MONITOR INTERDEPENDENCE

“What the President achieved over the last week? I actually think he's achieved something. So Iran showed that it has control over the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah. That's actually very important and a major loss to the United States. When someone reveals a weakness that you had, that's as bad as them creating a weakness. And so if eight weeks ago, Iran didn't understand itself to have leverage, it had never had the opportunity to test it. Today it does.”

“The administration has proposed a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, which makes me think, okay, this is all noise, this is all nonsense. Gas prices are continued to be elevated. I think there are more than 30 percent since the war began. It seems as though this is only going to continue. At least that's my sense, but maybe I'm being pessimistic.”

“Another way of saying that is we've lost the ability to contract over time. There is no NAFTA. There literally can't be a NAFTA. If I were to say, Ed, I'm going to marry you, which would be beautiful. But I just didn't come home on Tuesday, and then I came back a week later, and then I didn't come home on Thursday. And I didn't cook dinner for you on Friday. Are we married?”

“I'm confused because we have one extra layer that we don't normally have, which is we have no idea what the truth is. I'm not being funny. There was a time when someone said the following is a red line, you would understand it to be a red line. There was a time when someone said these are the conditions, you understood it to be the conditions. There was a time when someone said we've reached an agreement, you would understand that they'd reached an agreement. None of those things are true right now.”

“Iran showed that it has control over the Strait of Hormuz. That's actually very important and a major loss to the United States. When someone reveals a weakness that you had, that's as bad as them creating a weakness. And so if eight weeks ago, Iran didn't understand itself to have leverage, it had never had the opportunity to test it. Today it does.”

“The administration has proposed a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, which makes me think, okay, this is all noise, this is all nonsense. Gas prices are continued to be elevated. I think there are more than 30 percent since the war began. It seems as though this is only going to continue. At least that's my sense, but maybe I'm being pessimistic.”

“The US Iran ceasefire expires tomorrow and tensions are mounting. Both countries' delegations are headed to Pakistan to engage in talks ahead of the deadline. President Trump said it's quote, highly unlikely that the ceasefire would be extended if a deal was not reached before Wednesday. He also said the US would continue to blockade the Strait of Hormuz until a deal is signed.”

“What if we learn that this world is wildly interdependent? More so than most of us appreciate. The moment you try and chop off an arm, all of a sudden you discover interdependencies and what there seems to be. At least those two stories tell us that that may be a fairly general thing.”

“What the president calls a deal is not, I promise I will give up this and you will give up that. Promise means I'm going to follow through. What he has at the moment is press releases. What he's capable of delivering is, if you do this and I do this and it's in your best interests and it's in my best interests, we can get there. Which is basically a small set of possible outcomes.”

“What if we learn that this world is wildly interdependent? More so than most of us appreciate. The moment you try and chop off an arm, all of a sudden you discover interdependencies and what there seems to be. At least those two stories tell us that that may be a fairly general thing.”