Joining me this morning to weigh in is Patrick L.
Young, Chairman and founder of Exchange Invest.
Good morning, Patrick.
Great to have you back.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Well, we are coming off quite a week with President Trump's visit to China.
It was mostly cordial and a productive trip, depending on who you ask, but concerns for Taiwan's security are also emerging as Xi Jinping talked a big game.
So what are your key takeaways here?
Frankly, I don't think anything much changed as a result of the visit.
I actually think we can sleep a little bit more easily.
Yes, indeed, Trump did not turn around and actually give a direct commitment to supporting Taiwan, but that has always been the nature of the strategic ambivalence of the USA, particularly so given the fact that the Taiwanese Prime Minister himself has said some things that can be quite inflammatory towards China, and ultimately, the last thing Trump wants to be doing is encouraging.
Encouraging either party to get stuck in.
Therefore, by giving the Chinese a clear understanding that the USA may well decide that it's going to jump in, and don't forget the Trump administration's actually spent more money on Taiwan than pretty much any administration recently, and there's another vast multi-million dollar budgetary line awaiting signing on Trump's desk at the moment for more defenses to be sent to Taiwan.
So it's not as if he's managed to abandon the ship, but at the same point in time, he's given China the diplomatic niceties that they can understand.
And of course the rest of the trip was the usual soya beans, blah blah blah, all sorts of agri niceties.
Somebody buys a few planes off Boeing because they always do, and ultimately things look pretty good actually.
It wasn't a case of huge argument.
The world is definitively somewhat safer because China doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and certainly nor does Donald Trump.
Well Patrick, here in the US, we are continuing to monitor oil prices.
Now we are looking at elevated WTI and rent prices as we kick off a new trading week.
And over the weekend Iran attacked a nuclear power plant in the UAE.
Now Trump has been warning them that the clock is ticking and that he is meeting with his national security team in the Situation Room.
So what is next with the ceasefire?
What's next with the ceasefire is essentially who governs Iran.
Is it the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Council that seem to be effectively in charge at the moment?
They've got a huge amount of economic influence.
They're the very hardliners.
They want the nuclear weapons.
They want to stay in power come whatever.
Or is it going to be a more political leadership who might tend towards being gradually more pragmatic, towards realizing that they risk immolation at the hands of the Americans?
There's certainly Not doing anything to help themselves in terms of regional politics by attacking the UAE once again or elsewhere and therefore ultimately unity is pretty much against Iran even if it's only the United States of America that's saying so out in public.
And of course with driving season about to happen, I mean it's kicking off this weekend, what else can people be worried about but the price of gas?
That's quite obvious in the United States of America.
Yeah, and Patrick, while I have you here, I do want to shift our focus on across the Atlantic to the UK.
More than 90 Labour MPs are calling for Keir Starmer to resign after heavy local election losses.
So how will potential challengers navigate the resurfacing debate over rejoining the EU as they actually maneuver for control of the party?
The valley of madness has descended upon the UK Labour Party.
I mean, ultimately, having governed abysmally for the course of the last two years, now we're in the situation where there is one clear candidate who is believed to be hugely popular.
He occupies the left of the, of the party's fringes.
He also happens to be fanatically pro-European Union.
His name is Burnham, and his problem is that he's the mayor of Manchester.
He's not in parliament, so he has to go to a by-election.
One of his allies has resigned.
They're organizing the by-election right now, but here's the rub, even though Mr.
Burnham is a local boy in this constituency, very popular personally, actually the vote of the people in the area is hugely against the European Union, fanatically in favor of the new upstart.
Party reform.
This is the by-election of the century, quite possibly.
Certainly the by-election of the post-World War II era in the UK because if Andy Burnham can win this, then he's going to be leader of the Labour Party, Ergo, he's going to be Prime Minister.
If he loses it, his career is over and Keir Starmer may well try and shamble on as an ineffective Prime Minister for many more months to come.
Well Patrick, very quickly I do want to ask you about the US and Nigeria collaborating on a joint counterterrorism operation to neutralize the deputy commander of ISIS.
So what do you make of this?
Well, it takes us all back, doesn't it?
I mean, we're just thinking about the fact that there's only one or two threats in the world and we've all focused on the Hormuz Strait, but actually it's a dangerous world out there.
There are a large number of terrorist organizations who'd like to take down the prosperous West.
The fact that the US is cooperating with Nigeria amongst other African nations, I think is a great point.
It's a new dawn in Africa.
It's a new.
On in U.S.African relationships and therefore the US is trying to do the right thing by managing to make sure that there are fewer evil people in this world and ultimately they're working with the growing powers of Africa, Nigeria, incredible population pyramid, huge amounts of oil amongst all the resources.
That's going to be a massive growth story for the century to come.
Well, Patrick, a lot of regions in the world to keep our eyes on, so thank you so much for weighing in and as always, thank you so much for sharing your perspective.
