Welcome to another week! We lived through the Trump meeting drama and now we wait for the fruition of the encounter. Apart from that we are keeping our eyes on Venezuela where the US is gearing up for a major escalation.

Apart from being volatile, 2025 definitely took the weekends away - seems like we have geopolitical news on a daily basis.

Weekly Outlook

US Inc.

We are starting with Venezuela, where the USS Gerald R. Ford will be deployed. Per the Trump admin, the world’s largest aircraft carrier is sent there to counter narco-terrorism. However, that’s not the whole story. Drugs are a second order effect from China having control over the country. Venezuela serves as sort of a base for Chinese actions on the Western Hemisphere. The real aim of the build-up is to eliminate Maduro.

Thus all the strikes on drug carrying boats are nothing more than an act as they will not result in less fentanyl being available in America. The real action is ahead.

A similar thing can be said about sanctions on Gustavo Pedro. While Colombia is officially a US ally, it has been criticizing the recent build-up of military force. The sanctions are less about drugs and more about keeping the Colombia’s president in line.

While we are awaiting the Trump-Xi meeting and the future of the trade war, America and Australia agreed to invest $3 billion in critical minerals projects over then next 6 months. While it may sound as all the problems regarding rare earths are solved, there is quite a long lag between investment and actual production.

In the meantime, the US government shutdown continues, passing the 1996 one for the second longest shutdown ever. Lawmakers are nowhere near a compromise and Trump along with Republicans continues to move existing funds around to fund Republican-aligned causes, costing Democrats. Trades are taking this into account, now projecting that we will see over 35-day long shutdown, breaching the current record (under Trump 1):

Trump is currently on an Asian round-trip, visiting Malaysia for the ASEAN summit, Japan and South Korea where he is supposed to meet with Xi. We are bound to see some funny videos and maybe some important statements.

Lastly, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder of Binance. In return, CZ vowed to make America the capital of crypto, suggesting that there are wider plans behind this pardon.

The Americas

Petrobras, a Brazilian oil giant is set to begin drilling an exploratory well in the Amazon basin. You can’t make up this convenient timing. Just as Venezuela is looking to be attacked, it’s oil exports no longer easily accessible to either Iran or China, the anti-US bloc potentially finds another source of oil in another LatAm ally.

While the US struggles to control Brazil and Venezuela, it managed to hold on to Argentina. After promising the $20 billion currency swap as well as future assistance contingent on Milei’s party victory in the midterm election, exactly that happened. We might also learn this week if Argentina will be selling soybeans to China.

Asia

Just before the highly anticipated Trump-Xi meeting, Scott Bessent informed that America and China have agreed on a positive framework for trade talks between the two leaders. While Bessent was very optimistic, suggesting that China would delay introducing a rare earth embargo as well as buy American soybeans (looking at Argentina and Brazil), the Chinese side was more restrained in the official address and mentioned neither. I don’t expect China to fold easily. Also traders don’t expect any of the previous measures to be lifted:

I personally think it is just one chapter in a bigger scheme.

Takaichi Sanae became Japan’s first female prime minister. She is looking at favorable ratings as well as a strong start as after her diplomatic debut at ASEAN, she is set to meet with Trump.

Speaking of ASEAN, Trump took part in the official signing of a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand. Trump also signed trade deals with both countries as well as a deal with Malaysia on trade and critical minerals, complementing the deal with Australia.

In Thailand, Queen Sirikit, the mother of Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn, died on Friday, aged 93. She’s been very popular in Thailand, even as she receded from the public life after a stroke in 2012. The country is in mourning now.

Middle East & Africa

JD Vance visited Israel last week, in an effort to facilitate the ceasefire deal and hope to move it to the next phase. However, just as he was there the Knesset voted to annex the West Bank which made the Trump administration furious. Don’t doubt it though, it will happen eventually.

But when it comes to the future of the ceasefire, Netanyahu said that Israel will decide on the make-up of any international security force in Gaza, making it a de facto Israel-controlled force. Well, I said so. Additionally Rubio said that several countries have already volunteered troops, probably in hopes to gain some value from the future of Gaza.

In Sudan, Rapid Support Forces, a rebel militia, took over the army headquarters in el-Fasher in the region of Darfur after an 18-month siege. It’s the government’s last remaining base in the west of the country, making it realistic for RSF to consolidate its control in the region and break up Sudan.

Europe

Trump did yet another switcheroo, claiming that Ukraine has now shot to win the war with Russia, in a dire attempt to salvage the talks with Putin. It didn’t succeed as Europe is not ready to make any concessions so the talks are now postponed indefinitely.

Additionally, European officials claim that there is progress towards a deal that would allow using frozen Russian assets to fund the Ukraine war.

Europeans are also apparently close to reach a shaky consensus to sign an interim deal with Mercosur, a LatAm trading bloc. The deal would open European market for South American agricultural products, posing risk to countries like France or Poland (while being beneficial to Germany, which could sell it’s vehicles there without tariffs). The matter is still being contested though and there is plenty that could happen between now and December 5th, when the signing is planned to happen - eg. a difficult European Parliament vote.

And while the US and China are amid a cold war, China became Germany’s top trading partner. Interesting, since German producers lack access to critical minerals (thanks to Chinese embargo) while simultaneously facing high tariffs from America on cars and machinery, its main export product. However, it seems that Germany’s manufacturing and services sectors expanded in October, according to a flash estimate of S&P Global’s purchasing managers’ index (from 52 to 53.8).

Business, Finance & Economics

Oil prices rose 5% after Trump announced sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil (two largest Russian oil companies) and the EU announced new sanctions on Russian energy sector. However this one analyst I’m reading claims that sanctions have little to do with this price movement.

PrimaLend Capital Partners filed for bankruptcy after missing interest payment on its debt. The sub-prime lender focusing on cars will now try to sell its business in bankruptcy courts. This comes as car loan defaults are on the rise and after two other companies (First Brands and Tricolor) also went bust.

OpenAI launched an AI web browser ChatGPT Atlas, after Google incorporated Gemini into Chrome. I’m not sure what’s the buzz all about as I still didn’t check it out, but I’m happy for one of you to tell me.

Tariffs

Outside of US-China trade war, there was also news around Canada. Trump ended trade talks with the country because of an advertising campaign launched by Ontario, that featured Ronald Raegan speaking negatively about tariffs. Trump also decided to up the tariff on Canada by 10%.

Wrap up

That’s all for today. I am awaiting news around US-China trade war while researching Venezuela and finishing up the post mortem on Gaza.

I’m still thinking about the topic for the next deep dive. So in the meantime stay strong and see you soon!