If there’s anything the ruble (which is more “beleaguered” than Jeff Sessions after a Trump Twitter tirade) did not need after plunging 9% this week following fresh U.S. sanctions it was, well, a Trump Twitter tirade.
But when it rains it fucking pours and the Kremlin is quickly discovering that unless this is all part of some elaborate ruse, their useful idiot in Washington has gone from plant to useless to outright problematic. Here he is telling Russia to “get ready” for some “nice new” U.S. missiles:
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2018
As you can see, the time stamp on that is 6:57 a.m. ET and it immediately hit the ruble:
And guess what else jumped on Trump’s war tweet? Why, crude, of course:
This is the “Bolton premium” getting priced back in and you’ve got to think Saudi Arabia doesn’t mind the fact that these apparently imminent airstrikes will not only piss Tehran off, but also drive crude higher.
The ruble for Russia here is that the ruble and crude have become completely disconnected – in other words, higher oil ain’t gonna help this time. As Bloomberg’s Luke Kawa notes on Wednesday morning, “we’re on track for the ruble’s biggest one week underperformance of Brent since 2009”:
One should never get in bed with Trump. Ask anybody…
Grinding Putin into the dust bin of history is not a bad thing, regardless of who does it.
Trump will dump $100 million worth of cruise missiles on a Syrian airfield, and Syrian government aircraft will be flying in and out of there 24 hours later. Remember last time? Trump is almost as whimpy as Obama was when it comes to red lines.
Air strikes against Assad will ultimately just prolong the civil war, and cause more death and destruction. What’s another year of fighting, and 100,000 casualties, to simply insure that chlorine gas is not used for about 100 of them?