A Pretty Good Week of Work

He started the week by ordering U.S. forces to arrest and bring Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife to the United States to face charges involving narco terrorism.

This was successfully accomplished but it meant that Trump would have to be able to force the remaining inner circle to bend to his will, reject their authoritarian path, sever ties with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba and build their economic future with the United States until democratic elections could be held.

Trump is off to a good start.

Human rights organizations and others have been asking for this for the last 20 years.

Trump's actions in Venezuela has also resonated elsewhere.

The President of Cuba, seeing that their support in Venezuela has been cut off, is suddenly talking differently.

He suggests that maybe their problems are due to Cuba's Communist Party rather than the United States.

Remarkable.

Seeing what has occurred in Venezuela has also provided new energy to the Iranian people to attempt to bring down the authoritarian Islamic regime.

Link: https://x.com/NiohBerg/status/2009334633633403391

 

Meanwhile, in the United States there was a lot of positive economic news.

The U.S, trade deficit just came in with its best numbers since 2009.

Compare where the number was in October to where it was when Trump took office.

Imported goods have been falling while exports have been increasing.

At the same time, U.S. productivity just surged by 4.9%---the best reading in nearly six years.

All of this is having an effect on the GDP numbers that measures overall national economic activity.

The Atlanta Fed just revised its forecast for 4th quarter GDP upwards to +5.4%.

The "Blue Chip Consensus" from a month ago was that this number for the quarter would be less than 1%.

If this holds, the GDP results by quarter for 2025 would be as follows.

Is there anything Joe Biden did in his four years that could even come close to what we have seen from Trump in just this first week of 2026?

What else can be said but what a difference a year makes.