USD: Geopolitics, defence shift and data calendar – Rabobank

Rabobank’s Global Strategist Michael Every argues US strategic aims in Gulf War 3 and control of Middle East energy could reshape US hegemony and the Dollar’s backdrop. The report notes a rush into new US defence systems, questions NATO’s future, and points to upcoming US data including consumer confidence and JOLTS, alongside comments from Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee.

War strategy and macro data watch

"The implications for the US in this war are also far beyond oil prices and the mid-terms: Trump’s ‘reverse perestroika’ and 21st century US hegemony may pivot on who wins. If the US wins, it de facto controls Middle East energy and can build a new architecture there. Yet financial press op-eds arguing for a ‘blueprint for Chinese global leadership’ could be right if the US loses - in which case everyone clinging to the flotsam and jetsam of the ‘rules-based order’ loses too."

"Only if one starts with that strategic geopolitical imperative is Trump’s potential willingness to climb the escalatory ladder predictable, as is that there can’t be the ‘TACO’ markets want. That thinking underlines our geopolitical base case this war is largely over in 2-3 weeks, on favourable terms to the US – which is what Secretary of State Rubio just told the G7 too: but only after things get much worse first. If they get worse and stay there, so will the economic projections."

"In the US, there is a rush to shift to new defence systems, so cheap drones are not fought with million-dollar missiles. That will entail a major military-industrial structural shake-up, with lessons learned from Ukraine, whose prowess Germany’s Rheinmetall CEO was recently mocking."

"In the US, it’s March consumer confidence and February JOLTS job openings. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee is also due to speak."

(This article was created with the help of an Artificial Intelligence tool and reviewed by an editor.)