maduro to knuckle under. Same thing with Zilinski. And what's the problem with Maduro, just like Zansky, is that he's getting told from he's getting pressure from Trump and getting told by Davos, we've got, you know, he's being told by Davos, hey, don't worry about it. We've got this taken care of. We're going to take out Trump. And then Trump is going, uh, no, I'm accelerating the timetable on you. Same thing with Zilinsky. They're doing the same. It's the same dance, right? You don't see the hand the open hand of Davos on on Venezuela because they can't really talk about that because it's below ground. It's below the headlines. It's organiz it's their organized crime. It's their drug and human trafficking. It's all that other stuff. It's all the dark money that gets moved around. It's intelligence service stuff. Whereas obviously in Ukraine it's an open we're an open warfare, right? So that's above board. The other one's below board. And that's kind of what why it's different. But you can see the reflection of the of Davos's influence there by the histrionics of everybody all across the political spectrum as to why this is this is wrong including so-called libertarians like Rand Paul like and the fact that Tucker Carlson went out there yesterday and told Judge Npalitano, "Oh, I've been briefed by various members of Congress. we're going to to to war with Venezuela and Trump's going to announce it tonight or you know on on Wednesday night like no didn't happen. He got punked or was he then you have to ask a question is Tuck Carlson you know out there being a disinformation agent for the administration? I don't know. I can't figure out Tucker's role in any of this anymore to be honest. Okay. Um, so like this is all what we're dealing with now. We're now into the into the realm of of of signal um of signaling pre-kinetic action on US soil and it's happening on both sides. And so that's the way you've got to read all of this. Is Trump gonna put boots on the ground of Venezuela? Like why? He's got enough He's got enough naval and air assets in in the region to like force, you know, force whatever he wants. He doesn't need to put boots on the ground, declare war with Venezuela. The fact that that that feckless Thomas Massiey's up there grandstanding in Congress about this like we're not going to war with Venezuela. We're taking out non-state actors that have no rights under UNCCLOS and everybody who's this knows it. Every one of them, including the lawyers in the commentary act, period. They're all lying. They're all untrustworthy. I don't know what the truth is, but I can tell you that the truth ain't what they're pedalling. Okay? So it's and it's self-consistent with the behavior that we're seeing with Trump over Ukraine and over Israel, Gaza, and everything else. So now I now I'm going I'm going to bring up a vector that you haven't touched on yet because it's absolutely terine to all this, which is Japan, right? on the same day that the bricks announced the unit is going live or they're working on it or whatever they're doing, which is fine. The the bricks and unit are basically a hedge against Trump and the United States losing the their their current war for independence against Davos. Trump goes to Japan and basically sets Japan free. I know everybody thinks I'm crazy for this, but I'm like I'm watching that ceremony and that does not look like your average state visit to me. That looks like a a a that looks like a people that are absolututely over the moon, overjoyed that their liberator has stepped off the freaking plane because they've been under the thumb of the British and British economic systems forever. Or, you know, or have we all not watched Princes of the Yen, right? BOJ is about to raise interest rates again. They could start raising interest rates hard. That would be hilarious. They're unwinding the yen carry trade. They're slowly but surely unwinding their QE, their their their ETF and um equity portfolio. Yeah, it's going to be over 50 or 100 years, whatever. It's all nonsense. They're it'll they announce X and they're going to do whatever they want. What's important here is to understand that at some point Japan is going to be allowed to rearm because we're setting up for the next war which is the one with that we where we stop Chinese aggression but we have to deal with Europe first. So you deal with Europe and then you move to China and Japan is the pivotal piece in that because who has benefited more from the Japanese yen carry trade the United States or or or Europe? We all watch the the the the the dollar yen cross when you should be watching the euroyen cross. Okay. So I I throw that out there. I think that that is the biggest issue here. I think the Fed is setting up I think Trump and company are setting up for a day and you know you're seeing it from Christine Lagard. You're seeing it from all the um European Central Bank, you know, big wigs, Bank of England, you know, Andrew Bailey, that slovenly. I can't stand that guy. Oh my god, he's like the height of lime. Um and um like very clearly saying that they're worried that the Fed is not going to provide them dollar swap lines. Yeah, I wonder why. I mean, they were they were prefacing this three months ago, four months ago. Clearly, they know what's going on. And if Japan detonate finish, you know, starts the process of at any moment detonating the rest of the yen carry trade like they did in August of 2004. Was it? Yeah. 2004, right? Or 2024. Was it 2024? 2023. 2024. Yeah. It was right after the Biden Trump debate. Um, you know, that that Black Monday in April on August 5th. Um, that was a warning. That's what it looked like to me. So, that'd be funny. And so, there's about six different ways is what I'm getting at is about six different ways that Trump and Bessant could catalyze the breakdown of the European banking system. So hold that sword of damicles over our head all you want and we'll destroy you and we'll maintain and we'll mitigate most of the blowback onto us. That's why the Fed stopped Q QT. That's why they lowered interest rates. That's why they've announced, you know, quote unquote new QE, which is all bull crap. like the Fed stands ready to provide our banking system with the backs stops it necessary because that's the Fed's job when this goes kinetic in a financial sense and it you know and then clearly the the counter side to that the counter move to that would be for Davos to activate their physically kinetic players on American soil be it you know a mixture of you know ISIS and AOF guys and you know Black Lives Matter and blue governors and all the you know all of it every bit of it they can act you know they can activate all of it so we'll see that's why Trump coming out and saying oh I we love our military we love our military so much that we're willing to share our tariff revenue with them because that's how we protect our country okay for message received Well, Tom, you've thrown so much information at us today. Always appreciate your point of view. Um, I always come away from our interviews with new food for thought. That's why I love talking with you. Uh, for people who want to follow your work, you got the Go Gold Goats and Guns podcast, you've got a blog, you got a Patreon. Uh, tell us all about that. >> Sure. So, the the the podcast is an audio only podcast because I kind of a purist that way. Um, and it comes out very intermittently whenever I, you know, can remember to actually put one out. Um, but I always try to make it as much signal as possible. You can find those over at the blog over tommoanga.me or goldatsguns.com. You can follow us and support us over on Patreon at Patreon goats and guns uh with the monthly where we put out the monthly newsletter which is a retail investor uh style you know portfolio um you know standard newsletter as well as my twice weekly uh private podcast for the for the patrons as well and the private chat service and all the rest of it. So, um, that's how we make our bones. And, you know, you can follow me on Twitter where I'm I try breathing fire every day at TfL 1728. >> Great. Well, I'm going to put links to all of that in the description below. Always a blast talking with you, Tom. Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Thank you, Jesse. Thank you. And have a very merry Christmas. And to you and everybody in the audience, merry fragging Christmas. Let's do it. >> Thank you for joining us today. The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver, Gold, Osmium. They have some great prices on gold and silver bullion products. You can see them on screen right now. Now, these are subject to change and while supplies last. So, reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com and make sure to tell him that commodity culture sent you and pick up your stacks not fiat t-shirt available exclusively in the commodity culture shop and backed by a 100% quality guarantee. The link is in the description and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up tod date with the latest episodes.
Gold-Backed US Bonds in 2026 – The Death Blow That Could RUIN the Globalist Agenda: Tom Luongo
Summary
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is December 18th, 2025 and I'm thrilled to welcome Tom Lewango to the show. A former research chemist, libertarian, Austrian economist, and the publisher of the Gold Goats and Guns blog and podcast. Tom believes the US is going to be launching goldbacked bonds in 2026, but not for the reasons you might think. Tom outlines how these bonds would be devastating to the power brokers in London, the EU, and the globalist agenda as a whole, and this financial weapon could completely change the geopolitical landscape and the global economy. He breaks down how along with discussing why the EU is so intent on war with Russia, why Trump's threats towards Venezuela are not what they appear to be on the surface and so much more. Do you like silver? I sure do. And that is why I created the stack silver not fiat t-shirt, a shirt by a stacker for stackers. You can get one using the link in the description below. And now on to my interview with Tom Luango. Tom Luango, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to start with the absolute tragedy that is the so-called peace negotiations to end the Russia Ukraine conflict. Now, the US initially put out a framework that the Russians said they could work with. Obviously, it contains some points that the Russians would never agree with, but nonetheless, there seemed to be a chance that they could hammer something out. The EU leadership then lost their collective minds and had their own private meetings with them and Zalinski and decided to put forth terms that would be completely impossible for Russia to accept along with attempting to essentially steal Russia's frozen assets. An an event that I believe is still ongoing. It's interesting that Belgium is one of the countries stepping up and saying no, we can't do this. um when Belgium is saying not to do it, it seems uh a foregone conclusion that they're going to be breaking international laws in a big way if they actually do go through with it. What it feels like to me is that the European leadership wants the war to continue until the absolute bitter end, no matter what. Am I missing something here? >> No, you really aren't, Jesse. I I wish we were wrong about this, to be honest with you. I've been, you know, I I I've been expecting this the entire time. What's really funny, if you go back over it, um we've known they were going to lose their minds over this um when the first version of the 28 point peace plan was uh leaked, announced, whatever you want to call it. And I took one look at it and I went, "Oh, there's point I think it was point number 14 where the the uh Trump had pledged the frozen Russian assets to not only help pay for rebuilding Ukraine, but also joint USRussian um projects, right? So that would be like the Bearing Straight Tunnel, you know, Siberian oil and gas assets or timber assets or whatever. And that the European Union would have to put a hundred billion dollars into the fund." And I was like, "Oh, that's rich." That I mean, if you I mean, if you read the subtext on this, this was Trump effectively saying, "Uh, yeah, you guys aren't stealing Putin's money." As a matter of fact, uh, I want they they want their money back and they want to want you to pay for having stolen their money. Now, the subtext of everything you just laid out in your intro to that in the question to me is that they've already spent the money. They've already pledged Russia's assets to whomever um creditors, whatever. And so they've already used that money as collateral for loan obligations to either keep Ukraine running or, you know, for the future to keep Ukraine running because they've always thought that they were either going to get Russia to capitulate or they were going to get the US to come in and force and or they were just going to win the war, right? And um so the and I and this is something that Alex Crraer and I have been talking about I think since the war started that the whole purpose of the Ukraine war was to let's in the in the broad sense of the term Europe has a debt problem that they can't avoid right they can't avoid the fact that they've got trillions and trillions of dollars worth of debt they can never repay so what did they what did George Soros always talk about he talked about hey let's exit let's exit the debt currently let's issue it won't reissue it all as perpetual debt. Basically, steal the the creditors um capital, never pay the debt back, issue them perpetual bonds, and then reset the balance sheet and go forward. Well, that was always that plan was always predicated on winning the Russia Ukraine war, breaking Russia up, stealing their trillions of dollars worth of mineral and and natural resource wealth and then using that as c using that cash flow to underwrite the perpetual bonds and any new debt that they want to issue under the any new monetary system which would obviously be some kind of digital euro as in lagard you know and all of that stuff. So that's what their plan was and clearly Trump is like yeah nuts to that. Putin was like, "That's cute and all, but we're going to bomb Ukraine into the Stone Age." No. Um, and that and here we are three and a half years later or almost four years later now and um they've now been forced into the maneuver where they have to literally say, "Okay, we have to fight this war." Because they don't have any other options cuz it's if they don't keep the war going. And this is a there was a great post I think I saw on Twitter this morning that I I reposted. It's like it this kind of laid it out. if the peace Trump's you you understand why Trump why I believe and I think it's very clear that Trump is um uh is antithetical or he's he's he's aggressively um opposed to the perpetuation of the war is because he wants to bankrupt Europe and he understands that a peace treaty ends the possibility of these loans ever being made good and what does that mean it means the collapse of the European banking system. So you've got Scott Bessant. I think we think it's pretty clear that Scott Besson has been running a um an operation to drain the European markets of their pricing leverage in gold and silver, copper, and everything else. We've talked about, you know, I'm sure you've talked to Vince Launchie about this. We Vince and I have been talking about this for for months now, right? That this that you've got to get rid of the pricing leverage if you want to be the industrial powerhouses of the world, China and the United States. Well, you got to take London's ability to price commodities, especially strategic metals commodities away from them. So, you have to kill the LBMA. You have to kill the LMA. You have to you have to move those the the pricing mechanisms, the leverage on that to either New York or Shanghai or a mixture of both or to exchanges you control. So, that ties directly back into what I'm talking about here. It's almost like you force the the endgame for Trump against Europe is to force a peace settlement that they can't abide by in order to detonate their banking system after having drained the world of gold, silver, now copper. Clearly copper at 4 545 or 540 a pound is clearly another operation to to to drain the LME. So that's the way I see it from a you know kind of a geostrategic perspective. And you know, if I were Trump investment, this is exactly what I would be doing if I hated London, which I do. So, um, you know, you know, if I had the, you know, literally, if I were the general in charge of this, this is how I would be running my operation against them. And I would go, okay, yeah, you want to do X, Y, and Z. You've already done X, Y, and Z. You're not obligating us to that. Nuts to that. We're still the pre-minent military power in the world. We're still the pre-minent financial market in the world. We're still, you know, we still have the deepest and liquid, most liquid financial markets and the best corporate and tax policy of any major country in the world and the best rule of law, recent grandstanding by Democrat, you know, activist judges notwithstanding. But all with all of those things together, if you put all of that on the table and tell Europe no, what are they going to do? Well, they have to go to war. And then they and then we get to say, "Oh, that's great. You get to buy our weapons for us. You want to go to war? That's fine. We'll we'll sell you the weapons. The the fun part's going to come, and this is what I think is on the table, is that we're going to demand gold for that. Why wouldn't we? Why would we take their euros, right? You can sell our treasuries and give us dollars, but maybe we don't want dollars from you or, you know, fine. Well, you're going to sell our treasuries." And that's the other thing they've done. they've done is to say, "Hey, um, if you don't go along with our plans for war, we're going to sell our we're going to detonate your financial markets by selling your treasuries." I mean, have you noticed this? And I I I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody thinks that um that um that framework is uh is valid. Like it's it's one of those things where it's an announcement that's designed to cow squishy members of Congress who don't understand finance to then oppose Trump's plans, right? Because that's kind of the the way they always op these people operate. They always say to you, "Hey, if you don't go along with what we want, um we'll kill your major industry. Canada will kill your oil industry. Zimbabwe will kill your, you know, I don't know, your gold or your copper industry or whatever it is. In the United States, it's our financial system. So that's why they Lagard's been running part of the reason why Lagard has been running this ridiculous yield curve control program while the Bank of England buys ridiculous amounts of our debt in order to well one keep a cap on their bond yields and two create a war chest that they can then point at the United States and go you know these you know financial nuclear weapons. But these are weapons that when they turn them on us, they're really turning them on themselves because what they're saying is, "Oh, we're willing to detonate the entire global economy." Well, that just turns you into the bad guy and and everybody can then turn around and go, "Oh, I see you're at war with everyone. Fine, we cancel the QIPS. We'll just cancel the debt." Not that I think that that's what's on the horizon, but that's the I mean, if you want to continue walking up this escalatory ladder, that's ultimately the the thing. And the and the reality is is that you know Martin Armstrong's made this point many many times and I agree with him completely on this point which is that the US's superpower as a financial center is that we've never defaulted on our debt. But you know if you're at war with someone it's your obligation to not honor debts that are I mean that's what the Europeans are saying like we're stealing we're stealing Russia's money because we're at war with them. Like, okay, well, with people like that, why would you honor the why would you honor your debt debts with people like like that who are known thieves? Like, when it when when when you get down to brass tax, I don't see Russia, I don't see Russian or Chinese or or Middle Eastern investors being angry with the US or oh my god, they may, you know, you know, get the vapors because we canled Europe's debt, right? I'm just playing this scenario out. If you think about it that way, like I don't do them getting the vapors. I see them see them getting religion and going, "Yeah, finally somebody finally told these people to to to stop blackmailing the world with, you know, with the the the vestigages of their old power, their soft power." And so in that scenario, um, yeah, like that's I think the like the whole escalatory framework from a financial perspective, uh, laid out, laid bare, and it's all down to that original peace plan that Trump put on the table, which said, "Oh, no, Europe, you're not only going to not steal this money, which you've already stolen, but you're going to put another hundred billion dollars on the table." And that's in in you know, I'm sorry if that that that sounds like I know there's a portion of the audience that just thinks I'm spinning spinning tails here, but I'm like you just don't understand the situation if you if you can't play that scenario out in your head. Like it's not that hard. Um it really isn't. You just have to accept the fact that Trump's not a neocon or a neoliberal. That's it. It's all you got to do. If you if you take that if you take that idea out of your head and stash it somewhere else and just say no, he's at he's at war with the old European order first before he so that he can then pivot to China or the United States can pivot to China after he's off the table, right? He's, you know, no longer president and JD Vance or Rubio was president 2028 and beyond, then we can pivot to China. But we can't do that pivot geopolitically until we deal with our European partners as Putin would have put it. So there you go. Sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell them of course that commodity culture sent you. And now back to the interview. Very interesting breakdown. A couple things I just want to follow up on there. One is you mentioned Scott Bessant and a strategy involving commodities and Europe. I'd love you to expand on that and and how you think that is uh moving forward. And then se the second question is about war because is Europe actually preparing to go to war or are they using the potential of going to war the threat of a conflict to hang over the heads of their people? You know they're sending out pamphlets now in places like uh the Netherlands and France to you know prepare stock up on food because a conflict could be coming. Mertz is on TV there in Germany talking about, well, we're going to try to get people to volunteer for the military, but those who do not, we may have to introduce mandatory conscription. I mean, are they just doing this as a way to cover themselves, as their economies collapse, as they get more as their surveillance state expands, and as they prepare to roll out the digital euro to be able to say, "All of this is happening because we're preparing for war with Russia." So, kind of a two-part question there. Um, break it down for us. I think that's a very astute observation and and it is exact. I mean, it's like you can have one policy, you know, cover multiple bases, right? Like, and then, so if you think about it, like from Europe's perspective, hey, if you can somehow get the United States to help us go to war and go to war with Russia, we'll rearm, right? And if we don't and if they the United States doesn't go along, well, then we also have to deal with the fact that we've got civil unrest at home as we as the econ, you know, what's what's the flowchart here? US doesn't go along with it and we have some kind of peace agreement with Russia at some point in the nebulous future. Well, then we're going to have a collapse of our banking system. Therefore, we have to rearm. You also are watching them um de-industrialized. So, that's going to make the the uh the propensity for somebody to be willing to go on the dole because three hots and a cot are better than, you know, working for the military. Three hots and a cot are better than starving to death and watching your children um freeze in the winter time. Right? This is how they effectively in many ways blackmailed a lot of Ukrainians to go fight for fight against Russia even though they didn't want to, right? Because you first you crash the economy, you destroy their livelihood and then you offer them three hots and a cot, right? Um and a small stipen to send back to the family to be able to, you know, feed them. Well, that's what clearly what Europe is setting up. And then if they rearm significantly um across the European Union, then that's how you can have German troops stationed in Spain to keep the Spaniards down. And that's how you can have the Spaniards in Greece and the Greeks in the Netherlands and and the Dutch in France and the French in Germany, blah blah blah blah. Because men who are not you if you want to pacify a um you know if you want to pacify people using native troops to do so is not doesn't work very well. They know this like Europe you're if anybody knows this is the Europeans. You use men who are divorced from their homeland. They don't have any skin in the game. like a guy from, you know, Berlin has no skin in Barcelona, but if a guy from Berlin may have family in Saxony, right? And so, you know, now he's got divided loyalty. So, this is how you pluck them out of their um out of their normal headsp space into something where I'm just doing my job. I'm just providing for my family. I And they and men are really good at that kind of compartmentalization and they understand this very very well. Uh, these people are evil. I mean, at every level. So, I mean, what you implied with your question, Jesse, is like just how depraved are these people? Pretty freaking depraved, right? So, um, there's that part of the question. And then the other part of it is that they're clearly setting up to destroy their own economy anyway because they don't have any other way out of it. Now, that's the other interesting part about this. So let's talk about what your what your question actually implies because clearly now we have this potential framework multiple framework for why Europe would be willing to rearm >> right. >> Well this the second thing is what's the reaction to that? I mean again like moves on the game board if you if you you know don't happen in a vacuum. Well they're doing this. Oh yeah. Well then what's our reaction to that? If we're going to war against old Europe in order to end hundreds of years of colonization and chaos and slavery and everything else, which is what it looks like, that's what I posit Trump is actually doing. And I don't just mean Trump, I mean Trump and Putin and Xi and other sovereigntist forces, especially within Europe like Victor Orban and others. Then you have to ask yourself, how does he activate those people? Well, did any I know you didn't miss this and I know your audience didn't miss this, which is George Maloney going out a few weeks ago and saying, "Look, Italy's sovereign gold is for Italians." And then she follows up that statement by saying Italy's sovereign gold is not the property of the shareholders of foreign central banks. She used that phrase. That is a freaking howitzer aimed right at Brussels. And so you have that you have Victor Orban actively trying to stop the European Union from o openly steal Russia's money which supports Trump's desire for peace which which falls back on everything I said previously in the first 15 minutes of this podcast. So then you now you have to start thinking about what does that mean, right? does um you know what Trump has spent 2025 doing is building an alliance or building a network of friends internationally by ending conflicts all around the world by effectively giving Japan their independence for example ending Cambbo trying to end Cambodia, Thailand which is a French British proxy war um you know conga Rwanda blah blah blah all of them right what is he trying to do he's trying to build friendships. I mean, did anybody not notice that Israel and Egypt signed the biggest gas deal in either country's history yesterday? How does that happen if if Trump doesn't forge the peace plan over Gaza? I mean, regardless of, you know, the fact that the this the shelling and the killing hasn't fully stopped, but it's down significantly. I mean, that's just the nature of these conflicts that they don't turn on a dime overnight, right? Um, that that's a big deal. So there's Trump's influence creating allies around the world. Saudi Arabia, right? All of these things. So he's got all those people activated. They're all effectively stating quite explicitly they want to be out from underneath this Davosian, you know, sort of damicles that they always hold over people's heads. The EU does not stand without the tripod of France, Germany, and Italy. Take out one and the tripod falls. Right? This is why I've been, you know, focused for so long on French, Italian, and German politics to watch the the process since the moment Marina Le Pen entered the space back in like 2014, 2015, and then Matio Salvini and FiveStar Movement and then the rise of AFD. I've been watching these very carefully because without those without those three tri those three legs the European Union falls apart especially in the wake of Brexit with no European with no UK but the UK is now a sha shell of itself and it's only literally just the square mile of the city of London right in terms of actual honest to god power. So I think Trump is activating all of his assets around that he's garnered around the world to you know add the pressure necessary to to say to Europe look if you take this route if you decide to you know you know put on your Joker makeup and burn the world to the ground and light a big pile of money on fire literally um you know feeling froggy, take that leap, but no one's going with you and no one is intimidated by you and that it will have these consequences. So that's what I'm seeing and that's clearly what's happening with when you watch like Gazprom move their JV for Europe out of the Netherlands and re and move it to Budapest for Budapest for for example. When you watch all of these little moves happening around the around the region, people are shoring up gas and oil supplies. They're preparing for Eastern Europe, meaning basically the Balkans and Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria and and all the way to Poland. The Visigrads plus the Balkans basically walk away because if Italy walks away, then the whole of Eastern Europe walks away and then Ukraine security guarantees don't matter. Again, when I read that 28 point peace plan, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Look at all the guarantees. They're all Europe and NATO for Ukraine. Like, neither the EU nor NATO are going to exist in their current form in 5 years. So, there was no reason for Russia to to not sign most of that, agree to most of that, and you know, freeze the conflict there, take the four Oblasts that they've that that they've effectively taken." And then they're like, "Well, we'll get to Odessa in a couple years and we'll do it with we'll do it the same way we we took Crimea without firing a shot and having a referendum and there'll be nobody to oppose us at that point because the European Union won't really exist. City of London won't really exist and America's okay with it because we've already tacitly agreed to to that happening anyway, right?" And so that to me was you know that plan was the signal of all of these things coming together at one you in one basically one document and it should be and then of course the re reaction to that has been histrionic uh on the part of people who don't want to admit that Trump isn't a blithering idiot and a malignant narcissist. Like I'm I'm sorry you're just sorry you're just wrong. Um, I mean, he may not be the smartest guy in the world or the smartest guy in the room, but he's neither of the other two. He's not the other uh cartoon figure that you think he is either. That's just nonsense. >> And speaking to what you said here in Serbia, I believe for the first time in 14 years, Serbia is withdrawing from the EU Western Balkan Summit. They are not attending. Perhaps a sign of of things to come. That got me pretty pumped when I read that because I want I want >> I forgot that you're I want Serbian. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I I love this nation and and you know I I identify with Serbians much more than my fellow Canadians. Um so I really want them to stay away from the EU as much as possible. But just quickly to follow up on that second part of the question, Scott Bessant cutting off commodities from the EU. What walk us through what's happening there? Well, I just think that this is one of those things that it's been pretty obvious since um Q1 of last year that that Besson is just selling dollars to buy gold. Like his whole the whole weak dollar policy that we dealt with in the first half of 2020 five was, you know, Besson basically selling dollars and buying gold and draining and and draining the LBMA. And again, I can I think he's continuing to do this. Um, there are more and more signs that the United States is getting ready to change the way the monetary system is going to operate. Trump even said that this morning after his fire breathing side chat that he gave last night. I I I was not so I don't know if you watched it, but I was not surprised at all that he went in there with like both guns blazing. It wasn't going to be the hi, I'm Donald Trump and I'm, you know, teddy bear and he's like he's like patent heranging the country. It was hilarious. Um, I didn't agree with some of it and I thought some of it was ridiculously overstated, but I'm like, eh, whatever. What all I heard was, "We're supporting the military. Come and get us. M on a lobby." Like, no. Um, we're going to recapitalize the middle class. So, that's that's a great sign. But but Bess and and it's really not all that complicated that Jesse I would just say look it's very clear that there's a a multi-stage operation being run either through the Treasury directly pursue the weak dollar policy to weaken the dollar significantly like they did in the first half of last year to set up the tariff um negotiations and the trade deal negotiations and then back off effectively and then turn that operation over to the bullion banks. And um you know and then we start talking about what's happening in silver and how you know we then moved out off in that we moved off of gold effectively in October to a you know uh an operation in silver that's began in August and is continuing and is probably not going to stop anytime soon. Um now I was listening to something that Vince put out recently. Vince Lonie put out recently and you know he's just he clearly believes that JP Morgan is you know running a squeeze a massive squeeze and if so then you know great and um if you know I don't I don't I don't think that uh Vince is wrong about that um and if so then it could be explosive for the entire industry but you know like none of us should be complaining about 65 $66 silver at this point either right so it but you know everybody take you know, so but that's what I think is is is part of the uh is is the the fundamental thing. I I really do believe u and I may be wrong about this, but I really do believe that what they're both setting up with, but what Trump is setting up with what he's stating that the the old global monetary system doesn't work for us and we're going to change it and what Besson's been doing and all the rumors and everything else. I don't see how we don't go to some kind of gold back Treasury bond issuance sometime this year. I just don't see how that doesn't happen. There's too much smoke. So that if Europe thinks that they're going to because that's the perfect counter move, right? The perfect counter move is the Bank of England th tries to threaten us. I I just talked about the Q the cancelling the QIPS, but why why not just make them worth 30 cents on the dollar by offering a gold back treasury and then oh go ahead and sell them? You're not going to get any money for them. You know what I mean? like something like you you set up a two-tiered um US Treasury system and all of a sudden, you know, the world changes. I mean, I don't think that there now, now when I say that, there's two things that I want to see with the gold back treasury. And maybe I'm wrong, again, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe I haven't thought it through completely. But the first thing I would say is if we're going to do something like that, those should only be offered to US citizens and to countries or foreign actors that are buying, you know, that are investing directly in United States infrastructure. Meaning it can't go, this cannot be a a means by which to extract gold and have it go overseas. It's got to be ring for not that I think that's going to happen anyway. Well, these will be 50 hundredyear bonds that we'll that we'll never um we'll never call in or we'll never uh we'll never honor the gold. It's just going to be, you know, the value of the bond will be we'll have a gold cover clause on it. This goes all the way back to Jim Sinclair. I you know, it's like I when I had hair like seriously like Jim called this thing 25 20 years ago and uh he was right. You know, he said it's going to end with a gold cover clause and um with a US Treasury with a gold cover clause. He he always thought 5% but it may be more than that. Um we'll see but it's clearly what's coming. And then you you do something like that and all of a sudden you're talking about a massive capital inflow to the United States. We don't care about you know these things will everything will trade at at a discount versus the other and you know that'll serve as some kind of market access charge in order to get euro dollars because then you won't be able to go to the swap. You won't be able to go to the Fed for swap line at par. you'll, you know, the Fed's only going to give you 30 cents on the dollar or 60 cents on the dollar. I mean, we're already at that, but could you imagine that? Actually, that's like maybe now that I think about it, that's probably exactly the mechanism by which you do you blunt that weapon, right? Why would they do something like that? Why would Europe or the or England or anybody else dump our treasuries in order to try and, you know, create a bare steepener on the on the on the yield curve and force our borrowing costs up and force our interest rate costs up and everything else? Okay, that's that's cute and all. But if those bonds are selling at, you know, but if you need dollars that bad and then and there's no market for these things, then you're not going to get any money for them. And then you can't and then if that's the case, then the Fed will also or the eur the American banks will refuse to repo them at par because we have a different par, right? We have a different par value which at this point will be the gold back market. I don't know. I'm just like I'm just vamping here to be honest with you at this point. So just throwing stuff out there for you know people who know this stuff better than I do to like think about. Right. So >> well what you you you mentioned goldback bonds you expect them this year. Is that literally in the next two weeks or you mean in 2026? >> No I think probably I mean everything I think is setting up for July, right? I mean unless Europe decides that they want to accelerate the timetable further but I don't think we're ready for that yet. But it's clearly that Trump is setting up a whole rash of things to, you know, for July 4th. Like, let's, you know what I mean? Like, it's all coming to that. So, let's watch how he plays out the time between now and the State of the Union address. And I think that that's going to be the the pivotal time. That's going to probably tell us everything we need to know about where his head is and where he's and where things are heading um in Q1 and Q2 of of 2026. And you know, the big thing for him is, can he pull any of this off? That's the obviously I'm sure the I can hear the audience like asking the question, what do you I don't know if Trump can pull any of this off. I don't Well, and it's because of the Congress, right? Congress is in full revolt against him. We're going to watch Congress very carefully to see if he and Vance and and NNN can ride her over everything and actually force through what needs to be forced through. It's that's the big question. You're going to have to just watch the minations in the House. I'd watch honestly I would watch Speaker Mike Johnson far more than John Thun. But if Thun, for example, um finally rams through all of the DA appointments, for example, that they've been that Grassly's been sitting on or they get rid of the filibuster, they do and they change the rules of the Senate, that would be amazing because it needs to be done. Okay. Um, and then the same thing on the House side. If if you know, Johnson keeps pushing forward, you know, um, reforms to Obamacare, you know, codifying all of Trump's executive orders into law and then forcing them in the Senate, the Republican Senate to to vote against that, that's a that's putting them in a box. If Mike Johnson does that and he's able to ride herd over his thin majority in the house getting thinner by the day thanks to Marjgery Taylor drama queen then um yeah it becomes a very interesting if that happens like that's that's telling you that do that that all rumors of Donald Trump being a lame duck coming into the midterms are way overblown and he's got at least two or three other things he's going to drop on everyone in January. So we'll see what happens. I got to follow up on one point because people have already jumped to the comments and and and said this, I'm sure, because you mentioned Trump wants to end wars. He's he's forging new alliances, etc. But yet, it looks like we could be on the verge of a war with Venezuela. Now, at first, there was a lot of talk about drugs coming into America. Obviously, there have been boats struck and people killed. Um, I do not believe the US government's provided any hard evidence to the public that these were actually drug smuggling vessels, which to me is a little concerning. But then also now Trump going on camera and saying this is about oil now and that Venezuela has stolen its oil or taken its oil. He wants to take it back. What is going on there? Venezuela is Trump versus Langley. This is not about any of those things. I know this is a commodity uh podcast. And I know that's why you're coming at it from this perspective, Jesse, and that's what you should do. I'm not going to, you know, but this is about um the military going after intelligence assets and about organized crime. Like, you know, the other day, for example, when they um I I I hardly recommend a lot of people sit down and listen to guys who have this kind of um experience. I don't have this kind of experience. Almost everybody in the audience does it. But my friends Blaine Holt and the Berling game have been doing great work to explain what's actually going on. They did a thing with my friend Crypto Rich um a short video about 18 19 minutes. I I absolutely recommend everybody listen to about what was actually on the boat that we seized the other day. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna walk some people through this. This is going to sound like a digression, but it's not. Um it's really kind of important. So supposedly it was an oil tanker, right? Well then why did we not find out what country it was flagged under, what we took off the boat or anything else? We learned nothing about. All we heard was that if they were if there were traffic children andor women on that boat, we would have seen them, right? Because they would have been happy to show the world that we stopped you know, human trafficking. I mean, that's a that's a political win. So, the fact that we had nothing come out about what they actually seized, who they who andor what they actually seized and where this thing was either headed or that we knew nothing. That's a tell. And the tell is it was something they did not want anyone to know about. meaning it was em happens to think it's leadership of like ASO guys that they were trying getting ready to smuggle into the United States to start kinetic operations on the ground. It could have been a dirty bomb trigger. It could have been nuclear material. It could have been any of these things, but it certainly wasn't Venezuelan oil because if it was, they would have mentioned it. It's that simple. And they would have said it was, you know, flagged on. No, the ship was flying flagless and that's that. And the kicker, and this is the best part about this, and it is that there were six other oily tankers in the in five or six other ships moving through the area. They weren't stopped, right? So, what Trump is doing is what Trump always does, which is that he he says a lot of stuff that is absolute strategic misdirection, but these are all signals to the intelligence services. If you think you're going to start a civil war in the United States because that's your only move on the board, which I everything I've laid out already this morning tells you that at the end of the day, what is Davos's big move against the US? Start a civil war on the ground. Start a race war. Start a start something. You got to start something. And that's what the Sedicious Six video is all about. That's why Peg Seth is going hard after Mark Kelly, right? as why these things are happening. This is the military and the president against the intelligence services. Let's go back to Trump's statement during his fireb breathing side chat the the other night. What was the big centerpiece? Giving a Christmas bonus to the entire military. That was the most powerful thing in the speech. Everything else was boiler boil, you know. stuff that the administration's been saying for months. But it was good for him to say all that and say it that way. But that was the signal to me out of all the other noise. That's what stuck out to me. Oh, by the way, you think you're going to you're going to take the military out? Uhuh. Well, I'm telling the entire country, they're the most important people right now. They're getting a bonus check. Hm. That's a huge signal. So that's what this is about. Venezuela is, you know, it's kind of like the, you know, if Zurich is the center of the gold trade in Europe, right? And, you know, money laundering and all that other stuff. Well, Venezuela is the Zurich of the global um um organized crime trade in the Western Hemisphere and it needs to be removed. Now, I don't think that he's actively moving Maduro out of he just wants Maduro to knuckle under. Same thing with Zilinski. And what's the problem with Maduro, just like Zansky, is that he's getting told from he's getting pressure from Trump and getting told by Davos, we've got, you know, he's being told by Davos, hey, don't worry about it. We've got this taken care of. We're going to take out Trump. And then Trump is going, uh, no, I'm accelerating the timetable on you. Same thing with Zilinsky. They're doing the same. It's the same dance, right? You don't see the hand the open hand of Davos on on Venezuela because they can't really talk about that because it's below ground. It's below the headlines. It's organiz it's their organized crime. It's their drug and human trafficking. It's all that other stuff. It's all the dark money that gets moved around. It's intelligence service stuff. Whereas obviously in Ukraine it's an open we're an open warfare, right? So that's above board. The other one's below board. And that's kind of what why it's different. But you can see the reflection of the of Davos's influence there by the histrionics of everybody all across the political spectrum as to why this is this is wrong including so-called libertarians like Rand Paul like and the fact that Tucker Carlson went out there yesterday and told Judge Npalitano, "Oh, I've been briefed by various members of Congress. we're going to to to war with Venezuela and Trump's going to announce it tonight or you know on on Wednesday night like no didn't happen. He got punked or was he then you have to ask a question is Tuck Carlson you know out there being a disinformation agent for the administration? I don't know. I can't figure out Tucker's role in any of this anymore to be honest. Okay. Um, so like this is all what we're dealing with now. We're now into the into the realm of of of signal um of signaling pre-kinetic action on US soil and it's happening on both sides. And so that's the way you've got to read all of this. Is Trump gonna put boots on the ground of Venezuela? Like why? He's got enough He's got enough naval and air assets in in the region to like force, you know, force whatever he wants. He doesn't need to put boots on the ground, declare war with Venezuela. The fact that that that feckless Thomas Massiey's up there grandstanding in Congress about this like we're not going to war with Venezuela. We're taking out non-state actors that have no rights under UNCCLOS and everybody who's this knows it. Every one of them, including the lawyers in the commentary act, period. They're all lying. They're all untrustworthy. I don't know what the truth is, but I can tell you that the truth ain't what they're pedalling. Okay? So it's and it's self-consistent with the behavior that we're seeing with Trump over Ukraine and over Israel, Gaza, and everything else. So now I now I'm going I'm going to bring up a vector that you haven't touched on yet because it's absolutely terine to all this, which is Japan, right? on the same day that the bricks announced the unit is going live or they're working on it or whatever they're doing, which is fine. The the bricks and unit are basically a hedge against Trump and the United States losing the their their current war for independence against Davos. Trump goes to Japan and basically sets Japan free. I know everybody thinks I'm crazy for this, but I'm like I'm watching that ceremony and that does not look like your average state visit to me. That looks like a a a that looks like a people that are absolututely over the moon, overjoyed that their liberator has stepped off the freaking plane because they've been under the thumb of the British and British economic systems forever. Or, you know, or have we all not watched Princes of the Yen, right? BOJ is about to raise interest rates again. They could start raising interest rates hard. That would be hilarious. They're unwinding the yen carry trade. They're slowly but surely unwinding their QE, their their their ETF and um equity portfolio. Yeah, it's going to be over 50 or 100 years, whatever. It's all nonsense. They're it'll they announce X and they're going to do whatever they want. What's important here is to understand that at some point Japan is going to be allowed to rearm because we're setting up for the next war which is the one with that we where we stop Chinese aggression but we have to deal with Europe first. So you deal with Europe and then you move to China and Japan is the pivotal piece in that because who has benefited more from the Japanese yen carry trade the United States or or or Europe? We all watch the the the the the dollar yen cross when you should be watching the euroyen cross. Okay. So I I throw that out there. I think that that is the biggest issue here. I think the Fed is setting up I think Trump and company are setting up for a day and you know you're seeing it from Christine Lagard. You're seeing it from all the um European Central Bank, you know, big wigs, Bank of England, you know, Andrew Bailey, that slovenly. I can't stand that guy. Oh my god, he's like the height of lime. Um and um like very clearly saying that they're worried that the Fed is not going to provide them dollar swap lines. Yeah, I wonder why. I mean, they were they were prefacing this three months ago, four months ago. Clearly, they know what's going on. And if Japan detonate finish, you know, starts the process of at any moment detonating the rest of the yen carry trade like they did in August of 2004. Was it? Yeah. 2004, right? Or 2024. Was it 2024? 2023. 2024. Yeah. It was right after the Biden Trump debate. Um, you know, that that Black Monday in April on August 5th. Um, that was a warning. That's what it looked like to me. So, that'd be funny. And so, there's about six different ways is what I'm getting at is about six different ways that Trump and Bessant could catalyze the breakdown of the European banking system. So hold that sword of damicles over our head all you want and we'll destroy you and we'll maintain and we'll mitigate most of the blowback onto us. That's why the Fed stopped Q QT. That's why they lowered interest rates. That's why they've announced, you know, quote unquote new QE, which is all bull crap. like the Fed stands ready to provide our banking system with the backs stops it necessary because that's the Fed's job when this goes kinetic in a financial sense and it you know and then clearly the the counter side to that the counter move to that would be for Davos to activate their physically kinetic players on American soil be it you know a mixture of you know ISIS and AOF guys and you know Black Lives Matter and blue governors and all the you know all of it every bit of it they can act you know they can activate all of it so we'll see that's why Trump coming out and saying oh I we love our military we love our military so much that we're willing to share our tariff revenue with them because that's how we protect our country okay for message received Well, Tom, you've thrown so much information at us today. Always appreciate your point of view. Um, I always come away from our interviews with new food for thought. That's why I love talking with you. Uh, for people who want to follow your work, you got the Go Gold Goats and Guns podcast, you've got a blog, you got a Patreon. Uh, tell us all about that. >> Sure. So, the the the podcast is an audio only podcast because I kind of a purist that way. Um, and it comes out very intermittently whenever I, you know, can remember to actually put one out. Um, but I always try to make it as much signal as possible. You can find those over at the blog over tommoanga.me or goldatsguns.com. You can follow us and support us over on Patreon at Patreon goats and guns uh with the monthly where we put out the monthly newsletter which is a retail investor uh style you know portfolio um you know standard newsletter as well as my twice weekly uh private podcast for the for the patrons as well and the private chat service and all the rest of it. So, um, that's how we make our bones. And, you know, you can follow me on Twitter where I'm I try breathing fire every day at TfL 1728. >> Great. Well, I'm going to put links to all of that in the description below. Always a blast talking with you, Tom. Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Thank you, Jesse. Thank you. And have a very merry Christmas. And to you and everybody in the audience, merry fragging Christmas. Let's do it. >> Thank you for joining us today. The sponsor of today's episode is Arc Silver, Gold, Osmium. They have some great prices on gold and silver bullion products. You can see them on screen right now. Now, these are subject to change and while supplies last. So, reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 3072649441 or by email at ianarchsg.com and make sure to tell him that commodity culture sent you and pick up your stacks not fiat t-shirt available exclusively in the commodity culture shop and backed by a 100% quality guarantee. The link is in the description and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up tod date with the latest episodes.