China

In December, Grant Williams, author of "Things That Make You Go Hmm..." offered the most comprehensive analysis yet of the rise and inevitable fall of the petrodollar (and implicitly US hegemony). In the following presentation, from Mines & Money Conference in London in December 2016, Williams focuses on gold's performance in 2016, the reaction to Donald Trump's election and joins a series of dots that may lead to the end of the petrodollar system and a new place for gold in the global monetary system.

President Donald Trump is secretly preparing to counter a sinister plot by China to occupy California as part of a massive Pearl Harbor type of attack.  With China wiping out a quarter of its world’s largest foreign-currency stockpile over the last 18 months, and taking over top 6 major Hollywood studios, Beijing have already positioned themselves to form an alliance with the Trump-hating liberal elite in order to advance their plans.

Remember the G-20 "Shanghai Accord" from February 2016, a meeting where the world's political and financial elites were rumored to sit down and unveil a plan how to boost the global economy? Well, according to a new research note out from Deutsche Bank, it was this event - together with the unprecedented credit expansion out of China that immediately followed - that catalyzed the ongoing global economic rebound, a recovery which has had nothing to do with confidence in Donald Trump policies.

After a fiery start to his foreign policy overtures, Trump is gradually normalizing his approach to international diplomacy.

From reports that Japan's giant pension fund, the GPIF, will invest in US infrastructure, to promises that Japan will present a "package" to create 700,000 US jobs, there is a distinct smell of appeasement and nervousness oozing out of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's every pore two days before his summit meeting, golf game and dinner with Donald Trump on Friday (it is unclear who will pay for Abe's trip, and it could be an issue).