➡ The article discusses the current state of the economy, focusing on the strength of the dollar, gold and silver prices, and the impact of tariffs. It mentions that the dollar has weakened recently, but gold and silver are slowly climbing. The article also highlights the possibility of interest rate cuts and the potential impact of ongoing negotiations with other countries on the economy. Lastly, it emphasizes the role of trade terms, budget deficit, and the dollar level in determining the trade deficit.
➡ The Trump administration is working on controlling the budget deficit, which they believe will help with the trade deficit. They are also focusing on tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, currency manipulation, and subsidies. In other news, Fortuna Mining has completed the sale of their San Jose mine in Mexico, receiving a total of $7.7 million and the rights to receive approximately $8.3 million more upon meeting certain conditions. They also announced the sale of their Yaramoko mine in Burkina Faso.

It’s a result of the terms of trades, it’s a result of our budget deficit, and it’s the result of the level of the dollar. And, you know, we want a strong dollar. Well, hello there, my friends. Chris Marcus here with you for Arcadia Economics and what I promise will be an exciting show because even though somewhat gold only up 12 bucks today, somewhat more stable pricing than what we have seen recently as the gold futures up at 23.38. Amazing given what we saw two weeks ago after the reciprocal tariffs were levied and gold below 3,000, silver printing below 28, and there’s silver slowly climbing back up.

Hasn’t had quite the same explosive moves as gold, but here we are at 32.24 in the futures. And then along with that, as we’ll dig into more commentary from Scott Besant that we will cover today’s show. And nothing about a reset today or anything like that, although he did comment on the strong dollar which has not been quite as strong recently as it really fell off a cliff in the last two weeks here. And here we are back on April 9th. So that’s just a week ago continuing its fall down to 99.66 today.

And interesting when you take a look back, here’s the one-year chart. So we see below here, again that was right before the Fed cut 50 basis points before their September meeting, which I still think was odd given that they had paused the meeting before then. Yet nonetheless that’s what happened and we see it got down to 99.66 below there and we’re at 99.67. So to those who subscribe to the technical analysis, it sure looks like that level, I don’t know, has that broken through yet? I’m not going to say that implies we’re going down here yet.

We’ll hear what Scott had to say about the strong dollar, which is less strong recently. And again, that was that stunning rise got over 110 and I’d wondered if once the impact of the tariffs were felt, if there would have been a reversal. And in this case, it turns out that was right on that one. So got one right here. Lovely accounts got the gold price right, maybe took 15 years, but it’s higher today. So anyway, certainly something you want to keep an eye on has been volatile. Today was down earlier in the morning.

There you can see 99.37 has rebounded since then and the 10-year yield has come in a bit the last two days, still quite a bit higher there. 383 was the low in the yield and here we are at 434. So we’ll be fascinating to watch how today we have the stock markets up slightly and just seeing how the money shifts between all of these markets. And certainly we’ve seen a handful of it go into gold and silver, which we will cover and we’ll get to Scott soon. I know I promised him, but setting the context for that, if I may, here we have yesterday, this is the Fed’s Susan Collins, head of the Boston Fed, saying the Fed is absolutely ready to help stabilize the market if needed, says markets are continuing to function well, but they do have the tools to address concerns if market functioning or liquidity needs should arise.

Well, we knew that we’ve seen that over the past couple of years. What was interesting though, is that she says here the specs inflation could well be above 3% this year, which certainly is in contrast to what the Fed’s dot plot had, where despite how in December they were forecasting 2025 inflation at 2.5%, so they increased that projection to 2.7% just a couple months later, yet still saw everything coming right back down to 2%, only three years from now. And of course that’s going to happen while they’re saying they’re going to cut interest rates, although it sounds like Susan Collins disagrees with that in terms of things that have been discussed on this channel or other places in gold and silver.

Here we have Financial Times saying US dollar Haven’s status under threat according to fund managers, including Bob Michelle, Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan. So JP Morgan suggesting Haven status under threat while Jamie Dimon is talking about a curve fluffle and he says there will be a curve fluffle in the treasury markets because of all the rules and regulations. When that happens, the Fed will step in, but not until they start to panic a bit. So reassuring words there. And as we can see here, even before said curve fluffle, the futures market is pricing in more interest rate cuts on the way.

And as I’ve talked about before, going to be impacted by what is happening in the White House. So let us take it over to Scott descent, who was on Fox business and hear what he had to say today. Does Japan put an offer on the table yet? I haven’t seen anything from them, but Larry, I can tell you that there are 50, 60, maybe almost 70 countries now who have approached us. So it’s going to be a busy April, May, maybe into June. So April, May, maybe into June. I thought that was interesting, just in terms of putting some context and timeline on there.

We’ll take a look at the S&P and you can see here above 6,100 has been briefly below 5,000. Stock markets have not responded well so far to the tariff. So makes you wonder if there’s going to be negotiations going back and forth that could go the way they intend or might go differently. We will see what the impact of that is on the stock market going forward. And here we go. So there’s some confusion about these numbers. We looked up the international trade administration shows Japan with a 4.3% average tariff, 4.3% average tariff.

Okay. But in the chart that President Trump showed last week, the so-called reciprocal charge offs, it has Japan at 46%. Now I know how you get to 46% using deficits as a trade deficit as a share of imports, but that’s an odd way to look at it. I mean, really, there may be twice as much as us, but they’re not all this much. I mean, 46 is a much higher number than 4.3. And I think there’s a lot of confusion in the market about what becomes necessary here. Well, Larry, first of all, one of the reasons President Trump cut the numbers in half was because of what you just said.

The other is that academic studies have shown that it’s the non-tariff trade barriers that are the real problem in the US having free and fair access to these markets. I mean, if you think about it, I think on most products, the Chinese tariff is only 5%. But does anybody think that that’s a free market? It could be the testing in cars. It could be GMO restraints in food. I mean, come on, we buy $3 billion a year of Australian beef, but we can’t export to them. So there are a lot of non-tariff trade barriers, and Japan’s are quite high.

And I am sure that we will have a very productive negotiation with the Japanese delegation. So there you have it. Seems like there’s a lot of dispute between the numbers and also feels like perhaps there’s some maybe more academic assumptions in there than perhaps I would feel comfortable with. Although anyway, just wanted to let you hear what he had to say. And two more quick highlights we will see We will grow. We, the United States, will grow faster than Japan. We will grow faster than almost anybody. Therefore, almost by definition, by growing faster than the rest of the world, we’re always going to have a trade deficit.

I just thought that was an interesting comment right now. And certainly as someone who has left the US and is quite happy to be back here where I’m from, sometimes I still don’t quite get those statements that just because it’s the US, it grows faster. I mean, perhaps if certain ways of doing business and policy and a more stable currency, then certainly that would strengthen that argument. And Scott still hasn’t laid out what he said a while ago, a couple months now, when he said that he was planning to monetize assets on the US balance sheet over the next 12 months.

So we don’t know exactly what his plan there, but I just thought the way he phrased that there reminded me a little bit of this guy. Why do we have a $60 billion a month trade deficit if we’re producing so much stuff? Because we’re so rich, we can afford it here. Because our money is so valuable because our credit is accepted worldwide that billions of peasants worldwide are willing to work in poorly lit, poorly ventilated factories just to get our paper money because it’s that precious. So anyway, we have one last segment with Scott where he talks about the trade deficit, the dollar, and let’s play that here.

Well, look, Larry, the trade deficit, as you and Art know, is a result of three things. It’s a result of the terms of trades, it’s a result of our budget deficit, and it’s the result of the level of the dollar. And we want a strong dollar, we are getting our budget deficit under control, which I actually think will help with the trade deficit. And then the third part is the tariff or the trade barriers, which we’re seeing. So I am confident that we will, again, as I said, the four factors will be tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, the currency manipulation, and whether it’s wage or industrial subsidies.

And I think we’re going to have very, very productive negotiations with these. And again, as you said on tariffs, or as you said on taxes, Larry, the real problem has been these barriers. So in either case, that is what Scott percent of the Trump administration is planning and expecting to happen. We will see how that goes. Here we have Gold, Edges, Hires, Traders React. To expanding trade war was the headline on Bloomberg and quite a bit else happening out there, which we will dig into a little bit more tomorrow. But before we wrap up, just did want to highlight that Fortuna Mining had been in the process of selling their San Jose mine, which then that initial deal was terminated, although they had news out yesterday that they have now completed the sale of their San Jose mine in Mexico, where they will be receiving a payment of $6.5 million, another payment of $1.2 million for prepaid working capital, and the rights to receive approximately $8.3 million upon the completion of certain other conditions, and also a 1 percent net smelter royalty on the first 6.1 million ounces of silver and the first 44,000 ounces of gold.

And of course, they also did announce the sale of their Yaramoko mine in Burkina Faso on Friday. And to find out a little bit more about that, as well as what our friend Dave Kranzler had to say, well, that one is coming your way now. [tr:trw].

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