Well, Japan is the leading foreign creditor of Washington's borrowing. It holds $1.2 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, and a country like ours, the world's largest debtor, depends on the kindness of foreign lenders. Any meaningful liquidation of those holding would be a market shock that would drive interest rates higher. So, Scott Bessent is protecting the strained Treasury market with clever currency machinations. The secretary, like the president he serves, must be a stable genius.

And yet…

With virtually his next official breath, Bessent announced a major new initiative to further weaponize the dollar, a program the leading success of which is to drive foreign states further from the dollar. His full tilt intervention explicitly threatens dollar holders around the world, making clear that the dollar is not a neutral and reliable monetary instrument like gold; their dollar holdings are subject to Washington's policy whims.

"ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences," wrote President Donald Trump on Truth Social (his bold and caps, not mine).

So, with Washington's borrowing needs greater than ever, the Treasury keeps threatening foreign dollar holders.   

It is the kind of madness that has driven countries to lighten up on the dollar, grow central bank gold reserves, and develop bilateral and multilateral dollar alternatives.

Many people are accustomed to such discordance in all the state's behavior. They take its baffling contradictions as a given of governments, the more so the bigger the government.  And ours in this biggest in the world.

For example:

To this day, Washington still spends millions on tobacco crop subsides, even as it spends additional millions on anti-tobacco programs.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture encourages people to eat more produce and less sugar while it spends their money on crops that become fats and sugar.

In his madcap war with Iran, President Trump has pledged that America is ready "to come to the rescue of the Iranian people"; that he is finally giving them "what they want." Yet who can forget his April social media post saying, "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again"? Or "We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong."
If there is a thin line between genius and madness, we know which side the powers on the Potomac are on. This is not mere cognitive dissidence. It's the behavior of schizophrenics who shouldn't be in charge of anything but the Play-Doh in the asylum rec room.