Category: zerohedge

It was the polar opposite to yesterday’s slop. 

After a mediocre 3Y, and a dismal 10Y auction yesterday, moments ago the Treasury concluded the sale of the week’s final refunding auction, when it unloaded $25BN in 30Y paper to seemingly endless demand. 

The auction stopped at a high yield of 4.750%, down from 4.825% in January, and the lowest since November. It also stopped through the 4.771% When Issued by 2.1bps, the biggest stop since LIberation Day in April 2025.

The bid to cover was 2.662, up sharply from 2.418 and the highest since January 2018! An oddity today is that the Fed’s SOMA tendered for, and accepted, a whopping $7.1 billion, a continuation of yesterday’s massive retention when the SOMA ended up with over $11BN of the 10Y.

The internals were also stellar, with Indirects taking down 69.94%, up from 66.77% and the highest since November. And with Directs rising to 24.18% (if not a record high, unlike this week’s 3Y auction), Dealers were left with just 5.88%, down from 11.95% last month, and the lowest on record.

Overall, this was a stellar 30Y auction, one of the strongest on record, and clearly an indication that nobody is afraid that tomorrow’s delayed CPI may come in overly hot. 

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Supreme Court scheduled oral argument in Monsanto’s appeal seeking to block thousands of lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn consumers that Roundup, its popular weedkiller, could cause cancer.

The court announced on Feb. 11 that it will hear Monsanto Co. v. Durnell on April 27.

The justices also scheduled arguments in two other high-profile cases.

Chatrie v. United States, which is about the constitutionality of search warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users near crime scenes, will also be heard on April 27.

The court will hear the consolidated cases of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) v. AT&T and Verizon Communications v. FCC together on April 21. The cases are about whether provisions in the federal Communications Act of 1934 allowing the FCC to use in-house adjudications to levy penalties are constitutional.

In the Monsanto case, a jury ruled for John Durnell, a Missouri man who allegedly developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to Roundup. The jury found Monsanto liable for failing to warn Durnell of the danger posed by the ingredient glyphosate and awarded him $1.25 million in damages. Glyphosate is an herbicide that kills weeds and grasses.

A state appeals court upheld the jury’s finding of liability, and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to take up the matter. Many other lawsuits have been filed across the United States alleging that Roundup caused medical problems.

Missouri has not issued an official health warning about Roundup, and Monsanto has been unsuccessful in lobbying the Missouri Legislature to shield it from state-level failure-to-warn lawsuits. In 2015, an agency within the World Health Organization (WHO) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rejected that conclusion, but in 2017, California accepted the WHO agency’s finding and categorized glyphosate as a chemical that causes cancer.

Monsanto, which was purchased in 2018 by biotechnology and pharmaceutical giant Bayer, argues that a federal law governing the labeling of pesticides preempts—or overrides—any state lawsuits.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer sided with Monsanto in a brief, writing that leaving the Missouri court’s ruling in place means “a jury may second-guess the [EPA’s] science-based judgments.”

In a brief, Durnell’s attorneys alleged that Monsanto “has known for decades” that Roundup can cause cancer, but has neither made its product safer, nor told consumers they should be cautious when using it.

“Instead, Monsanto has marketed Roundup as safe to spray in a t-shirt and shorts,” they said.

Geofencing Challenge

In the Chatrie case, the Supreme Court will consider whether the Fourth Amendment bars the collection of cellphone users’ location history around crime scenes.

If cellphone users want to access certain services, their phones must be set to continuously transmit their exact locations to wireless service providers. A so-called geofence warrant, which is growing in popularity with law enforcement agencies, allows police to seek location data on every person who was present at a specific location over a certain period of time.

Geofence warrants were used to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, security breach at the U.S. Capitol. The location data led to charges against some of those involved. Some judges allowed the warrants, while others ruled that they violated the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

Petitioner Okello Chatrie was convicted of armed robbery based on data obtained under a geofence warrant, and sentenced to nearly 12 years of incarceration.

Law enforcement had obtained a geofence warrant from a state court for anonymized location data for every device that was within 150 meters (about 500 feet) of a 2019 bank robbery within one hour of the robbery, and served it on Google. Anonymized data do not contain information that could be used to identify specific cellphone users.

Google complied with the warrant and provided a list, and then, without seeking a fresh warrant, law enforcement expanded its data search, and Google handed over the additional information sought.

Chatrie’s attorneys had argued the warrant violated his privacy because it allowed investigators to gather the location history of people who were near the financial institution that was robbed, even though there was no evidence of any connection to the robbery. Prosecutors countered that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy because he voluntarily opted into Google’s location history services.

A divided federal appeals panel found that because the petitioner allowed location tracking on his cellphone, the Fourth Amendment did not apply.

Sauer said in a brief that because Chatrie voluntarily provided Google with his location history, he relinquished any privacy right he might have had in that information.

SEC Cases

In the SEC cases, the Supreme Court will consider whether the FCC’s power to levy large fines violated Verizon and AT&T’s constitutional right to a jury trial.

The FCC fined the two telecommunications companies for sharing customer location data with third parties without consent. The fines were issued before the companies had their day in court.

The dispute is the latest legal case to test whether the in-house enforcement system used by a federal agency violates the Seventh Amendment.

The case arose after the FCC levied almost $200 million in fines against wireless carriers. T-Mobile was ordered to pay $80 million, while Sprint, which T-Mobile purchased in 2020, had to pay $12 million. AT&T was required to pay $57 million, while Verizon was ordered to pay almost $47 million.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed Verizon’s penalty, finding the Constitution allows the FCC to carry out an initial penalty assessment, provided that an accused party is permitted to dispute the government’s collection efforts in court.

The Fifth Circuit, on the other hand, found that the initial assessment and fine the FCC imposed on AT&T violated the company’s right to have a jury trial.

The cases come after the Supreme Court limited the Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of in-house administrative tribunals, finding that defendants facing civil penalties are entitled under the Seventh Amendment to a jury trial.

“A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in SEC v. Jarkesy.

Verizon said in its Supreme Court petition that “the FCC scheme at issue here mirrors the SEC scheme rejected in Jarkesy in every material respect.”

The FCC said in a brief that the Second Circuit was correct to rule that the fine complies with the Seventh Amendment.

However, the commission said it agreed with Verizon that the issues raised by the company deserved to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Decisions in the three cases are expected to be issued by the end of June.

The Gallup public opinion polling agency has announced that, beginning this year, it will stop publishing approval and favorability ratings for individual political figures in public office.

American Greatness reports that agency announced that it will no longer chart presidential approval ratings, saying in a statement that the move “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership.”

The statement from Gallup explains that “Our commitment is to long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives.”

“That work will continue through the Gallup Poll Social Series, the Gallup Quarterly Business Review, the World Poll, and our portfolio of U.S. and global research,” the statement continued.

According to Axios, for the better part of the past 8 decades, Gallup’s approval ratings have served as a kind of barometer of American public sentiment toward the White House.

A Gallup spokesperson told The Epoch Times on Feb. 11 that the change took effect at the beginning of this year, saying that tracking approval and favorability for specific politicians “no longer represents an area in which Gallup can contribute in the most unique way.”

“This is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities, and is part of a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission,” the spokesperson said.

“We look forward to continuing to offer independent research that adheres to the highest standards of social science.”

President Trump’s current 36% approval rating is not the lowest among U.S. presidents despite an 11% drop in approval since February 2025.

Sheer historical vandalism. WHY would Gallup voluntarily damage its reputation as the pollster of record by abandoning its 80-year series monitoring presidential approval? (At 36% approval, Trump isn’t even that low compared with GWBush, Carter, Nixon, Truman etc) pic.twitter.com/82LnKTIdp4

— Pippa Norris (@PippaN15) February 11, 2026

President Harry Truman went from an approval rating of 87% in June 1945 to a mere 22% rating in February of 1952.

George W. Bush scored the highest presidential job approval rating at 90% following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, but dropped to 25% by October 2008.

Axios reports that President John F. Kennedy had the highest average approval rating among U.S. presidents at 70%.

Gallup has expanded its polling business to surveys outside of politics to cover the public’s trust and happiness on issues like employee workplace engagement and the spread of AI.

While Gallup has stressed that discontinuing approval and favorability surveys is a strategic decision made independently, Bill Pan reports for The Epoch Times that the move comes as Trump threatened legal action over unfavorable polling that he denounced as fake.

In January, Trump said he would expand his existing defamation lawsuit against The New York Times after the newspaper, in partnership with Siena College, published a poll finding that just 34 percent of independent voters approved of his job performance about one year into his second term—a result he said did not reflect reality and was fabricated to damage him.

“The Times Siena Poll, which is always tremendously negative to me, especially just before the Election of 2024, where I won in a Landslide, will be added to my lawsuit against The Failing New York Times,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Our lawyers have demanded that they keep all Records, and how they ‘computed’ these fake results—Not just the fact that it was heavily skewed toward Democrats. They will be held fully responsible for all of their Radical Left lies and wrongdoing!”

The New York Times dismissed the president’s criticism, saying in a statement that the paper’s polls “have been widely cited for their rigor.”

In response to a question from The Hill as to whether Gallup had received any feedback from the current administration before deciding to make the change, the polling agency responded, “this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities.”

 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on Feb. 12 warned Republican lawmakers they will face consequences if they vote against his tariff agenda, after a handful of GOP lawmakers sided with Democrats to pass a measure this week.

“Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

The president said that the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 markets have reached new highs in the midst of the tariff policies that he imposed last year under an emergency 1977 provision.

“The mere mention of the word has Countries agreeing to our strongest wishes. TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege,” he added.

Trump wrote in a separate post on Truth Social that Canada has taken advantage of the United States on trade and border security. With the tariffs, Trump said that the United States can have an advantage over its northern neighbor.

Several House Republicans on Feb. 11 voted to overturn an executive order that imposed tariffs on Canada, siding with nearly every Democratic lawmaker in the lower congressional chamber to pass the measure. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), is now being considered by the Senate.

Last year, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China in a bid to curb the flow of illegal drugs, including fentanyl, into the United States. The vote in the House on Feb. 11 was the first time the congressional chamber has formally offered a vote on the policy.

Despite the House’s vote to pass the rebuke of the Canadian tariffs, it is unlikely to become law. It would take two-thirds majorities in both chambers to overcome an expected Trump veto, and most Republicans have been unwilling to oppose the Trump administration’s policies.

“Canada isn’t a threat, it’s our ally,” Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a House speech before the vote.

Trump warned last month on social media that he could impose more significant tariffs on Canada if the country makes a trade deal with China.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Beijing last month to bolster trade ties with the Chinese communist regime.

Carney has said Canada has “no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy” and added that “what we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”

After his second term started in January 2025, Trump ordered 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada. In August 2025, he signed an executive order increasing tariffs on Canadian goods to 35 percent for all products not covered by the U.S.–Mexico–Canada trade agreement.

The administration’s tariffs are also being considered by the Supreme Court, which is set to issue a ruling on the policy this year.

One of the House Republicans who voted against the measure, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), told The Epoch Times after the vote that the high court will ultimately assess whether the tariffs are lawful or not.

“I think that we have a say in some of these issues, like tariffs on imports. That’s Congress’s realm,” he said, adding that his Washington state district has many Canadian-owned businesses.

KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts, led by Ashley Owens, say Lululemon Athletica is back in the crosshairs on Reddit after another leggings line sparked see-through outrage on social media. The note follows last month’s “Get Low” backlash, when the brand was forced into damage-control mode after Redditors raged about similar issues.

Owens said a version of Lululemon’s leggings, the “scattered heart print,” was called out by some Redditors for being, as they described it, see-through when bending and squatting.

A top Redditor who goes by “persimmoncove” on the Lululemon subreddit said the scattered heart print did not pass the squat test.

Persimmoncove stated:

Sadly, the shorts and leggings are completely see-through in the squat test. I thought about it for a while and considered keeping the leggings and making sure to wear non-slip dark underwear with them, but after trying to convince myself it would work, I realized I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it. The shorts are more see-through than the leggings, so those earned an immediate spot in the return pile.

It’s really a shame because the print is so freaking cute and I really liked the fit. Fortunately, the bras don’t have any of the issues the bottoms do, so I’ll be keeping both of them.

This is a rare case where I wish they had just double-lined them.

Shares have fallen about 16% since the Get Low controversy broke out mid-last month.

Last month, amid the Get Low leggings debacle, founder Chip Wilson blasted the company’s board for transforming the athletic-apparel brand “from being a leader in the category to, honestly, a bit of a follower.”

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice,

Global oil demand is expected to rise by 850,000 barrels per day this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday as it cut its growth estimate from 930,000 bpd expected last month.  

All the 850,000 bpd growth this year is poised to come from developing economies, with China leading the additional demand, the agency said in its closely-watched Oil Market Report for February.   

Petrochemical feedstock products are set to account for more than half of this year’s gains, compared with only a third in 2025 when transport fuels dominated growth, the IEA said. 

The agency’s forecast is well below OPEC’s estimate of 1.4 million bpd oil demand growth this year from 2025, which the cartel reiterated in its own monthly report earlier this week. OPEC sees robust growth of 1.3 million bpd for 2027, too. 

The IEA today confirmed its estimate that the oil market will be in a surplus in 2026, with supply set to rise by 2.4 million bpd in 2026, to 108.6 million bpd. Growth will be roughly evenly split between non-OPEC+ and OPEC+ producers, the agency said. 

Last month, the IEA expected oil supply to rise by 2.5 million bpd this year, but it slightly revised down the estimate this month due to the winter storm in the United States and disruptions in other countries. 

In January, global oil supply plunged by 1.2 million bpd to 106.6 million bpd, as severe winter weather disrupted North American operations, while outages and export constraints curtailed Kazakh, Russian, and Venezuelan flows.  

But world oil supply is set to rebound in the coming months as output recovers from the plunge in January, when extreme winter weather forced the shut-in of more than 1 million bpd of output in North America, the IEA said. In addition, prolonged disruptions at Kazakhstan’s key export terminal since November were compounded by a power outage at the country’s largest oilfield, Tengiz, last month, temporarily tightening Atlantic Basin light crude markets, the agency noted.   

FIrst it was SaaS (in particular, and Software in general), then Private Credit, then Insurance Brokers, then it was financials/brokers that were hammered on Tuesday, then real estate service stocks tumbled yesterday, and today it is the turn of Logistics stocks to plunge as investors followed the bouncing AI disruption ball and freaked out over the sector’s vulnerability to the newest crop of artificial intelligence applications and tools that can disrupt countless industries.

As the brutal “AI Scare Trade” bouncing ball hits yet another sector, we have seen a painful selloff among big trucking stocks such as DSV and Kuehne and Nagel, both of which are down double digits.

The selling is attributed to a 9:15am ET press release from Algorhythm Holdings – a “leading AI technology company” – which announced that its “SemiCab platform in live customer deployments is enabling its customers’ internal operations to scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without a corresponding increase in operational headcount.”

These results, detailed in SemiCab’s recently published industry white paper, demonstrate how the company’s AI-driven Collaborative Transportation Platform is transforming freight management from a labor-intensive, manual process into a highly automated, intelligence-led system. In fact, individual operators using SemiCab have been able to manage more than 2,000 loads annually, compared to the traditional industry benchmark of approximately 500 loads per year per freight broker, demonstrating a 4x improvement in workforce productivity.

“Historically, logistics has been constrained by human bandwidth,” said Gary Atkinson, Chief Executive Officer of Algorhythm Holdings. “Every increase in volume requires more planners, more dispatchers, and more manual intervention. Our SemiCab platform breaks that dependency by embedding intelligence directly into the freight operating system.”

According to the release “the AI-driven leverage of SemiCab’s platform directly supports stronger unit economics and capital efficiency for its customers. As volumes increase, customers benefit from:”

• Lower cost per load;
• Higher asset utilization;
• Reduced administrative overhead; and
• More predictable service levels.

Of course, it is unclear – and will be unclear for months if not years – just how disruptive this AI platform will be to established businesses which have invested billions in established processes, but in keeping with the recent trend of selling (and shorting) potentially affected sectors first, and asking questions much later, the results has been the immediate loss of market cap across the logistics/industrials sector. 

The selling adds to AI disruptions fears already pressuring Software, Games, Private Credit and Real Estate Brokerage names which have all been crushed in recent weeks, and all of which are again underperforming today. 

As Goldman trader Christian DeGrasse writes, “the same exact tape is just repeating itself – almost anything previously tagged by ‘AI-risk’ narrative, whether deemed ‘rational or not’, is underperforming (CRE Brokers, Office REITs, Wealth, Info services, select exchanges, Insurance brokers, payments, Fintech) – while the alts started out somewhat stable but are starting to wobble, as are the banks (which largely have been immune to the ‘scare’ – with superregionals in particular being an attractive hideout within fins .. reach out for people’s views there)”

REITs (especially the large caps) continue to outperform as a hideout zone .. Towers, Datacenters (EQIX Earnings +), Senior Housing in Healthcare, SPG in Malls, WY, Triple nets, etc …

We’re getting lots of requests for color – Nothing ‘new’ is out there in Fins (staying vigilant), but this ‘scare’ does continues to broaden out, with the ‘new sector’ of the day under pressure from fears of AI-competition being logistics/transports in industrial (down double digits as of send).

Names previously thought of as AI winners are getting re-thought and reasessed for potential risks. Valuation and multiples matter too.

Indeed, according to traders, the ongoing “AI scare trade” is weighing on sentiment and has pushed the S&P sharply lower…

… with the associated degrossing now also impacting such AI-immune sectors (one hopes) as gold and silver.

The best recap of what’s going on comes from Goldman’s Alex Mitola who writes that in terms of Flows, “what has stood out most over the last few days, is NOT heavy supply like price action might suggest, but the COMPLETE LACK OF WILLINGNESS from investors to step in and defend during any of these sharp sell offs.”

Until that changes, expect see such sector-specific meltdowns every day, as AI disruption becomes the name of the game.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Joe Rogan has zeroed in on the Democrats’ border fiasco, calling it a direct path to America’s downfall by inviting criminals and chaos across the line.

The podcast powerhouse argues that while the U.S. was built by immigrants, unchecked entry under Democratic policies is flooding the nation with murderers and cartel thugs, all in an effort to populate cities with voters loyal to the left—pure political gamesmanship at the expense of public safety.

Rogan laid out the stark reality of America’s immigration roots clashing with today’s border free-for-all.

Joe Rogan: “You can’t have an open border. You can’t just have anybody come thru because there’s gonna be a bunch of criminals that come thru.”pic.twitter.com/vRO5XGYGpu

— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) February 11, 2026

“The whole thing is tough now because we’re a country that’s established by immigrants, but you can’t have an open border. You can’t just have anybody come through because there’s going to be a bunch of criminals that come through, and you don’t want that. You don’t want your country to be more crime infested,” Rogan said.

“You don’t want your country to have murderers and cartel members just coming into the country and now getting citizenship and being able to vote and organizing, and that’s crazy. That’s a good way to destroy your country,” Rogan urged.

He further accused Democrats of turning illegal immigration into a cynical tool for power grabs, overwhelming sanctuary cities and stacking the deck in swing states.

“When you just let everybody in, and you let in 10 million people, and how do you — unless they get arrested while they’re here — what do you do? And even then, like a lot of them during the Biden administration, they were getting let go. In sanctuary cities [they would let] people go. It’s just crazy,” Rogan said.

He added, “Because they just want a bunch of people in these swing states for the census. So they get more congressional seats, and if they get these people and give them the ability to vote, now you have a built-in voter base. You can just rig the election.”

This critique comes amid the fallout from Biden-era policies like the CHNV migrant parole program, which fast-tracked over 530,000 nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela into the U.S. with legal status and work permits—straining resources and enforcement to the breaking point.

Contrast that with President Trump’s 2025 crackdown, where executive actions on border security prompted over two million illegal migrants to self-deport, slashing southern border encounters to historic lows. It’s a clear win for America First priorities, proving that strong enforcement works when leaders actually prioritize citizens over political stunts.

Rogan’s takedown highlights the danger in Democratic compassion claims: preaching open arms while cities buckle under crime waves and resource drains.

These policies erode the very fabric of fair elections and national sovereignty. As Rogan points out, letting in unvetted masses isn’t mercy; it’s a calculated move to entrench power, sidelining American workers and safety.

Democrats’ border negligence is a betrayal of the American people, paving the way for more crime, division, and electoral manipulation.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

By Michael Every of Rabobank

US payrolls stronger, US yields up, stocks flat as anything hit by AI was too, oil sideways, and USD/JPY at 153 vs 159 a few days ago. Fed-speak was all over the place. Schmid said restrictive rates are needed to cool inflation. Miran said there’s still a variety of reasons to cut rates. Hammack said the labor market is finding a healthy balance and rates should stay on hold. And as they all speak, 2026’s book of changes unfolds.

Von der Leyen clashed with France and Germany over the EU’s core climate law, the latter pair backing CEOs in Antwerp demanding climate regulations are eased to halt rapid deindustrialisation (in the green space as well as in old industries). However, Paris and Berlin are attacking each other over that issue (i.e., who gets the subsidies).

The key informal leaders meeting in a Belgian castle today will see more clashes and breaches. The Euro defence lobby opposes the Commission’s role in defence spending. There is no agreement on what ‘Made in Europe’ means, as the UK, outside the castle wall like King Arthur in The Holy Grail, argues it should be let in. VdL just attacked “unnecessary” national laws, mirroring some states’ views of EU laws. Her Commission will set an end-2026 deadline for the EU to integrate all its capital markets, or allow member states to do so at their own speed. The ECB is lobbying for a common EU corporate legal framework; and both the Bundesbank president and the FT editorial team put out missives for the mass issue of Eurobonds for “strategic autonomy.” EU markets don’t seem to be reacting to any of the above. Yes, this isn’t a crisis, as with Greece – but it is a crisis. The old regime of technocrats sees the world has changed – but can they do so?

The Trump-Netanyahu meeting ended with ‘Trump wants a deal’: but did anyone expect the headline: “We attack Friday”? Another US aircraft carrier is heading to the region, alongside other preparations for Iran to deal with. Indeed, when Trump says ‘deal’, that now seems to include ballistic missiles and terror proxies, both unacceptable to Tehran. The US is also considering acting vs tankers carrying Iranian oil, even if wary what that would do to energy prices.

Mirroring that, the Russian press is talking about Iranian oil being escorted to Cuba by the PLA Navy, and Russia’s shadow fleet by their navy, which would raise the stakes and risk a new Cuban crisis or its equivalent in Europe. The fact this is being discussed underlines how hard power now matters: sanctions, shmanctions, price cap, price shmap – can you physically interdict a ship? Can you resist any such measures being taken against your trade flows via military strength or the importance of what you export? That’s what strategic autonomy looks like.

The US energy secretary is to visit Venezuela to try to jump start oil production, seen as a Herculean task. That’s as the EPA will water down regulations so carbon isn’t a pollutant, marking another huge step towards environmental deregulation. Trump also signed an executive order to shift the Department of War to coal for its vast power demands: khaki certainly isn’t green.

The US House of Representatives voted to remove Trump’s Canada tariffs, cheering tariff opponents. However, only a handful of Republicans flipped, and Trump can veto it if it were to pass the Senate, which is unlikely. Conversely, the FAA head said Canada will certify US Gulfstream jets following sabres being rattled by Trump. At the same time, suggestions Trump wants to end the USMCA this summer, likely deepening bilateral trade relations with Mexico and weakening them with Canada, which greatly weakens Canada, cannot be dismissed.

Trump and Xi reportedly ‘agreed to roll back tariffs’ on one quick take: the actual news is they are to extend their trade truce for another year. If that’s the main outcome from their April meeting one wonders why it’s happening. (Which some may ask after the EU meeting too.)

There were announced changes to the US-India trade deal from the US side, following a backlash from Indian farmers – that does show tweaks can be made, as they already have elsewhere.

Indonesia will sign a US trade deal, and join Trump’s Board of Peace, next week. Will nickel flows will be involved given Indonesia dominates global supply and just announced it will be reducing output to force prices higher? (NB, Canada is full of nickel too but no longer produces much, “because markets.”)

In technology, the Chinese press notes how AI and delivery drones are pushing their logistics costs to new lows. SMIC said the chip industry is in “crisis mode” as output is sucked up by AI: it will respond with more localization. ByteDance is reportedly developing its own AI chip in conjunction with Samsung. US hyperscaler AI spending is now set to hit over $600 billion. And all this is happening as some sit and talk about how to boost competitiveness in a High Castle.

Then again, there are good arguments for moats and drawbridges: the Pentagon wants to include AI within its secure networks. “Would you like to play a game?” still send shivers down the spine of a child of the 80s, like ‘Skynet’ and ‘The Matrix’ may still do to others. But here we are. At the very least, the world of work around is going to be transformed, even if some are taking the blue pill and think it won’t impact them.

That’s as Anthropic, the makers of Claude –doing transformative things even for individuals and SMEs– has publicly warned the program could be misused for “heinous crimes.” That’s following Anthropic’s safeguards research head quitting while warning, “I continuously find myself reckoning with our situation. The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment. We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences.”

He’s moving to the UK to “become invisible” for a period of time, adding: “I feel called to writing that addresses and engages fully with the place we find ourselves, and that places poetic truth alongside scientific truth as equally valid ways of knowing, both of which I believe have something essential to contribute when developing new technology.” How does one put poetry into ‘scientific’ GDP? By asking, “What is GDP *for*?”

Or look to the I Ching at the heart of The Man in the High Castle, a book set in a world where the West lost WW2. It says: “When flowing water… meets with obstacles on its path, a blockage in its journey, it pauses. It increases in volume and strength, filling up in front of the obstacle and eventually spilling past it… Do not turn and run, for there is nowhere worthwhile for you to go. Do not attempt to push ahead into the danger… emulate the example of the water: Pause and build up your strength until the obstacle no longer represents a blockage.” And what does that imply your GDP, or your markets, should look like?

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act by a margin of 218-213. The bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote as well as photo ID to vote in federal elections. One Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, joined Republicans in voting for it, while one R and one D did not vote. 

Sadly for anyone who values election integrity, Senate Republicans need 60 votes to pass it, and there “aren’t anywhere close to the votes” according to Majority Leader John Thune (SD). Thune says he supports the SAVE Act, but he’s not about to change the Senate rules to create a pathway to passing it – and that his position is widely supported among the Senate Republican Conference. 

“It’s not just me not being willing to do it. There aren’t anywhere close to the votes, not even close, to nuking the filibuster,” he said of a proposal to lower the threshold for advancing legislation to a simple majority by voting along partisan lines to establish new precedent – effectively changing the Senate’s rules with what is known as “the nuclear option,” The Hill reports.

“We’re having a very robust conversation among our Senate Republican colleagues about the path forward. I think most are supporters … I certainly am — of the SAVE Act and what it attempts to accomplish,” Thune told reporters following the meeting. “You ought to be able to prove that you’re a citizen of this country in order to be able to vote. How we get to that vote remains to be seen,” he said. 

According to Thune, however, the nuclear option “doesn’t have a future. Is there another way of getting there? We’ll see.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is pushing for a ‘standing filibuster’ to try and pass it, and implored the Senate GOP conference on Tuesday to interpret the current Senate rules to require Democrats to continuously hold the floor with active debate to block the SAVE Act.

“Nothing in the Senate’s an easy move,” Lee said after the meeting. “This one’s certainly not. But if we want to do this, this is how we have to go about it.”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) told Fox News that Republicans would continue to press the issue.

“To get on an airplane you need a photo ID. You want to buy a beer at a football game? You need a photo ID. Go to the library, you need a photo ID for just about everything,” he said. “And now you see Democrats are demanding photo IDs to go to any meetings that they have, and we just saw that in Georgia.”

DHS Shutdown On Deck…

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security are set to shut down Saturday unless lawmakers can strike a last-minute deal to fund the agency. Democrats have vowed to oppose any legislation that doesn’t include restrictions on immigration enforcement – and have provided a laundry list of demands after federal immigration agents killed two protesters last month in Minneapolis. The White House is reportedly open to some of the ideas, however, no agreement has been reached by lawmakers. 

On Wednesday night, the White House sent a detailed proposal to Democrats, WaPo reports, however it’s unclear what their response was. 

“If they don’t add things that will rein in ICE, they are not getting our votes,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday prior to receiving the White House proposal. 

Any last-minute deal would also require the House to pass it, which might be difficult in itself after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that Democrats won’t support any DHS funding bill that doesn’t include “dramatic changes” to the agency. 

That said, a shutdown won’t disrupt ICE or US Customs and Border Protection operations because Republicans allocated tens of billions of dollars in additional funding last year for padding. Instead, the Transportation Security Administration, FEMA, Coast Guard and other agencies within DHS will be directly affected, equating to roughly 13% of the federal civilian workforce, according to DHS / OPM data. 

“The pain will be felt by the men and women of TSA, who will once again work to keep our airways safe without a paycheck,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) told WaPo on Wednesday. “There will be uncertainty for our Coast Guard men and women — who have no choice but to show up for work. … It will reduce the amount of funding in the Disaster Relief Fund — just weeks after massive winter storms affected wide swaths of the country.”

The Senate is expected to vote today to take up legislation to fund DHS through Sept. 30.