💰THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION EYEBALLS SELLING GOLD FOR BITCOIN!

During a few visits to Capital Hill, I asked a lot of offices what they thought about this and not one voiced serious concern.

🔗 Dennis Porter

🇯🇵🇹🇼🇨🇳🇰🇷 New Japanese Joint Staff Office map shows the flight paths of Chinese (red) + Russian (yellow) military aircraft operating near Japan, Taiwan, + South Korea in the past year.

Japan scrambled 704 times in response, with two-thirds (464) due to Chinese aircraft. 3x as many PLA drones detected.

https://fxtwitter.com/ianellisjones/status/1911189187556172047

🇺🇸🇪🇺 Trump: "We have a deficit with the EU of $350 billion. And it's gonna disappear fast. And one of the reasons and one of the ways that can disappear easily and quickly is they're gonna have to buy their energy from us."

🔗 unusual_whales

🇺🇸🇨🇳 Trump says no exemption for iPhones and other Chinese-made electronics — suggests new tariff coming

President Trump settled the debate over the tariffs on iPhones and other Chinese-made devices — saying that there is no “exemption” and that new duties are coming.

“NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook,'” Trump said on Truth Social Sunday. “There was no Tariff ‘exception’ announced on Friday. These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”

“We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations.”

https://nypost.com/2025/04/13/us-news/iphones-and-other-chinese-made-electronics-will-likely-be-subject-to-more-trump-tariffs-commerce-secretary-lutnik-says/

🇸🇴📡 Musk Announces Starlink License For Somalia

Elon Musk announced on Sunday that his Starlink satellite internet service had been granted a license in Somalia.

"Today is another historic day for Somalia's communications and technology sectors, today we have issued here and provided Starlink, one of the major satellite telecommunications and internet services company the license to operate in Somalia," a post on state media outlet SONNA said.

It added that the license had been issued after two years of discussions.

https://www.barrons.com/news/musk-announces-starlink-license-for-somalia-80e75b6c

🇩🇪 Germany has admitted 8.4 million people -- equivalent to a 10% of its pre-existing population -- in just 15 years. In American terms, this would be like four New Yorks. This turbocharged large-scale demographic change is unsustainable and is not, in fact, being sustained.

🔗 Andrew Hammel

🇺🇸🇨🇳 Since *Wednesday*:

We have had:

- Universal “reciprocal tariffs”
- A removal back down to 10%
- 50% Chinese tariffs
- 90% Chinese tariffs
- 104% Chinese tariffs
- 125% Chinese tariffs
- 145% Chinese tariffs
- Electronics exempted
- Electronics now potentially back on.

🔗 Spencer Hakimian

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇧🇷 The trade war between the US and China has spurred Brazil’s agricultural sector and pummelled American farmers. 'It is a boon for farmers in Brazil and Argentina, and it will help their industry a lot,' points out a lead agriculture analyst

https://www.ft.com/content/3b101afd-b51c-4d64-ba2f-45ad4590e819

🇨🇳🇺🇸 China Halts Critical Exports as Trade War Intensifies

China has suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to choke off supplies of components central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies and military contractors around the world.

Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.

The official crackdown is part of China’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs that started on April 2.

On April 4, the Chinese government ordered restrictions on the export of six heavy rare earth metals, which are refined entirely in China, as well as rare earth magnets, 90 percent of which are produced in China. The metals, and special magnets made with them, can now be shipped out of China only with special export licenses.

But China has barely started setting up a system for issuing the licenses. That has caused consternation among industry executives that the process could drag on and that current supplies of minerals and products outside of China could run low.

If factories in Detroit and elsewhere run out of powerful rare earth magnets, that could prevent them from assembling cars and other products with electric motors that require these magnets. Companies vary widely in the size of their emergency stockpiles for such contingencies, so the timing of production disruptions is hard to predict.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/business/china-rare-earths-exports.html

🇺🇸🔶Trump admin makes new move to bring South African refugees to US as president blasts nation's rulers again

The State Department told Fox News Digital about new moves it is making. At the same time, the Afrikaner Orania Movement, an Afrikaner settlement, has stated its desire to be treated by the U.S. as a state within a state in South Africa.

There’s also been a flurry of flights across the Atlantic to Washington by groups looking to get the White House’s, and ultimately the president’s, attention.

The Orania delegation went to Washington, Strydom said, due to "the fact that President Donald Trump gave us recognition as a people, the Afrikaners. (It) made it very important for us to hasten our already-planned U.S. liaison tour to liaise with Afrikaner and American supporters of the Orania idea in the U.S.

"We had meetings with officials upon invitation and discussed substantive matters in depth, which, for the sake of an ongoing conversation and our honor towards newfound contacts, we will only specify publicly later."

"Help us Here," is the slogan Orania CEO Joost Strydom declared to Washington insiders.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/trump-admin-makes-new-move-bring-south-african-refugees-us-president-blasts-nations-rulers-again

📝 Joost Strydom: Orania on FOX News!

🇺🇸🇾🇪 Trump issues stark warning to Houthis terrorists.

"Just got rid of Joe Biden’s dangerous red tape, and empowered our Warfighters, once again."

"We will support the Somali People to end terrorism and bring prosperity to their Country."

🔗 ExxAlerts

🇺🇸 A United States miliary build up is currently occurring in the Middle East as tensions with Iran rise.

Moving additional cargo, munitions, air defense systems and equipment, USAF activity in the region has soared. Here's a look at what flew and where.

🔗 Faytuks Network

🇪🇨🪖 President who declared war on Ecuador’s drug gangs is reelected

Daniel Noboa, the millennial president who in a truncated first term declared war on the gangs that turned once-peaceful Ecuador into a major cocaine trafficking hub, won reelection Sunday, electoral authorities reported, giving him four more years to try to stem the country’s rising violence.

He will be responsible for resolving a deepening security crisis in a country that has become both a booming cocaine transit point and a battleground for drug gangs: Violent deaths have shot up again this year, after a lull in 2024. February was the deadliest month in recent years, with 736 homicides, 90 percent more than in the same month last year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/13/ecuador-election-daniel-noboa/

https://archive.ph/0CbTE

🇺🇸📝 EndGame Macro: This chart signals a freight shock unfolding at near-Depression velocity. A 49% drop in global container bookings and 64% collapse in U.S. imports within one week mirrors the kind of disruption seen after the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act except what took months to manifest in the Great Depression is now happening in real-time.

The synchronized plunge in U.S.–China trade lanes (imports down 64%, exports down 36%) confirms that the retaliatory tariff war is already constricting cross-border logistics, with downstream consequences for inventories, inflation prints, and FX liquidity. Credit to zerohedge for spotlighting this pivotal chart

471TO has brilliantly framed it: this is a 1930 redux except faster, more synchronized, and more intentional. He’s been ahead of this entire unfolding macro regime, from credit tightening to trade war timing to dollar reflexivity. If you aren’t already following him, correct that now. This isn’t just noise this is the start of a global trade breakdown.

🔗 EndGame Macro

🇺🇸🇮🇷 White House Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff confirms that the Trump Administration is no longer pushing for the total denuclearization of Iran or the destruction of its nuclear program.

The Trump admin wishes to impose limits on Iran’s enrichment of uranium and the weaponization of its nuclear program, very similar to the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal.

🔗 OSINTdefender

🇾🇪🇾🇪 Yemeni militias are planning a ground offensive against the Houthis, Yemeni and U.S. officials say

The Yemeni factions are sensing an opportunity to oust the Houthis from at least parts of the Red Sea coast they have controlled in the decade since they took power over much of the country’s northwest, the officials said.

Private American security contractors provided advice to the Yemeni factions on a potential ground operation, people involved in the planning said. The United Arab Emirates, which supports these factions, raised the plan with American officials in recent weeks, the U.S. and Yemeni officials said.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/yemen-houthis-operation-us-support-975febe6

https://archive.ph/RmErp