Blain’s Morning Porridge Sept 7th, 2026 – What the Falklands tells us about how the Trump Regime is Changing The World.
“Someday, I will call upon you to perform a service for me…”
Trump is the most unrestrained US president – yet is supported by the richest and most successful men in America even as we watch him upend everything the USA once stood for. What if Trump is just the front-man for a Regime that is changing the World – breaking traditional relationships and alliances to create a stronger America as China threatens to supersede it? Europe is struggling with the new rules of America’s primacy, the end of the Nato Era, the emergence of a new American hemisphere, and how nations should relate to the new Imperial USA. How these will all play in the Great Game to be Global Hegemon is as yet unclear, but the world is changing fast.
Key Takeaways
- There is nothing a good conspiracy theory to start the week, but there is a reason right-wing US billionaires are so keen to support Trump. They are looking to the future and how to protect their power, position and influence. Trump was the perfect front-man for them.
- The Trump regime has been willing to risk America’s soft-power to secure a new era of America Primacy, and to create an imperial US hemisphere. Canada, Greenland and the Falklands are all game-pieces to be resolved.
- Trump’s instance on leading global peace initiatives may be rooted in his desire for legacy Nobel prize, but the Regime’s objectives are about confirming US primacy over its allies, as are the demands they pay for their own defence.
- Trump may think the USA can recover its’ position as the global manufacturing power – the promise made to MAGA faithful – but the Regime believes a new American hemisphere and tech-power and supremacy could maintain economic power.
- Trump is willing to kow-tow to Emperor Xi of China and Tzar Putin of Russia because that’s where Global power resides. Why deal with divided Europeans, when there is a new world order to create?
- Trump’s green-light to Argentina on the Falklands wasn’t random – it was a deliberate statement on intent on what the new world will look like.
I’ve been reading the new talk-of-the-town sensationalist book: The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. It’s… interesting. Get past the verbiage and it’s about how billionaire techies have banded around Trump because they see opportunity – which is scary and very far removed from the constitution. To be clear it’s an intriguing book. I don’t agree with it… all.
The rest of us? Well, we will just have to live with the consequences. And consequences are what matter when trying to predict what happens next.
A few years ago I would have dismissed the Nerd Reich as a conspiracy manga. Today… We are all aware the world is changing fast. What was extraordinary just a few years ago is now considered normal. We hardly bat an eyelid at the latest outrage from politicians or businessmen. However, every action has consequences – and trying to pin together the outcomes from the multiple consensus shaking events occurring around us is increasingly obscured by the screeds of misinformation, fake-news, and distortions around us.
Someday we are going to wake up… but for now, we are buried in news streams that are overwhelming us. No problem… just ask your AI (owned, controlled, and rented to you by the same Trump voting billionaires). Your AI will tell you what it all means… The most successful propaganda is that which makes us look the other way.
Take a look at the news this morning and it will not fill you with a sense of stability. The AfD winning the Saxony-Anhalt vote will likely tumble the German Government as its firewall against the pro-Russian right-wing populists crumbles. We’re looking at the reality of rising US rates after last week’s strong US employment numbers – and wondering how that will impact the liquidity that’s fuelling the US markets. It even sounds like the Maga Princes are preparing for Civil War post Trump – Vance’s mate in the DoD has gone as Hegseth lines up his unlikely run at the nomination. (Spoiler alert – Vance will win.) Meanwhile, Trump’s travelling circus of unqualified diplomats and special representatives (of the Trump family) are telling Zelensky how to surrender his nation. Scotty Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, has blamed rising inflation, and record high US diesel prices, on the Ukrainians destroying Russian Oil and Gas infrastructure. The US trade rep warned the UK not to deal with Europe… but to continue down the road to Brexit nowhere.
And this morning I read the weather pattern developing in the Eastern Pacific referred to as the “Godzilla El Nino” – that can’t possibly be a good thing for food prices…
But perhaps it will a comparatively little thing that proves to be the camels-back moment everything breaks and the centre does not hold.
Last week Argentina’s electorally embattled President Milei declared his intention to sanction the UK over oil exploration around the Falkland Islands and repeated the distracting, useful patriotic lie “Las Malvinas son Argentina”. Mass shrugs across the British Isles – we’ve been here before. Then Donald Trump gave Argentina an implicit green light to seize the islands – because Britain hadn’t supported him over Iran: “your country was not there to help me” he told GB News.Trump says he is rethinking his (note – his, not America’s) options towards Britain.
How the world has changed. America has previously been clear: we are neutral, but these are de-facto British islands. On an imperial whim Trump has apparently changed. No one is the states is particularly bothered – wondering why a pile of rocks in the South Atlantic can possibly matter. For Americans who think it shocking, there is no one to coalesce their opposition around as the traditional Democrat gentocracy battles with the young “Socialists” who’ve read the MAGA playbook on how to take-over a political party.
All of which is a perfect blank page for a new world to be written on – the kind of world the Nerd Nazis is all about.
It’s immaterial what kind of deal Trump might have made with Milei for Trump Oil Industries to take over the reserves, and what licence fee he will take as personal renumeration for giving the Land of Silver the Falklands’ revenues.
The UK and America were once the most respectful of allies. It worked. It was a century of growth. Today, the American President has decided alliances are transactional. If Britain upsets his Imperial America – then it will pay a cost. This is not the way the diplomacy of alliances, relationships and friendships worked. It’s the world of Mafia Dons demanding service – where the Don’s are rich men with unmatched power and unsurpassed influence. Trump delivered the UK a clear signal that under the reign of his MAGA Republicans, the UK can no longer rely on the USA to support British citizens to remain British – a fundamental right. Every other western state will have taken note. Canada, Greenland, The Falklands… the world has changed.
Think it through further. If Trump can bully European nations, what will the guys that back him, the Tech Billionaries, expect? Similar strong arm tactics to cut regulation to ensure that US owned social media, AI and other forms of Tech supremacy continue to dominate while extracting rents from users?
The Chinese will be delighted.
The Trump Regime has done exactly what the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians and the North Koreans hoped, prayed and expected him to do – fracture, diminish, and break the economic and military power of the West by nullifying the hegemonic heft of America – which was largely a function of its alliances.
What might come next? The global economy is de-dollarising, and nations are selling off US Treasuries, notionally in search of better returns, but deep down many see the swirling political polarisation of US politics, the deepening antagonism and fractures as irreversible, out of control spending, and the unconstrained authoritarian presidency, as portents the USA may not be sustainable or a reliable partner. As I wrote last week, the US would be bloody stupid to default to punish buyers of Treasuries. Sure enough, there are MAGA politicians suggesting they do it.
If such noise ruptures the political stability, or competency, of the US are even a fractional non-zero risk – then it’s time to diversify. Norway, a very large Sovereign Wealth Fund with a nation attached, has decided to slash its Treasury allocations. They will not be the only nation thinking it’s time to exit Treasuries before the bond market slides further.
However, somewhere deep behind the apparent madness of the Trump regime is something… disruptive, distracting and I am increasingly sure that JD Vance (Peter Theil’s chosen representative here on Earth) will be the MAGA candidate in November 2028, representing the wishes and desires of the Silicon Valley overlords. It may spell the emergence of a new technocratic, authoritarian USA… but also a USA that is sustainable.
For the record: The Falklands
On the basis many Americans subscribe, here is a brief history of the Falklands.
The Falkland Islands were discovered by an Englishman in 1690. They were settled by the French (Malvinas is a reference to the French port of St Malo) in 1764 and by the British in 1765. The Spanish acquired the French settlement through a deal in 1770, briefly threw out the English, who returned in force the following year. But they were squabbling over bleak, windswept isles with no apparent economic or military value. The English withdrew in 1774 but did not cede their sovereignty of the Island. The Spanish stayed on a few more years but also gave up and left.
The global economy changes quickly. Within 50 years, the route around Cape Horn was seen as a strategic choke point in maritime trade. In 1820 an American privateer claimed the deserted island for what became Argentina and set up a base, but the Americans chased them out in 1830 after they’d seized American whalers that had entered its “territorial waters”. The British returned in 1833, citing their previous sovereignty claims, and the Argentinian authorities (who has returned) left. The British brought in settlers (it’s unclear if any Spanish Argentine settlers remained or were absorbed into the new community), established sheep farming on the islands, built provisioning ports, and later coal bunkering facilities. The islands became a crown colony in 1840, and the capital was established in Port Stanley in 1845.
The Island’s strategic value was demonstrated during the First World War when the Royal Navy used the Islands to resupply before they destroyed a German Squadron that had been operating across the Pacific and Southeast Asia. In 1965 the United Nations ruled that a sovereignty dispute existed between Britain and Argentina. The Argentinian case was the islands were their territory, forcibly taken by the British. The British case was they never surrendered sovereignty and the self-determination of the Island’s population overwhelmingly chose to remain British.
In 1982, during one of Argentina’s periodic flirtations with military juntas, the failing regime (a theme of Argentine politics) of General Galtieri decided to distract opinion by seizing the Islands. They expected the UK government to negotiate a formal surrender of sovereignty. Instead, Margaret Thatcher dispatched a Navy/Army task force which swiftly dispatched the invaders in a stunning 108-day campaign that showcased British determination and force of arms.
In 1982 there were 1813 British civilians living on the islands. Three of them were killed. 904 UK and Argentinian servicemen died during the campaign. More than 11,000 Argentinian conscripts surrendered.
So… who has the rights over the island today?
The Falklands has been populated by settlers supporting Britain through 183 years of continuous settlement and administration. Since 1982 Britain has established regular air communication, built a secure fisheries industry, and enabled a local legislative assembly to run the Islands. Now the island is set to reap returns from the natural resources in the seas around them – which are 300 miles off the Argentinian coast. In 2013 there was a referendum. 92% of the population turned out. 1513 said yes, voting to remain a British Overseas Territory. 3 people said No.
It’s abundantly clear why Milei wants the island. The expectation of significant oil revenues will prop up his regime. Likewise, the Nerd Nazi’s understand energy. The USA has been a nation for 67 years longer than the Falklands have been British. There were people in America before the Mayflower arrived. The US is not debating whether America should be handed back to the native tribes.
What are Trump’s goals? He believes the US should be transactional, and that the current international system is “unfair”. He doesn’t perceive any benefits to America from alliances such as Nato. Under his new “Trump-row” doctrine he believes the whole of North America and South America are part of America’s strategic zone. Under that vision it does not matter if redundant European alliances are sundered.
It seems highly unlikely Canada will accept Trump’s invitation to become the 51st state. Denmark will not sell the Greenlanders to Washington, and the UK will not be told what to do… That sets up potential future conflicts between Europe and the USA which a future MAGA president may see fit to inflame to distract American voters from the economic costs of fractured alliances…
Out of time and back to the day job…
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge
CEO Windshift Capital
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital
Meanwhile, don’t forget about my new book: The Battle for Hamble
You can read a review on the Society of Professional Economist’s website here.
