Posted originally on May 29, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Think-tank the Lowly Institute found that the poorest 75 nations in the world are highly indebted to China, and the bill is almost past due. “Now, and for the rest of this decade, China will be more debt collector than banker to the developing world,” the report said. Of the $35 billion owed to China, around $22 billion must be repaid from the 75 poorest countries.
President Xi Jinping signed the majority of these loans under the Belt and Road Investment Program (BRI). China became the largest supplier of bilateral loans back in 2016, with a high of $50 billion in loans, surmounting to more than all creditors in the West combined. This was intentional as the BRI sought to gain influence in developing nations. Some estimates believe that China is owed a “hidden debt” of $385 billion through BRI initiatives, but China denies creating debt traps for nations it knew would likely be unable to repay their loans.
Argentina, Brazil, Congo DR, Mongolia, Indonesia, and others all have one major common factor—they are rich in natural resources. They also have limited access to international private capital and were more likely to turn to China for aid. In 2005, China held less than 5% of external debt, but that figure rose to 40% once the BRI was introduced.
The World Bank found that China is the largest supplier of bilateral debt for developing nations, accounting for over 30% of all loans in 2025. Out of 120 developing nations, 54 are indebted to China, with repayments exceeding the combined amount owed to the Paris Club bloc that factors in all major Western bilateral lenders. In 2023, 26% of all bilateral debt in developing nations was owed to China.
China offered these nations a >5-year grace period on repayments that would mature in 15-20 years, and since the bulk of these loans were granted in the mid-2010s, the bill is now due. The International Monetary Fund found that over 50% of the poorest and most vulnerable nations are debt-distressed. Servicing these massive debts has become unsustainable. As noted by the Lowly Institute, 3.3 billion people live in nations that spend more on servicing debt than on education or health care.
China is engaged in “debt-trap diplomacy,” whereby its loans have pushed nations into such severe debt that China now has significant influence over their geopolitical affairs. If nations cannot repay with cash, they can repay with military bases, access to valuable infrastructure such as ports and railways, minerals and mines, trade deals, and more. All of these nations will accept and adopt the One China policy. Pakistan has defaulted on debt numerous times, but China gave them money for strategic purpose. Debt is leverage and power, and China now has immense influence over most of the developing world.
California routinely selects groups of minimum wage workers and decides that their skill set is now worth tenfold. The state in general increased the minimum wage to $16.50 per hour on January 1, 2025, while certain cities have raised the minimum to $19 per hour. Lobbying efforts have prevented certain groups from seeing a drastic spike in minimum wage, but California has now decided that hotel and airport workers must be paid more than others.
Hotel and airport workers will receive a $2.50 per hour raise to $22.50 per hour at minimum, but that amount will rise to $30 per hour by July 2028. Additionally, employers must provide a $8.35 per hour health care stipend by June 2026. This means that payroll will increase by 69% in a two-month period. Low-skilled positions will now cost employers $38 per hour. The proposal will only give employers 60 days to adopt the new policy. “No industry can afford that financial uptick in such a short period of time,” the Hotel Association of Los Angeles stated.
Hotels are already struggling, experiencing only 79% of the traffic that they once enjoyed prior to the pandemic. The city shed 11,000 hotel jobs last year, and this proposal nearly ensures more jobs will be cut. This comes ahead of the 2028 Olympics that will be hosted in Los Angeles. Hotels have already agreed to room block agreements for the event prior to the announcement that minimum wages were to increase. “We agreed to certain rates at the hotels at that time, and it’s not viable for us to be able to agree to charge the same rates that we calculated based upon a $17 minimum wage that’s now going to be almost double that,” said Mitchell Hochberg, president of real estate investment firm Lightstone Group, which operates the Moxy and AC hotels in downtown Los Angeles—one of the properties withdrawing from the agreement.
Perhaps someone in the hotel industry should have donated to Newsom’s campaign. A fast-food bill was passed in September 2022 that set the minimum wage to $22 per hour for select chains with over 100 locations, later expanding to a $20 minimum pay for restaurants with 60 locations. California specifically exempts fast food establishments that contain bakeries, such as Panera Bread. Glenn Flynn is the largest fast food franchise owner in America with an empire of 2,600 restaurant locations that produce around $.45 billion in sales. Flynn, estimated to be worth around $1.1 billion, has strongly supported Gavin Newsom publicly since 2014, when Newsom was a lieutenant governor. Both men attended the same high school and have longstanding ties.
Bloomberg reported that Flynn donated $64,800 to Newsom’s personal re-election campaign and an additional $100,000 for conservative-led recall efforts. Flynn’s holdings in California only include two establishments – Applebee’s and Panera Bread. Applebee’s is exempt from the law despite its pre-frozen dishes since it is a sit-down restaurant chain. Panera Bread, on the other hand, is exempt due to this specific loophole that only excludes establishments that bake bread. This is what happens when lobbying is permitted and politicians are for sale.
Should a hotel maid earn more than a teacher in Los Angeles? Do the people constructing the hotel deserve less than those paid to book rooms? Does replacing towels and bedsheets or checking a boarding pass warrant an $80K salary? Pay grades are no longer based on skill and experience but on industry pandering. Businesses do not have the capital to provide every employee, regardless of their contribution to the company’s success, with large pay-outs, and many in Los Angeles are already discussing cutting their workforce, turning to automation, or simply closing their LA-based locations.
“We are seriously considering converting one of our hotel’s restaurants to a self-service breakfast model and closing at least one restaurant space at another property. The wage increase makes it difficult to sustain full-service operations,” Jon Bortz, CEO of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, told reporters. The Hotel Angeleno plans to eliminate valet parking and close its restaurant as well, eliminating dozens of jobs.
The latest move by California to arbitrarily raise the minimum wage only for specific sectors such as fast food and healthcare is yet another blatant act of economic discrimination driven by politics, not sound economics. When you rig wages by legislative decree and apply those rules inconsistently across industries, you are manufacturing instability.
California is specifically targeting industries with low-skilled labor and deliberately forcing them to slim down their workforces in the name of “equality.” A minimum wage increase that outpaces productivity growth is inflationary. California is forcing small and mid-sized businesses to raise prices, cut hours, or automate, which ultimately harms the working class.
Posted originally on May 29, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Mark Carney’s call for aligning with the EU in a war against Russia reveals more about his ideological alignment than any strategic necessity. As a former central banker turned World Economic Forum alumnus, Carney has long abandoned the notion of free markets in favor of globalist control. He is keen to support the EU’s Marxist-style top-down approach, which has economically gutted Europe and driven capital flight, and is extremely eager to distance Canada from the United States in every possible way.
“Seventy-five cents of every dollar of capital spending for defence goes to the United States. That’s not smart,” Carney stated about his nation’s former top ally. He does not want the United States to remain the world’s superpower, per WEF protocol, as this sentiment was felt long before Trump. Carney would like to spend at least $1.25 trillion on defense over the next five years. “We’re making great progress on that, and by Canada Day, we’d like to see something concrete there,” Carney said, noting that Canada will be penning a deal with the European Union in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, US President Trump has offered Canada protection under his proposed “golden dome.” As he continues to pressure Canada to become a state, Canada runs further into the arms of the EU. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is also keen to find a way to support his plans for war without the support of the United States. Rutte is expected to ask the 32-member alliance to up current spending to around 3.5% of GDP.
Canada currently spends 1.37% of its GDP on defense, below the current 2% NATO target. Carney believes Canada can meet NATO standards by 2030, but NATO is increasingly requesting more. “We are going to have to spend more, sooner,” the prime minister said. “That’s one of the reasons why we will have a fall budget, not a budget tomorrow, because we’re part of deeper discussions on the defence side.”
Canada has already stationed troops in the Arctic on a near-permanent basis. Operation Nanook in the Far North has expanded as Canada attempts to secure its place in the Arctic region. Canada and Greenland are both in strong opposition of the current US administration as Trump continues to pressure both to abandon sovereignty. But the true nature of Arctic operations is to intimidate Russia.
“We want to be in the Arctic on a near permanent basis,” Lt.-Gen. Steve Boivin stated. “The current approach to Operation Nanook puts us in the Arctic for five to six months a year. We’re looking at being there 10 plus months per year.” The federal government has already spent an additional C$420 million on the operation.
In a way, Trump is receiving everything he once requester,d from increased NATO spending to forcing nations to defend their own lands without the support of the US. On the other hand, nations are now eager to begin offloading their increased defense budgets outside the US. The capital expended on war would funnel back into the US. NATO was not entirely a charity case for the US as it did receive those funds recycled back into the US economy.
It is clear that Carney is eager to join the alliance of nations taking their arms up against Russia. Russia poses no threat to Canada. Carney’s eagerness to join EU efforts has nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do with consolidating power by forcing the West into a global war.
COMMENT: Marty, I respect that you do not want a Nobel Prize. But this is not about you. Putin just warned Germany that if it allows Zelensky to use NATO weapons to attack Moscow, he will attack Berlin. They said this is plain and simple. Everyone should be writing to nominate you for a Nobel Peace Prize for your model has called every turn in this debacle, and perhaps world leaders will listen to you if you get that Nobel Prize. I know you do not do this for notoriety or money. Hell, you don’t even sell advertising. Yield on this point. Please!
PY
ANSWER: I understand. But I think the Neocons would never allow them to nominate me. Go ahead. Flood them with letters. I bet it will have no impact. The Neocons are in complete control of Europe.
Posted originally on CTH on May 28, 2025 | Sundance
Two days ago, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino sought to address frustration by promising things in the background were taking place and that is why both he and Director Kash Patel were not making media appearances.
Tonight, FBI Director Kash Patel appears on Fox News to affirm confidence in the FBI. Tomorrow Deputy Director Dan Bongino will appear on Fox and Friends to do the same.
Director Patel rejects the notion that the FBI is institutionally corrupt and fraught with malicious actors. Director Patel says he has been sharing information from the FBI silo with “partners in congress” and more information is going to be released. The extensive interview is in two segments, presented below:
Posted originally on CTH on May 28, 2025 | Sundance
We all knew the system would strike back. There are trillions at stake.
UPDATES AT BOTTOM: A federal trade court based out of New York has just ruled in a three-judge decision that President Trump does not have the authority within the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to initiate emergency trade tariffs. [The Ruling is HERE]
WASHINGTON DC – A federal trade court ruled President Trump didn’t have the authority to impose sweeping tariffs on virtually every nation, voiding the levies that have sparked a global trade war and threatened to upend the world economy.
The decision on Wednesday from the Court of International Trade blocked one of the Trump administration’s most audacious assertions of executive power, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, and sets the stage for a possible appeal by the White House.
“The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” a three-judge panel wrote. (link)
“The Worldwide and Retaliatory Tariff Orders exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs,” the court wrote. The court also ordered that the tariffs that the Trump administration has collected so far be “vacated.”
UPDATE #1: I’m tearing through this ruling right now and I can find several structural flaws in the 3-judge panel decision.
[From Page 6, pdf] “…[…] in 1962, Congress delegated to the President the power to take action to adjust imports when the Secretary of Commerce finds that an “article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security.” Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Pub. L. No. 87-794, § 232(b), 76 Stat. 872, 877 (codified as amended at 19 U.S.C. § 1862(c)(1)(A)). This delegation is conditioned upon an investigation and findings by the Secretary of Commerce, and agreement by the President. See id. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, requires that the U.S. Trade Representative (“USTR”) take action, which may include imposing tariffs, where “the rights of the United States under any trade agreement are being denied” or “an act, policy, or practice of a foreign country” is “unjustifiable and burdens or restricts United States commerce.” 19 U.S.C. § 2411(a)(1)(A)–(B). The USTR may impose duties also where the USTR determines that “an act, policy, or practice of a foreign country is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts United States commerce.” Id. § 2411(b)(1). This power is conditioned on extensive procedural requirements including an investigation that culminates in an affirmative finding that another country imposed unfair trade barriers under § 2411(a)(1)(A) or (B) or § 2411(b), and a public notice and comment period. See id. § 2414(b).”…
I’ve just gotten started, but that citation is just one reason why the ruling can be overturned on appeal.
The Sec 301/302 investigation and process noted above was completed by USTR Jamieson Greer, with extensive citation. USTR Greer published a 397-page investigative outcome detailing the “unreasonable and discriminatory” burdens to United States commerce. [SEE HERE pdf]
The New York trade court literally ignored the 2025 USTR investigation, AND the 2025 Dept of Commerce review and investigation of the same based on the USTR published findings. All of those factual investigative findings underpin the Presidential actions taken pursuant to his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
It looks like the trade court didn’t even review the USTR reports.
The USTR link to review all of the legal and trade details on the Trump tariffs IS HERE.
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