Weekly PROPHET NOTES 2/24/25
Global Outlook: The Madman, The Salesman and The Strategist
Happy Monday! The last week started with a bang, between the Riyadh meeting and Trump bashing of Zelenskyy. These two events were more than enough to completely derail the news cycle and put all the geopolitical analysts and pundits in the state of deep shock.
Some are just shocked by Trump’s conduct, others simply can’t wrap their heads around Trump’s modus operandi. This results in some wild takes all around X and mainstream media with some saying that Ukraine doesn’t need the US support to continue the war effort [sic!].
Anyway, I have a more realistic approach to the situation, if you want a sober take on the recent Trump behavior, take a look here:
Otherwise, subscribe below and let’s see what happened besides Ukraine.
Weekly Outlook
While the beginning of the week was pretty wild, during the remainder days we had a bit of a breather. That being said, Germany has chosen their leaders and Microsoft has unveiled a massive innovation on the quantum computing.
United States
Trump is mounting intense pressure on Zelenskyy to sign the resources deal. Fearless of the mainstream media, he is happily repeating Russian talking points, but Zelenskyy is holding back for the time being. On the one hand, Trump is looking to avoid explicit security guarantees, in my opinion to keep to his campaign promises, while Zelenskyy insist on them.
I imagine that behind closed doors negotiations look much different to what we see out in the open - the theater is for the masses, inside the negotiations are surely tough, but I have little doubt they will sign in the end. Anonymous sources from the White House suggest that majority of the deal is agreed on and there are last few clauses to iron out.
Besides the Ukrainian imbroglio, Trump administration remains busy internally on a variety of policies, from tariffs to NYC congestion program. On tariffs, the next round is supposed to target all import of cars, chips and pharmaceuticals to the United States with 25% or higher tariff. Looks like a yet another attempt to pressure US trading partners to lower their tariffs.
At the same time his fight against DEI continues with a new order for Education Department not to use race as criteria for employing staff, awarding scholarships or treating pupils differently.
Lastly, Trump got involved with New York City’s congestion pricing program, where his Department of Transportation rescinded its approval.
The Americas
Among the crypto crowd, Argentine made major headlines last week, where its president Javier Milei promoted a $LIBRA memecoin that rugged shortly after. There are scattered calls for his resignation, but he remains unfazed as he went to the US to discuss a loan with the IMF. Seems like the crime season in crypto is in full swing.
Up a bit north, Brazil’s attorney general filed charges against ex-president Jair Bolsonaro and 33 others claiming that they tried a coup in 2022 to keep Bolsonaro in power after he lost an election. At the same time Trump’s media group has sued the Brazilian Supreme Court over alleged censorship. To make the matter even more interesting, a well known judge Alexandre de Moraes will rule on the Bolsonaro case.
Asia
While Trump is busy swinging his tariff sword, Xi Jinping held a public meeting with China’s top tech entrepreneurs. We had Jack Ma from Alibaba present, among other top dogs from DeepSeek, Tencent, BYD and CATL. Amid the global turmoil, the Chinese leadership may have finally understood tech’s importance in keeping the economy growing. Also they just might have made China proud on recent AI and EV development.
Moving to South Korea for a regular update on Yoon, he appeared in court at his criminal trial for insurrection. This is happening on top of impeachment trial conducted by the Constitutional Court that is bound to conclude “soon”. Good, my position on him not being president again would love to print “soon” as well.
Middle East & Africa
Moving to the most busy region in the world, Israel has withdrew much of its military from southern Lebanon, but left some troops in a few locations along the border. Lebanese government said it is a violation of the ceasefire, but Israel is claiming that it will leave the post once the Lebanese army was fully in place.
On the southern side of Israel, hostages are still being released, but tensions remain high between the parties. Phase 2 of the ceasefire is nowhere to be seen and all signs point to the war being resumed. Israel sending tanks to the West Bank is surely not helping the peace cause.
Lastly, moving to Rwanda-DRC conflict, the M23 rebels captured Bukavu, the east Congo’s second-biggest city just three weeks after taking Goma, the biggest city. With two biggest cities and major logistics centers taken, the east of Congo is effectivelly fully under Rwanda’s control now. Belgium has criticized Rwanda for this and in return Rwanda has suspended the bilateral aid program. Interesting development, especially since the whole situation is most probably fueled by the rare earth minerals deal between Rwanda and the EU. Rare earth is definitely on top of the agenda for many now.
Europe
On Sunday Germans have chosen their new government. After the preliminary count, it looks like the CDU has won and will have enough seats to create the grand coalition with SPD.
Despite all my bets hitting, I am a bit unhappy, as contrary to my thesis, AfD has barely breached 20% (I expected them to comfortably sit at 21-22%) and the CDU has failed to breach 30%. That being said, the small parties failed to meet the threshold, probably cementing the new government. The coalition talks will take some time, but neither CDU nor SPD can allow themselves to not make a deal - any failure will rsult in AfD gaining even more votes.
Moving eastward, today we have the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Big event for Zelenskyy, who invited at least 13 leaders to Kiev and is looking to have a meeting with additional 24 leaders online, most probably to align on new aid in the face of American extortion. These discussions will be instrumental for future peace talks, as any significant aid will show that Ukraine wants to continue the fight. Trump administration is surely watching closely, but any case is good for it as Europe taking the majority of the burden of war is still a success internally as it’s all about the money for MAGA electorate.
Lastly, we might have a new pope soon as Francis was admitted to hospital with double pneumonia. His condition is supposedly “complex” suggesting that the 88 year old pope has little time left on this earth.
Business, Finance & Economics
Moving to business, Microsoft has unveiled its Majorana 1 chip which it claims will allow quantum computers capable of solving industrial-scale problems to developed within years rather than decades. The new chip is based on a substance Microsoft calls a “topoconductor”, one of a class of materials known as topological superconductors. Also Microsoft CEO expressed he is somewhat bearish on AI as he fails to see the big impact on the GDPs he expected. There are even some rumors that Microsoft is backing off the Stargate project where it was supposed to rent data centers.
Staying with AI, South Korea has banned the downloads of DeepSeek’s model citing non-compliance with data privacy laws. Can’t blame them to be honest, Chines could hav eput many things inside.
And staying around China, both Apple and Google have made TikTok once again available for download. While this is in line with Trump’s order to postpone the ban, I still don’t see any deal coming.
Lastly, the inflation in Britain has jumped to 3% in January, up from 2.5% in December. This is yet another country seeing a rise in inflation and BoE said it is remaining cautious about any further cuts. Core inflation went even higher, to 3.7%.
Markets
That’s all from the global outlook. Market section today is on the short side, despite the global turmoil, there are not many new markets to consider as most of the events dealt with Ukrainian peace and German election.
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