Jacob Shapiro: "Sell America" Is Real—Canada Breaks Away, NATO at Risk & the Shift to Multipolarity
Summary
Multipolar World: Canada’s strategic reset with China and Qatar signals a shift away from exclusive U.S. alignment and toward diversified partnerships.
Sell America: A gradual rotation out of U.S. Treasuries into alternatives like Swiss franc, Singapore dollar, gold, and crypto is underway, changing safe-haven dynamics.
Market Outlook: Elevated volatility stems from policy uncertainty, tariff unpredictability, and perceived Fed politicization, weighing on capex and planning.
Europe Opportunity: A push toward strategic autonomy and defense spending, alongside improving energy supply via LNG, renewables, and potential nuclear, presents upside.
Energy Security: Countries with secure, cheap energy and strong R&D are poised to benefit, especially as infrastructure is rebuilt and export routes diversify.
Japan: Despite long-term challenges, a potential snap election and policy shift could catalyze rapid, “explosive” change, making Japan a contrarian bullish case.
Risks: A U.S. troop move on Greenland could fracture NATO, accelerating European geopolitical realignment and impacting transatlantic markets.
Portfolio Implications: Consider diversification away from concentrated U.S. exposure and toward resilient regions and assets aligned with the multipolar trend.
Transcript
Cell America is very real. It's not media hype. Canada basically saying that its relationship with the United States has ruptured and that Canada needs to have a different position in a multipolar world is a huge development. If you look at Trump's approval ratings on managing the economy, his poll numbers on approval for the economy are right at where Joe Biden's were when Joe Biden left office. That is the kiss of death. If the United States decides that its current agreement, which allows it to do whatever it wants with Greenland, let's be frank, is not good enough, and they need to throw some US soldiers there in order to claim it for themselves, that's the end of NATO. Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealth.comfree. Hello and welcome to Wealthy. I'm Maggie Lake and with me to discuss the latest geopolitical headlines is Jacob Shapiro, director of research at the Bespoke Group. Hi Jacob, it's great to see you. >> Good to see you, Maggie. How's it going? >> Uh, it's going we're all we're all doing what we can, fielding the enormous amount of u of news and headlines on the geopolitical front. Um, President Trump has really dominated this news cycle. leaders are gathered in Davos. He addressed them today. Um but you know, first we had Greenland, we had the release of private text messages. Um he's taking a victory lap about all his accomplishments and criticizing, talking about the shortcomings of pretty much everyone else. I mean, we we say this all the time, but it kind of feels like this is we really haven't seen something to this level maybe before. Um what are you paying attention to and what are you ignoring? Well, it's it's I've called it the reality TV show Presidency. And the more we get into it, the more I think that's correct. And I think you I mean, remember Donald Trump before he was any of this was a reality TV star. So, he knows how to dominate the news cycle. He knows how to use social media. Um, and I think the reason that it hasn't happened before with US presidents is just because we haven't had somebody who was as fluent with this as President Trump is. And it literally is. He needs a new episode every week. I feel like last week the episode was regime change in Iran or are we gonna have regime change in Cuba. This week the episode is giving it to the folks at Davos and things with uh everything with Greenland. But I would say there are two things on my radar that will endure long after we get to whatever the next episode is in President Trump's cycle. The first is what Mark Carney has been up to. And I'm not saying that just because I'm sitting to you here in Canada. Um he has had quite a last couple of days whether it's his trip to Beijing, his trip afterwards to Qatar, his um really impressive speech at Davos uh just yesterday. Um Canada basically saying that its relationship with the United States has ruptured and that Canada needs to have a different position in a multipolar world is a huge development. Um and then you know I feel like it was last week, two weeks ago, everybody was was uh was counting down regime change in Iran. Well, not only is the regime still there in Iran, but you've got Syria giving an ultimatum to Syria's Kurds saying either join Syria or we will take you by force and you've got a US ambassador out there urging the Syrian Kurds to do exactly that. And I know that that may feel like small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. But if you're thinking about the future of the Middle East and Turkeykey's role in all of this and where all of this goes, it's actually kind of a huge moment for what the balance of power looks like in the Middle East. And then of course there's everything with Greenland and how is Europe going to respond? what's next for Latin America. We can get into all of that, but I think those two things are worth at least calling out at the beginning. >> Yeah. Well, listen, this is why we love catching up with you, Jacob, because it's really easy to get sucked into the drama of what's happening and lose sight of what's important, especially from an investment point of view. So, talk to me a little bit more about Canada and and I think it's telling that uh for investors dealing with a barrage of headlines, and you're right, Trump really knows how to dominate that, right? and and take up all the oxygen. I'm not sure they're paying enough attention to what's happened with Canada because we've got headlines about what's coming out of the Trump administration every second. So, why is this so significant and how do you see this playing out? >> Well, at the beginning of the year, I thought we were just sort of waltzing into an easy renegoti renegotiation of USMCA. And I even said a couple of weeks ago when I was asked by my friend Sean Haney, who has a podcast, um what I thought Carney would do, I said, "Well, I expect he'll kiss the ring. he'll try to get the USMCA over the finish line and maybe then he can start thinking about the long-term task of um of building up some alternatives and some hedges for Canada against the United States. Uh Carney has done the exact opposite and I'm sure that some people listening to this will have strong opinions one way or another. I'm not here to tell you whether his his moves are correct or not correct, but I do want to give you uh the ability to make that decision for yourself. He goes to China uh forges this new strategic partnership. The details of this are not that big of a deal. So Canada's going to buy 50,000 EVs. That's like a drop in the bucket of Chinese over supply. China's going to drop some tariffs on canola. Big deal for canola farmers. Canada, but outside of that, not not really that big of a deal. But the message here is the strategic partnership. Uh Carney's statements that China is actually more reliable right now than the United States in terms of negotiation and whether it lives up to its word. And then I think the thing that most folks are skirting over is they think that Carney went straight from Beijing to Davos and talked about this rupture in the international order and how it was all under false pretenses and that Canada needed to stick up for itself in a pragmatic way. But he didn't do that. He actually stopped in Qatar first and he signed a strategic partnership with Qatar and secured lots of investment from Qatar into Canada to rebuild energy infrastructure to get energy infrastructure pointed away from the United States and to some of Canada's other potential external markets. And then he went to Davos and said, "Hey, like we've been on the front lines of watching this change in the liberal international order. It's not so liberal anymore. Uh, and we can't continue just to sort of be here under false pretenses." So, we are open for business. We're open for business with the Chinese. We're open for business with the Gulf. We're open for business with the Europeans. And President Trump, we're open for business with you, too. It's just that we're not going to pretend um like everything is okay. And I I think now the ball is in the United States's court. President Trump, you probably saw, was asked about this and he said, "Good for him. If he can get a deal with China, by all means." If that's the road that this takes, then Carney's going to look very good. If President Trump punishes Carney and punishes Canada in the USMCA renegotiations, you're going to have a tough couple of years in Canada because it's not going to be easy to just flip a switch and say we're going to hedge away from the United States. But in the long term, does that put Canada on a more stable footing? Maybe. And I think one of the things we've seen in the last couple of years is yes, the stereotype of Canadians is very nice and very polite is true. Uh but they're also fiercely proud of their own country. And if you keep on telling them that they're the 51st state and they just have to do whatever President Trump says, uh eventually they will say no thank you and will take the economic pain. And I think that they will be more willing to endure that economic pain than the folks in Michigan and the folks in Wisconsin and everybody across the border who is also going to suffer if Canada US relations really do rupture. >> Yeah. and and you know all of this has to be taken uh in the context of the fact that we are we have a midterm election in the US. Uh and despite the fact that Trump is talking about all his accomplishments in the first year and how strong the US economy is, that's that's not necessarily showing up in the polls. Now, a lot could change. There's a lot he's he's going to go on a tour and go to a different state every month. Uh but they're they're making big moves internationally but also domestically now having to sort of deal with this. Um do you expect that could Canada become a midterm election issue? I mean it's it's it's sort of you know it never is. But is there a sense that the rest of America is comfortable with losing Canada as an ally? >> Can I quote my fellow Louisian James Carville here and say it's the economy stupid? Like it's it's it's all about the economy. And this is where I think President Trump is actually in big trouble with the midterms. If you look at Trump's approval ratings on managing the economy, this is this is how he beat Kla Harris. It wasn't on everything else. It was because if you looked at approval ratings on the economy, the electorate said, "Okay, we'll deal with all of his insanity because he's going to manage the economy better." His poll numbers on approval for the economy are right at where Joe Biden's were when Joe Biden left office. That is the kiss of death. If that continues into November, I don't care how many states he goes to, I don't care how many times he does his shtick, it's just not going to work. And I think in that sense, last November's uh elections, whether you had the gubernatorial races in Virginia or New Jersey, some of these other things, that was a key signpost because you were getting moderate Democrats coming up and sweeping, not just sweeping, but sweeping by huge margins, sweeping in the Latino vote, which went hard for Trump in the last presidential election. uh in all these ways that the Democrats were suffering. In November, we saw some margins that were suggesting the Democrats would come back. So unless President Trump can turn people's perception of the economy, he can do whatever he wants with Greenland, Canada, everything else. I don't think it's going to affect it. And I also think the risks here are to the downside for President Trump because by and large, if you poll American voters, they don't like tariffs. They don't like messing around with Greenland. They don't want to mess around with Canada. They think much of this is is superfluous. So he can make the reality TV show whatever he wants. And maybe through his powers of charisma and persuasion, he can get people to be convinced. But I I think ultimately Americans care about the economy. Um and their perception of the economy is that President Trump is doing just as well as Joe Biden. And like I said, that's a kiss of death for the midterms. >> Yeah. And we've had in in recent at least this week, we've had the markets starting to react to what's happening to this sort of uh negotiating style abroad. Now, maybe this was a correction that was going to happen anyway. You could certainly make that argument. Uh but there seems to be a discomfort. Volatility is up. We see selloffs happening now. There's other things going around on around the world, too. Does that do we expect to see a reversal? I mean, he's going into bilateral uh conversations while he's there. You know, could this be just another like negotiating uncomfortable negotiating style that ends up swinging around and being more constructive, especially if it's roing the markets or are we starting to see a a a different kind of tear in relationships? Allah marney where people just say this is we've had enough. There's something, you know, the damage is is more permanent. Yeah, I'm a geopolitical analyst, so it would be self- serving for me to say that, you know, these ruptures with Europe or the ruptures with Canada are really going to impact the American economy. But I think that has much more to do with the politicization of the Fed and interest rates, going after the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh, you know, really being heavy-handed and ideological about the economy itself and also not giving American companies enough predictability in what's going to happen next to make plans. Um I think what we saw last year is the tariffs themselves. Okay, like the economy can survive and can adapt to that. What what the economy cannot deal with is constant uncertainty. Um if and when the Supreme Court makes its ruling on tariffs, are they just going to throw in a bunch of other tariffs? Is it going to be some other maneuver entirely? And so you have companies that are really stalled that are not making that are not uh doing capex that are not thinking about the future because they're reacting to whatever is happening to them right now. And so the economy has been running hot in the short term, but the long-term and cumulative impact of all those companies waiting to try and get clarity that isn't coming. The politicization of the Fed, these countries starting to lose faith in US rule of law and US objectivity. When you start to put all those things together, >> then you could start to get the seeds of something that's there. But I also um I have this index where, you know, my wife and and my sister are two people in my life. They don't really care about geopolitics at all. um like they indulge me and they'll talk to me but I know they don't care but both of them yesterday asked me some versions of the question of hey Jacob is the economy crashing or is the economy going to crash soon u which goes back to what I was saying about the median voter like it doesn't even matter if that's true and I don't think that it's true but the median voter is starting to think this is not going well to your point this is also volatile what's going to happen so I'm actually a little more sanguin about the economy maybe than you would think but it doesn't really matter whether I'm sanguin or not what matters is people's perceptions and people's perceptions are Yeah, >> prices are continuing to go up. This guy is crazy and he's doing crazy things all over the place. And ultimately, like it's not feeling good for me. I don't feel like I'm taking care of here. And I think that's going to have those longer term implications. The Europe stuff, the green, it all exacerbates that. But, you know, it's it's it's not the I don't think it's the thing that's driving things here. It's just the fluff on top. If you're looking for a simple, secure way to invest and own physical gold and silver, visit our sister company, Hard Assets Alliance, at hardassetsalliance.com. That's hardassallalliance.com. Yeah, nothing like seeing the Dow drop 900 points to get people nervous. I mean, this is, you know, um that that matters. That's it's even if you don't own stocks, it's sort of an indicator. And when you start to see that um splashed across the media headlines, there are some other issues. sale of treasuries. We saw Denmark make a it was sort of symbolic. It wasn't a huge amount. Um is is sell America just sort of media hype and and again political noise or is this a real possibility that people start to finally turn away from US treasuries and US assets? >> Sell America is very real. It's not media hype. Now what's media hype is that oh it's going to go from uh 100 to zero and everything is going to crash. So what you've been seeing over the last 12 to 18 months is you've been seeing the sell America trade and what that looks like. Let's put aside the Danish pension fund that you're talking about. Denmark obviously has other reasons and ulterior motives for what it's doing. It's being treated pretty unfairly by the Trump administration around Greenland. But if you're looking at the rest of the world and you're looking about say the decline of the dollar in terms of international currency reserves or you're looking at how countries or pension funds are adjusting their treasury holdings, we're talking about they're turning the dial from okay, maybe I should be at 60% exposure to the United States to 50. Maybe I should go from 65 to 45 and I'll diversify into some Swiss Frank or Singapore dollar or gold or some Bitcoin if I'm really adventurous. Um again, so it's not going to zero, but just that kind of move at that level is going to cause real implications. And that's why you see what are Treasury yields doing in response to what's happening in the US economy. What is the dollar doing over the past 12 to 18 months in response to what's happening with the US economy? So I think the sell America trade is very real. And I would also tell you at least when I'm advising clients, I no longer think of the US Treasury as the safe haven asset of choice. And if I think that certainly all these central banks and pension funds are probably not thinking the same thing as well which is why you've seen such a run up in some of those harder currencies or in you know precious metals or in crypto or some of these other places. So yes I think we are in the very very early stages of the cell America trade. It's going to happen over years and even decades and it's not going to be like some kind of cataclysmic collapse but it's going to cause or it's going to create all these opportunities around the edge where you're looking for that kind of reliability. Yeah, and I like the fact that you said opportunities. We talk about this uh all the time here, which is, you know, we all have to rebalance. Everyone's overexposed to us. So, some of this is the natural eb and flow, but it has big implications when you're lever to the hilt as we are. So, um, on a on a personal level, we all need to make sure that we have the proper diversification, but on a national level, does this tie President Trump's hands in terms of handing out stimulus, sending checks, knowing the economy is not as doing as well as it needs to into the midterm elections. We know politicians that that's the playbook, some sort of, you know, um, payment to to get across the line. Um, does that tie his hands or the administration's hands in their ability to do that if we're seeing a lack of demand for US assets? >> No. They'll they'll invent demand or they'll print money or they'll do whatever they need to do it. I mean, um, President Trump is a populist. Make no mistake. So, there was this brief nod to fiscal rectitude at the very beginning with Doge and Elon Musk. But Trump is and always will be a populist. So, he's not interested in fiscal conservatism. He wants to helicopter money out there as much as possible because that's going to help his poll numbers and he thinks that's going to build support for him. And by the way, we haven't had uh anything but populists on the ballot in the United States going back uh to the Clinton Trump uh rivalry. Um so until we get, you know, a politician who's willing to say, uh maybe we should cut spending, uh this is where you're going to be. Now, whether Trump can send out those stimulus checks, I mean, legally, no. Legally, he needs Congress to do that. But constitutional law has not been a big tripping post for him, at least so far. He seems willing to try and ask for permission later. So, does he have henchmen that are writing the checks or pulling the levers that will issue uh those checks to the American people? I don't know. The Constitution says he can't do that, but uh I don't know. The Constitution has not been able to contain him, I think, thus far. So, we'll see. >> Yeah. Do it now and figure it out later. Uh so, I let's pivot back to to Syria and what's happening in the Middle East. Um again, you know, something that is not getting as much attention. Why is that so critical? And h and what are you watching for in terms of developments? Why why should this be something that we focus on? >> Well, it's it's it's one of these tail risk scenarios. So, I don't even know if it's the most likely thing that's going to happen. But for the context that that watchers need who are not following this every day, the Syrian Kurds were backed by the United States in the fight against ISIS. And they were one of the most effective fighting groups against ISIS. They're not the only reason ISIS got defeated, but they made defeating ISIS a lot easier, and they died and bled for it and everything else. Um, and the United States is basically saying, "Okay, uh, thanks for that, but there's this new leader in Syria, by the way, a former, uh, al-Qaeda guy himself, and we like him, so you need to join the overall Syrian state." And the Syrian Kurds are saying, "No, we fought for our autonomy. We have no interest in doing this." And what's interesting is not that that's what the Syrian Kurds are doing. What's interesting is that Iraqi Kurds and Iranian Kurds and Turkish Kurds are all, it looks like, rallying to the Syrian Kurdish cause. And that's a big deal because all these Kurdish groups, the reason there isn't a Kurdish state today is because the Kurds fight themselves just as much as they fight everybody else. They've had you've had civil wars between Kurdish groups in the last 20 and 30 years. Some of them speak different languages, have different cultures, even think about um the world in very different terms. But I've always said that if you start to get some kind of true national consciousness or national self-determination of all the different Kurdish groups in the region, we're talking about 30 40 million people here in the center in the middle of the Middle East who could absolutely remake the map if that's something they want to pursue. So it's a long shot. Um but for the first time really in my career, there's this hint of maybe it could happen and at least there's the external stimulus that might make them come together. We shall see. Like I said, I don't think it's most likely, but it's certainly something to watch. And it's also just Turkey has been very, very quiet in geopolitics in general. This is the sort of thing where, okay, like they quietly have their man in Damascus. Now, their man in Damascus is going after an issue for them. Turkey also projects power upwards to the Black Sea. So, they are very quietly um like maybe the most influential country in in Eurasia right now that nobody's talking about >> except you because you always tell us to watch Turkey. Um but you're right, with all the other headlines, they have a lot of cover. No, they have a lot of cover to, you know, because we're not paying attention to all these things. Uh, want to ask you quickly, um, Japan, there's been a lot of, um, that is an issue the markets are watching. Um, in terms of a lot of pressure on Japanese bond markets, potential snap election there. Is Japan in trouble? >> Japan's been in trouble for 30 years. Um, is has anything gone wrong? Um, Japan is like living proof that all of the things that we thought would lead to the co complete and total collapse of an economy and a political culture didn't. Um, so no, I I'm actually rather bullish. Uh, Japan, let's see what happens with Takichi if she does declare that snap election if she can get a stronger mandate. Maybe she can do um some interesting things in Japan. Um, Japan is one of these, there are very few countries that are like this. Germany is another one um where it takes them a long time to get things together, but once you get a real change, once people think that something needs to change, Japan can change very quickly and very rapidly. And if you're Japan and you're looking at your current diplomatic spat with China, this is another one of these things that has gone under reportported. Uh maybe you're beginning to doubt your US security ally, you're thinking about what the rise of middle powers actually means for you. Uh you have to make some serious changes. So, and usually that means explosive growth and explosive change inside of Japanese culture. So, you know, we can sit here and talk till we're blue in the face about the value of the yen and whether it's the right place and interest rates on Japanese government bonds and our external investors having to come in. Fine. Like all of it is important. I'm not saying it's not pertinent, but what I'm watching for with Japan is are we going to get that moment where Japan wakes up? And I thought maybe we were going to get it after a was assassinated. We haven't gotten it um quite yet. Maybe it happens after this snap election. I don't know. But when Japan wakes it will be explosive and it will be a big deal. >> Talk explain to people what you mean by the rising middle powers or or the the change that given what's happening on the global landscape. What what does that mean for people who don't follow the space closely? >> Yeah. So I don't think we're headed towards a bipolar world where it's the United States on one side and China on the other side. Uh like the bipolar world with the United States on one side and the Soviet Union. So there's obvious a class of powers that does not want to be aligned with either one of those two most powerful states and wants to save some semblance of the liberal international order. I'm putting that in quotes. And they want that because trade is good for them. They built their economies on trade. They want to continue to open trading markets and have free flow of capital and goods as much as they possibly can. Um so I think you're seeing this class of middle powers that looks at what Beijing is offering and says I don't really want that. and looks at what's happening in Washington and is saying uh like I'm not sure I can trust this anymore. So what do we have to do? We have to build up these networks of partnerships and relationships. So that means you know uh EU India free trade deal, EU Merkoser free trade deal, Carney going to Beijing for a strategic reset, the Gulf wanting to sell um energy to the Europeans and invest in Canadian energy infrastructure. Um the Australians have been relatively quiet here. They're ones that are going to have to think about this too because their security points towards Washington. their economy points towards the Asia Pacific. Um these are the types of middle powers that we're talking about and the question for them is can they build out the space where they can cooperate with each other or do you get these regional thftdoms um and spheres of influence that are all competing against each other. That was what was the most compelling thing by the way about Carney's speech at Davos. was trying to articulate a world in which some semblance of the order is kept up by the middle powers because the alternative is everybody builds their walls as high as they possibly can and we are all poorer and less productive for it but we have these regional spheres of influence that are built around these regional hegeimons. Um so jury's out whether this is possible. It's very ambitious, I think, but you're at least seeing some countries um trying to preserve that middle space and use their relative power and wealth to try and preserve it even as the United States takes it apart brick by brick. >> So interesting. Can can So uh and correct me if I'm wrong because when you're describing it, I'm thinking about it almost as a swing vote, right, in a country where you don't have numbers, but you have some leverage, you have some some power to sway things one way or the other. um what what defines might? Can they do that without an army, without a navy, without some sort of something critical? Can they do that at just being in that right position? Um and and having these kind of agreements. Is diplomacy enough? >> Well, there are limits to what you can do. What makes might is who has the guns and who has the use of force? But the dirty little secret is nobody has that. Not even the United States has that. You've still got Houthies blocking shipping in the Persian Gulf. And for how long has that been going on? Even the much vaunted US Navy seems to be able to reopen the Persian Gulf to shipping. Um, we've had increased attacks, by the way, on black on ships in the Black Sea over the past two to three weeks. Who's stopping that? Who is making uh global sea lanes safe for commerce? So when when we're talking about middle powers, what we're saying is they're actually it's a it's a confession that they can't protect everything, but the areas that they can protect that are under their authority that are not under geopolitical threat or that can't be secured, those should at least continue to act with each other as they possibly can. But yes, I I think one of the reasons I talk about a multipolar world so much is because we've gone from a a world in which the United States was willing to use its overwhelming military force to make sea lanes safe for everyone to world in which seal lanes are not safe necessarily and where you have to be really really intentional about what countries you're trading with and whi which routes you're taking, where you're getting your energy from and everything else in in between. So no, nobody has that force. So all you have is working with countries that are able to control those markets and which are away um from that geopolitical instability. >> So I'm going to end the way the way I usually do when I'm talking to you is I'm going to ask you what what's the biggest risk you see and then what's the biggest opportunity amidst all of this sort of volatility and headlines. >> Yeah. The biggest risk right now out there is that President Trump feels that he needs to deploy American troops to take Greenland. And I say that that is a risk because it would mean the end of NATO. Um, and everything I've said about multiplayer, whatever else, NATO is still the most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen. The United States still undergurs it. It's still a real force. And even with all of the melodrama back and forth, it's still there. But if the United States decides that its current agreement, which allows it to do whatever it wants with Greenland, let's be frank, is not good enough and they need to throw some US soldiers there in order to claim it for themselves. That's the end of NATO. That's the rise of Europe really as a as its own geopolitical entity and one that is going to be h yeah I mean let's call it hostile to US interest because the US was hostile um to its territorial integrity and to its principles. So, I think that's the biggest risk and it's a risk um >> and let me ask you against that risk, does Congress does Congress finally reassert itself if it looks like it comes to that? Is that the trigger that finally forces Congress to try to to try to act because they've done nothing? >> At the risk of being too cute, um there's an old joke about a Jew who gets a job uh blowing a trumpet in the town square every single day until the second coming is supposed to happen. and his friends confront him one day in an intervention and say at an intervention and say what are you doing how could you be doing this thing this is anathema to your religion and to your principles and he says oh it's steady work if you're waiting on Congress it's steady work like Congress is not going to suddenly discover its fortitude here on Greenland if it hasn't discovered it on just about um anything else so no I I would not be waiting on Congress to save the United States >> fair enough okay opportunity Well, if if what if the Greenland thing happens, Europe is a huge opportunity. And I think Europe is a huge opportunity anyway. I think Europe has been left for dead. I can't count the number of times Europe has been left for dead. And I get it. The EU is inefficient. And they keep on squabbbling with themselves. And the demographics are terrible. Um, but if Europe decides that it needs to use all of its wealth and power to protect itself in a multipolar world, uh, it can do that in a meaningful way. uh think of what I mean just go look at a chart of German defense companies over the past 12 months and then extrapolate that onto if it's a Europeanwide movement. So I think that is a big opportunity and then you know I hate to sound like a broken record but when you're looking for opportunities in a multipolar world you are looking for places that have secure and safe and cheap supply of energy um that are focusing a lot on research and development for cutting edge technologies and have relative rule of law and stability. Um, and there are plenty of countries that fit that bill. And we just so happen to have all sorts of advances happening in biotech and in robotics and in artificial intelligence that these smaller countries with secure energy supply are going to be able to to deploy to great effect. Um, so when you're looking out there at the world, there are tons of opportunities to take advantage of in those spaces and nothing that the White House does or that Beijing does and none of the geopolitical grand melodrama is going to change that variable. So I would be very very bullish about Europe coming out of this Greenland saga no matter which way it goes. And I still think that those opportunities around technology and cheap energy supply are there hiding in plain sight as long as we can turn off the reality TV show and focus on what actually matters. >> And you don't see the the argument uh the that bears make about Europe is that they don't have they've given away their reliable energy supply uh from years. They just outsourced it to Russia and that leaves them vulnerable. you think they can correct that? >> They did. And especially the central and eastern European states have had a miserable couple of years as a result of that. Um, but just look at the amount of LG that's coming online this year and in the coming years from places like Qatar and Canada and other places. Um, look at how quickly they're going to finally start to scale renewables. Uh, Germany's already they're finally talking about nuclear. I assume at some point they'll stop talking and they'll actually start doing. Um, you know, this is a a problem in search of a solution, but there are plenty of solutions. They just have to embrace them. And here in 2026, the situation is far better than it's been at any point since Russia invaded Ukraine. After Russia invaded Ukraine, I put out a research note a couple months shortly thereafter that basically said Europe just has to get to 2026. if they can get to 2026, there's enough energy coming online, they'll have had enough time to build up those reserves and to build up alternatives that they should be able um you know, it's not going to be the cheapest energy in the world, but they're not going to be in crisis mode like they have been for the last three to four years. So, I completely take the point that those bears would make. I would just say that the point is old now. I think 2026 is new, and I think the Europeans have not been doing nothing for the last three years. They've been trying to fix the problem and I think this is the year that it shows up in the data. >> Fantastic, Jacob. Always appreciate. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know that you are swamped and on the road when you're joining us. Uh but there's so much for investors to try to digest. We always appreciate you helping us sort it out. So, thank you so much. >> Anytime. Thanks for having me. >> Thanks everybody. We'll see you again soon. Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealthon.comfree. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you again next time.
Jacob Shapiro: "Sell America" Is Real—Canada Breaks Away, NATO at Risk & the Shift to Multipolarity
Summary
Transcript
Cell America is very real. It's not media hype. Canada basically saying that its relationship with the United States has ruptured and that Canada needs to have a different position in a multipolar world is a huge development. If you look at Trump's approval ratings on managing the economy, his poll numbers on approval for the economy are right at where Joe Biden's were when Joe Biden left office. That is the kiss of death. If the United States decides that its current agreement, which allows it to do whatever it wants with Greenland, let's be frank, is not good enough, and they need to throw some US soldiers there in order to claim it for themselves, that's the end of NATO. Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealth.comfree. Hello and welcome to Wealthy. I'm Maggie Lake and with me to discuss the latest geopolitical headlines is Jacob Shapiro, director of research at the Bespoke Group. Hi Jacob, it's great to see you. >> Good to see you, Maggie. How's it going? >> Uh, it's going we're all we're all doing what we can, fielding the enormous amount of u of news and headlines on the geopolitical front. Um, President Trump has really dominated this news cycle. leaders are gathered in Davos. He addressed them today. Um but you know, first we had Greenland, we had the release of private text messages. Um he's taking a victory lap about all his accomplishments and criticizing, talking about the shortcomings of pretty much everyone else. I mean, we we say this all the time, but it kind of feels like this is we really haven't seen something to this level maybe before. Um what are you paying attention to and what are you ignoring? Well, it's it's I've called it the reality TV show Presidency. And the more we get into it, the more I think that's correct. And I think you I mean, remember Donald Trump before he was any of this was a reality TV star. So, he knows how to dominate the news cycle. He knows how to use social media. Um, and I think the reason that it hasn't happened before with US presidents is just because we haven't had somebody who was as fluent with this as President Trump is. And it literally is. He needs a new episode every week. I feel like last week the episode was regime change in Iran or are we gonna have regime change in Cuba. This week the episode is giving it to the folks at Davos and things with uh everything with Greenland. But I would say there are two things on my radar that will endure long after we get to whatever the next episode is in President Trump's cycle. The first is what Mark Carney has been up to. And I'm not saying that just because I'm sitting to you here in Canada. Um he has had quite a last couple of days whether it's his trip to Beijing, his trip afterwards to Qatar, his um really impressive speech at Davos uh just yesterday. Um Canada basically saying that its relationship with the United States has ruptured and that Canada needs to have a different position in a multipolar world is a huge development. Um and then you know I feel like it was last week, two weeks ago, everybody was was uh was counting down regime change in Iran. Well, not only is the regime still there in Iran, but you've got Syria giving an ultimatum to Syria's Kurds saying either join Syria or we will take you by force and you've got a US ambassador out there urging the Syrian Kurds to do exactly that. And I know that that may feel like small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. But if you're thinking about the future of the Middle East and Turkeykey's role in all of this and where all of this goes, it's actually kind of a huge moment for what the balance of power looks like in the Middle East. And then of course there's everything with Greenland and how is Europe going to respond? what's next for Latin America. We can get into all of that, but I think those two things are worth at least calling out at the beginning. >> Yeah. Well, listen, this is why we love catching up with you, Jacob, because it's really easy to get sucked into the drama of what's happening and lose sight of what's important, especially from an investment point of view. So, talk to me a little bit more about Canada and and I think it's telling that uh for investors dealing with a barrage of headlines, and you're right, Trump really knows how to dominate that, right? and and take up all the oxygen. I'm not sure they're paying enough attention to what's happened with Canada because we've got headlines about what's coming out of the Trump administration every second. So, why is this so significant and how do you see this playing out? >> Well, at the beginning of the year, I thought we were just sort of waltzing into an easy renegoti renegotiation of USMCA. And I even said a couple of weeks ago when I was asked by my friend Sean Haney, who has a podcast, um what I thought Carney would do, I said, "Well, I expect he'll kiss the ring. he'll try to get the USMCA over the finish line and maybe then he can start thinking about the long-term task of um of building up some alternatives and some hedges for Canada against the United States. Uh Carney has done the exact opposite and I'm sure that some people listening to this will have strong opinions one way or another. I'm not here to tell you whether his his moves are correct or not correct, but I do want to give you uh the ability to make that decision for yourself. He goes to China uh forges this new strategic partnership. The details of this are not that big of a deal. So Canada's going to buy 50,000 EVs. That's like a drop in the bucket of Chinese over supply. China's going to drop some tariffs on canola. Big deal for canola farmers. Canada, but outside of that, not not really that big of a deal. But the message here is the strategic partnership. Uh Carney's statements that China is actually more reliable right now than the United States in terms of negotiation and whether it lives up to its word. And then I think the thing that most folks are skirting over is they think that Carney went straight from Beijing to Davos and talked about this rupture in the international order and how it was all under false pretenses and that Canada needed to stick up for itself in a pragmatic way. But he didn't do that. He actually stopped in Qatar first and he signed a strategic partnership with Qatar and secured lots of investment from Qatar into Canada to rebuild energy infrastructure to get energy infrastructure pointed away from the United States and to some of Canada's other potential external markets. And then he went to Davos and said, "Hey, like we've been on the front lines of watching this change in the liberal international order. It's not so liberal anymore. Uh, and we can't continue just to sort of be here under false pretenses." So, we are open for business. We're open for business with the Chinese. We're open for business with the Gulf. We're open for business with the Europeans. And President Trump, we're open for business with you, too. It's just that we're not going to pretend um like everything is okay. And I I think now the ball is in the United States's court. President Trump, you probably saw, was asked about this and he said, "Good for him. If he can get a deal with China, by all means." If that's the road that this takes, then Carney's going to look very good. If President Trump punishes Carney and punishes Canada in the USMCA renegotiations, you're going to have a tough couple of years in Canada because it's not going to be easy to just flip a switch and say we're going to hedge away from the United States. But in the long term, does that put Canada on a more stable footing? Maybe. And I think one of the things we've seen in the last couple of years is yes, the stereotype of Canadians is very nice and very polite is true. Uh but they're also fiercely proud of their own country. And if you keep on telling them that they're the 51st state and they just have to do whatever President Trump says, uh eventually they will say no thank you and will take the economic pain. And I think that they will be more willing to endure that economic pain than the folks in Michigan and the folks in Wisconsin and everybody across the border who is also going to suffer if Canada US relations really do rupture. >> Yeah. and and you know all of this has to be taken uh in the context of the fact that we are we have a midterm election in the US. Uh and despite the fact that Trump is talking about all his accomplishments in the first year and how strong the US economy is, that's that's not necessarily showing up in the polls. Now, a lot could change. There's a lot he's he's going to go on a tour and go to a different state every month. Uh but they're they're making big moves internationally but also domestically now having to sort of deal with this. Um do you expect that could Canada become a midterm election issue? I mean it's it's it's sort of you know it never is. But is there a sense that the rest of America is comfortable with losing Canada as an ally? >> Can I quote my fellow Louisian James Carville here and say it's the economy stupid? Like it's it's it's all about the economy. And this is where I think President Trump is actually in big trouble with the midterms. If you look at Trump's approval ratings on managing the economy, this is this is how he beat Kla Harris. It wasn't on everything else. It was because if you looked at approval ratings on the economy, the electorate said, "Okay, we'll deal with all of his insanity because he's going to manage the economy better." His poll numbers on approval for the economy are right at where Joe Biden's were when Joe Biden left office. That is the kiss of death. If that continues into November, I don't care how many states he goes to, I don't care how many times he does his shtick, it's just not going to work. And I think in that sense, last November's uh elections, whether you had the gubernatorial races in Virginia or New Jersey, some of these other things, that was a key signpost because you were getting moderate Democrats coming up and sweeping, not just sweeping, but sweeping by huge margins, sweeping in the Latino vote, which went hard for Trump in the last presidential election. uh in all these ways that the Democrats were suffering. In November, we saw some margins that were suggesting the Democrats would come back. So unless President Trump can turn people's perception of the economy, he can do whatever he wants with Greenland, Canada, everything else. I don't think it's going to affect it. And I also think the risks here are to the downside for President Trump because by and large, if you poll American voters, they don't like tariffs. They don't like messing around with Greenland. They don't want to mess around with Canada. They think much of this is is superfluous. So he can make the reality TV show whatever he wants. And maybe through his powers of charisma and persuasion, he can get people to be convinced. But I I think ultimately Americans care about the economy. Um and their perception of the economy is that President Trump is doing just as well as Joe Biden. And like I said, that's a kiss of death for the midterms. >> Yeah. And we've had in in recent at least this week, we've had the markets starting to react to what's happening to this sort of uh negotiating style abroad. Now, maybe this was a correction that was going to happen anyway. You could certainly make that argument. Uh but there seems to be a discomfort. Volatility is up. We see selloffs happening now. There's other things going around on around the world, too. Does that do we expect to see a reversal? I mean, he's going into bilateral uh conversations while he's there. You know, could this be just another like negotiating uncomfortable negotiating style that ends up swinging around and being more constructive, especially if it's roing the markets or are we starting to see a a a different kind of tear in relationships? Allah marney where people just say this is we've had enough. There's something, you know, the damage is is more permanent. Yeah, I'm a geopolitical analyst, so it would be self- serving for me to say that, you know, these ruptures with Europe or the ruptures with Canada are really going to impact the American economy. But I think that has much more to do with the politicization of the Fed and interest rates, going after the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh, you know, really being heavy-handed and ideological about the economy itself and also not giving American companies enough predictability in what's going to happen next to make plans. Um I think what we saw last year is the tariffs themselves. Okay, like the economy can survive and can adapt to that. What what the economy cannot deal with is constant uncertainty. Um if and when the Supreme Court makes its ruling on tariffs, are they just going to throw in a bunch of other tariffs? Is it going to be some other maneuver entirely? And so you have companies that are really stalled that are not making that are not uh doing capex that are not thinking about the future because they're reacting to whatever is happening to them right now. And so the economy has been running hot in the short term, but the long-term and cumulative impact of all those companies waiting to try and get clarity that isn't coming. The politicization of the Fed, these countries starting to lose faith in US rule of law and US objectivity. When you start to put all those things together, >> then you could start to get the seeds of something that's there. But I also um I have this index where, you know, my wife and and my sister are two people in my life. They don't really care about geopolitics at all. um like they indulge me and they'll talk to me but I know they don't care but both of them yesterday asked me some versions of the question of hey Jacob is the economy crashing or is the economy going to crash soon u which goes back to what I was saying about the median voter like it doesn't even matter if that's true and I don't think that it's true but the median voter is starting to think this is not going well to your point this is also volatile what's going to happen so I'm actually a little more sanguin about the economy maybe than you would think but it doesn't really matter whether I'm sanguin or not what matters is people's perceptions and people's perceptions are Yeah, >> prices are continuing to go up. This guy is crazy and he's doing crazy things all over the place. And ultimately, like it's not feeling good for me. I don't feel like I'm taking care of here. And I think that's going to have those longer term implications. The Europe stuff, the green, it all exacerbates that. But, you know, it's it's it's not the I don't think it's the thing that's driving things here. It's just the fluff on top. If you're looking for a simple, secure way to invest and own physical gold and silver, visit our sister company, Hard Assets Alliance, at hardassetsalliance.com. That's hardassallalliance.com. Yeah, nothing like seeing the Dow drop 900 points to get people nervous. I mean, this is, you know, um that that matters. That's it's even if you don't own stocks, it's sort of an indicator. And when you start to see that um splashed across the media headlines, there are some other issues. sale of treasuries. We saw Denmark make a it was sort of symbolic. It wasn't a huge amount. Um is is sell America just sort of media hype and and again political noise or is this a real possibility that people start to finally turn away from US treasuries and US assets? >> Sell America is very real. It's not media hype. Now what's media hype is that oh it's going to go from uh 100 to zero and everything is going to crash. So what you've been seeing over the last 12 to 18 months is you've been seeing the sell America trade and what that looks like. Let's put aside the Danish pension fund that you're talking about. Denmark obviously has other reasons and ulterior motives for what it's doing. It's being treated pretty unfairly by the Trump administration around Greenland. But if you're looking at the rest of the world and you're looking about say the decline of the dollar in terms of international currency reserves or you're looking at how countries or pension funds are adjusting their treasury holdings, we're talking about they're turning the dial from okay, maybe I should be at 60% exposure to the United States to 50. Maybe I should go from 65 to 45 and I'll diversify into some Swiss Frank or Singapore dollar or gold or some Bitcoin if I'm really adventurous. Um again, so it's not going to zero, but just that kind of move at that level is going to cause real implications. And that's why you see what are Treasury yields doing in response to what's happening in the US economy. What is the dollar doing over the past 12 to 18 months in response to what's happening with the US economy? So I think the sell America trade is very real. And I would also tell you at least when I'm advising clients, I no longer think of the US Treasury as the safe haven asset of choice. And if I think that certainly all these central banks and pension funds are probably not thinking the same thing as well which is why you've seen such a run up in some of those harder currencies or in you know precious metals or in crypto or some of these other places. So yes I think we are in the very very early stages of the cell America trade. It's going to happen over years and even decades and it's not going to be like some kind of cataclysmic collapse but it's going to cause or it's going to create all these opportunities around the edge where you're looking for that kind of reliability. Yeah, and I like the fact that you said opportunities. We talk about this uh all the time here, which is, you know, we all have to rebalance. Everyone's overexposed to us. So, some of this is the natural eb and flow, but it has big implications when you're lever to the hilt as we are. So, um, on a on a personal level, we all need to make sure that we have the proper diversification, but on a national level, does this tie President Trump's hands in terms of handing out stimulus, sending checks, knowing the economy is not as doing as well as it needs to into the midterm elections. We know politicians that that's the playbook, some sort of, you know, um, payment to to get across the line. Um, does that tie his hands or the administration's hands in their ability to do that if we're seeing a lack of demand for US assets? >> No. They'll they'll invent demand or they'll print money or they'll do whatever they need to do it. I mean, um, President Trump is a populist. Make no mistake. So, there was this brief nod to fiscal rectitude at the very beginning with Doge and Elon Musk. But Trump is and always will be a populist. So, he's not interested in fiscal conservatism. He wants to helicopter money out there as much as possible because that's going to help his poll numbers and he thinks that's going to build support for him. And by the way, we haven't had uh anything but populists on the ballot in the United States going back uh to the Clinton Trump uh rivalry. Um so until we get, you know, a politician who's willing to say, uh maybe we should cut spending, uh this is where you're going to be. Now, whether Trump can send out those stimulus checks, I mean, legally, no. Legally, he needs Congress to do that. But constitutional law has not been a big tripping post for him, at least so far. He seems willing to try and ask for permission later. So, does he have henchmen that are writing the checks or pulling the levers that will issue uh those checks to the American people? I don't know. The Constitution says he can't do that, but uh I don't know. The Constitution has not been able to contain him, I think, thus far. So, we'll see. >> Yeah. Do it now and figure it out later. Uh so, I let's pivot back to to Syria and what's happening in the Middle East. Um again, you know, something that is not getting as much attention. Why is that so critical? And h and what are you watching for in terms of developments? Why why should this be something that we focus on? >> Well, it's it's it's one of these tail risk scenarios. So, I don't even know if it's the most likely thing that's going to happen. But for the context that that watchers need who are not following this every day, the Syrian Kurds were backed by the United States in the fight against ISIS. And they were one of the most effective fighting groups against ISIS. They're not the only reason ISIS got defeated, but they made defeating ISIS a lot easier, and they died and bled for it and everything else. Um, and the United States is basically saying, "Okay, uh, thanks for that, but there's this new leader in Syria, by the way, a former, uh, al-Qaeda guy himself, and we like him, so you need to join the overall Syrian state." And the Syrian Kurds are saying, "No, we fought for our autonomy. We have no interest in doing this." And what's interesting is not that that's what the Syrian Kurds are doing. What's interesting is that Iraqi Kurds and Iranian Kurds and Turkish Kurds are all, it looks like, rallying to the Syrian Kurdish cause. And that's a big deal because all these Kurdish groups, the reason there isn't a Kurdish state today is because the Kurds fight themselves just as much as they fight everybody else. They've had you've had civil wars between Kurdish groups in the last 20 and 30 years. Some of them speak different languages, have different cultures, even think about um the world in very different terms. But I've always said that if you start to get some kind of true national consciousness or national self-determination of all the different Kurdish groups in the region, we're talking about 30 40 million people here in the center in the middle of the Middle East who could absolutely remake the map if that's something they want to pursue. So it's a long shot. Um but for the first time really in my career, there's this hint of maybe it could happen and at least there's the external stimulus that might make them come together. We shall see. Like I said, I don't think it's most likely, but it's certainly something to watch. And it's also just Turkey has been very, very quiet in geopolitics in general. This is the sort of thing where, okay, like they quietly have their man in Damascus. Now, their man in Damascus is going after an issue for them. Turkey also projects power upwards to the Black Sea. So, they are very quietly um like maybe the most influential country in in Eurasia right now that nobody's talking about >> except you because you always tell us to watch Turkey. Um but you're right, with all the other headlines, they have a lot of cover. No, they have a lot of cover to, you know, because we're not paying attention to all these things. Uh, want to ask you quickly, um, Japan, there's been a lot of, um, that is an issue the markets are watching. Um, in terms of a lot of pressure on Japanese bond markets, potential snap election there. Is Japan in trouble? >> Japan's been in trouble for 30 years. Um, is has anything gone wrong? Um, Japan is like living proof that all of the things that we thought would lead to the co complete and total collapse of an economy and a political culture didn't. Um, so no, I I'm actually rather bullish. Uh, Japan, let's see what happens with Takichi if she does declare that snap election if she can get a stronger mandate. Maybe she can do um some interesting things in Japan. Um, Japan is one of these, there are very few countries that are like this. Germany is another one um where it takes them a long time to get things together, but once you get a real change, once people think that something needs to change, Japan can change very quickly and very rapidly. And if you're Japan and you're looking at your current diplomatic spat with China, this is another one of these things that has gone under reportported. Uh maybe you're beginning to doubt your US security ally, you're thinking about what the rise of middle powers actually means for you. Uh you have to make some serious changes. So, and usually that means explosive growth and explosive change inside of Japanese culture. So, you know, we can sit here and talk till we're blue in the face about the value of the yen and whether it's the right place and interest rates on Japanese government bonds and our external investors having to come in. Fine. Like all of it is important. I'm not saying it's not pertinent, but what I'm watching for with Japan is are we going to get that moment where Japan wakes up? And I thought maybe we were going to get it after a was assassinated. We haven't gotten it um quite yet. Maybe it happens after this snap election. I don't know. But when Japan wakes it will be explosive and it will be a big deal. >> Talk explain to people what you mean by the rising middle powers or or the the change that given what's happening on the global landscape. What what does that mean for people who don't follow the space closely? >> Yeah. So I don't think we're headed towards a bipolar world where it's the United States on one side and China on the other side. Uh like the bipolar world with the United States on one side and the Soviet Union. So there's obvious a class of powers that does not want to be aligned with either one of those two most powerful states and wants to save some semblance of the liberal international order. I'm putting that in quotes. And they want that because trade is good for them. They built their economies on trade. They want to continue to open trading markets and have free flow of capital and goods as much as they possibly can. Um so I think you're seeing this class of middle powers that looks at what Beijing is offering and says I don't really want that. and looks at what's happening in Washington and is saying uh like I'm not sure I can trust this anymore. So what do we have to do? We have to build up these networks of partnerships and relationships. So that means you know uh EU India free trade deal, EU Merkoser free trade deal, Carney going to Beijing for a strategic reset, the Gulf wanting to sell um energy to the Europeans and invest in Canadian energy infrastructure. Um the Australians have been relatively quiet here. They're ones that are going to have to think about this too because their security points towards Washington. their economy points towards the Asia Pacific. Um these are the types of middle powers that we're talking about and the question for them is can they build out the space where they can cooperate with each other or do you get these regional thftdoms um and spheres of influence that are all competing against each other. That was what was the most compelling thing by the way about Carney's speech at Davos. was trying to articulate a world in which some semblance of the order is kept up by the middle powers because the alternative is everybody builds their walls as high as they possibly can and we are all poorer and less productive for it but we have these regional spheres of influence that are built around these regional hegeimons. Um so jury's out whether this is possible. It's very ambitious, I think, but you're at least seeing some countries um trying to preserve that middle space and use their relative power and wealth to try and preserve it even as the United States takes it apart brick by brick. >> So interesting. Can can So uh and correct me if I'm wrong because when you're describing it, I'm thinking about it almost as a swing vote, right, in a country where you don't have numbers, but you have some leverage, you have some some power to sway things one way or the other. um what what defines might? Can they do that without an army, without a navy, without some sort of something critical? Can they do that at just being in that right position? Um and and having these kind of agreements. Is diplomacy enough? >> Well, there are limits to what you can do. What makes might is who has the guns and who has the use of force? But the dirty little secret is nobody has that. Not even the United States has that. You've still got Houthies blocking shipping in the Persian Gulf. And for how long has that been going on? Even the much vaunted US Navy seems to be able to reopen the Persian Gulf to shipping. Um, we've had increased attacks, by the way, on black on ships in the Black Sea over the past two to three weeks. Who's stopping that? Who is making uh global sea lanes safe for commerce? So when when we're talking about middle powers, what we're saying is they're actually it's a it's a confession that they can't protect everything, but the areas that they can protect that are under their authority that are not under geopolitical threat or that can't be secured, those should at least continue to act with each other as they possibly can. But yes, I I think one of the reasons I talk about a multipolar world so much is because we've gone from a a world in which the United States was willing to use its overwhelming military force to make sea lanes safe for everyone to world in which seal lanes are not safe necessarily and where you have to be really really intentional about what countries you're trading with and whi which routes you're taking, where you're getting your energy from and everything else in in between. So no, nobody has that force. So all you have is working with countries that are able to control those markets and which are away um from that geopolitical instability. >> So I'm going to end the way the way I usually do when I'm talking to you is I'm going to ask you what what's the biggest risk you see and then what's the biggest opportunity amidst all of this sort of volatility and headlines. >> Yeah. The biggest risk right now out there is that President Trump feels that he needs to deploy American troops to take Greenland. And I say that that is a risk because it would mean the end of NATO. Um, and everything I've said about multiplayer, whatever else, NATO is still the most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen. The United States still undergurs it. It's still a real force. And even with all of the melodrama back and forth, it's still there. But if the United States decides that its current agreement, which allows it to do whatever it wants with Greenland, let's be frank, is not good enough and they need to throw some US soldiers there in order to claim it for themselves. That's the end of NATO. That's the rise of Europe really as a as its own geopolitical entity and one that is going to be h yeah I mean let's call it hostile to US interest because the US was hostile um to its territorial integrity and to its principles. So, I think that's the biggest risk and it's a risk um >> and let me ask you against that risk, does Congress does Congress finally reassert itself if it looks like it comes to that? Is that the trigger that finally forces Congress to try to to try to act because they've done nothing? >> At the risk of being too cute, um there's an old joke about a Jew who gets a job uh blowing a trumpet in the town square every single day until the second coming is supposed to happen. and his friends confront him one day in an intervention and say at an intervention and say what are you doing how could you be doing this thing this is anathema to your religion and to your principles and he says oh it's steady work if you're waiting on Congress it's steady work like Congress is not going to suddenly discover its fortitude here on Greenland if it hasn't discovered it on just about um anything else so no I I would not be waiting on Congress to save the United States >> fair enough okay opportunity Well, if if what if the Greenland thing happens, Europe is a huge opportunity. And I think Europe is a huge opportunity anyway. I think Europe has been left for dead. I can't count the number of times Europe has been left for dead. And I get it. The EU is inefficient. And they keep on squabbbling with themselves. And the demographics are terrible. Um, but if Europe decides that it needs to use all of its wealth and power to protect itself in a multipolar world, uh, it can do that in a meaningful way. uh think of what I mean just go look at a chart of German defense companies over the past 12 months and then extrapolate that onto if it's a Europeanwide movement. So I think that is a big opportunity and then you know I hate to sound like a broken record but when you're looking for opportunities in a multipolar world you are looking for places that have secure and safe and cheap supply of energy um that are focusing a lot on research and development for cutting edge technologies and have relative rule of law and stability. Um, and there are plenty of countries that fit that bill. And we just so happen to have all sorts of advances happening in biotech and in robotics and in artificial intelligence that these smaller countries with secure energy supply are going to be able to to deploy to great effect. Um, so when you're looking out there at the world, there are tons of opportunities to take advantage of in those spaces and nothing that the White House does or that Beijing does and none of the geopolitical grand melodrama is going to change that variable. So I would be very very bullish about Europe coming out of this Greenland saga no matter which way it goes. And I still think that those opportunities around technology and cheap energy supply are there hiding in plain sight as long as we can turn off the reality TV show and focus on what actually matters. >> And you don't see the the argument uh the that bears make about Europe is that they don't have they've given away their reliable energy supply uh from years. They just outsourced it to Russia and that leaves them vulnerable. you think they can correct that? >> They did. And especially the central and eastern European states have had a miserable couple of years as a result of that. Um, but just look at the amount of LG that's coming online this year and in the coming years from places like Qatar and Canada and other places. Um, look at how quickly they're going to finally start to scale renewables. Uh, Germany's already they're finally talking about nuclear. I assume at some point they'll stop talking and they'll actually start doing. Um, you know, this is a a problem in search of a solution, but there are plenty of solutions. They just have to embrace them. And here in 2026, the situation is far better than it's been at any point since Russia invaded Ukraine. After Russia invaded Ukraine, I put out a research note a couple months shortly thereafter that basically said Europe just has to get to 2026. if they can get to 2026, there's enough energy coming online, they'll have had enough time to build up those reserves and to build up alternatives that they should be able um you know, it's not going to be the cheapest energy in the world, but they're not going to be in crisis mode like they have been for the last three to four years. So, I completely take the point that those bears would make. I would just say that the point is old now. I think 2026 is new, and I think the Europeans have not been doing nothing for the last three years. They've been trying to fix the problem and I think this is the year that it shows up in the data. >> Fantastic, Jacob. Always appreciate. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know that you are swamped and on the road when you're joining us. Uh but there's so much for investors to try to digest. We always appreciate you helping us sort it out. So, thank you so much. >> Anytime. Thanks for having me. >> Thanks everybody. We'll see you again soon. Don't forget to sign up for a free portfolio review with one of our endorsed investment partners at wealthon.comfree. With markets hitting all-time highs, now is a great time to stress test your strategy and be prepared for what comes next. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you again next time.