Ahead of the midterms, President Donald Trump has returned to a favorite habitat – campaign rallies. Now that he has been back in office for nearly 21 months, he can’t rely only on promises but must instead refer to his actual record. Unsurprisingly, he has once again had to resort to exaggerations and outright falsehoods, given the extraordinary pessimism about the state of the economy. His recent visit to Youngstown, Ohio, to stump for Vivek Ramaswamy and Jon Husted was no different.

Inflation was a chief concern in the 2024 elections, and bringing it down was one of Trump’s core promises. The President boasted that prices are coming “way down,” but the opposite is true, thanks in no small part to his Iran War imbroglio. Not only has headline inflation risen in three of the last five months, to 3.7% in September, as a result of increased oil and gas prices; core inflation likewise increased in September – indicating that elevated energy prices are spilling over into higher prices throughout the economy.

Unsurprisingly, Trump has tried to blame Joe Biden for his self-inflicted inflation headache, alleging that he inherited the “worst inflation in American history.” Even at its Covid-related peak in 2022, inflation under Biden only reached 9% – a fraction of the 15% during the 1980 oil crisis, the 20% in 1947 after wartime price controls were lifted, and the 24% in 1920 after World War I. What’s more, Biden brought inflation down rapidly, lowering it to 2.4% by September 2024 and 3.0% when Trump assumed office.

On top of his tariffs, which pushed up goods inflation after Liberation Day, the central driver of CPI inflation in recent months has been gas prices. As we all now know too well, despite the U.S.’s abundant energy resources, the market for oil is global, and with the ongoing conflict in the Strait of Hormuz – and a new front opened by Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia – oil prices are up. Consequently, gas prices are up too – currently $4.35 on average, certainly not “lower than when Biden was president.” Under Biden, they averaged $3.46 per gallon and were as low as $3.01 at the end of his term.

The President has had a marginal effect in reducing drug prices. Since sticking to the facts is, of course, never a Trump principle, he’s instead turned to his habit of absurd exaggerations. According to Trump, drug prices are down 300–700%, meaning Americans now pay the “lowest drug prices” in the world. A price can’t fall by more than 100%, but taking the claim at its most charitable – that old prices were 300–700% above new ones – would mean a 75–88% reduction. In reality, prices are down 3.9%, a decrease that hasn’t budged the U.S. position at the top of the ranking for the most expensive drug prices worldwide.

A manufacturing renaissance has been a hallmark Trump bragging point – regardless of what the data says about the sector. According to the President, “we’re building more factories and plants right now than at any time in our history.” We were in fact doing just that – but under President Biden. Construction spending on new factories peaked at $267 billion in today’s dollars in August 2024, and manufacturing employment peaked at 12.9 million in January 2023. While manufacturing employment has begun to recover this year, adding 72,000 jobs after a 93,000 loss in Trump’s first year, factory building has continued its decline and is 31% below its level when Trump took office in today’s dollars.

While the promised factory boom has yet to materialize in the data, Trump still boasts he has negotiated “$21 trillion” in new private investment – in contrast to “less than $1 trillion” under Biden. The basis of the $21 trillion is mysterious, as even his own White House website compiles only $11.3 trillion in company and foreign-government announcements, a likely unreliable number as those investments will take place over years and may never fully occur. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis puts business investment under Biden at $14.5 trillion (more than 14 times Trump’s claim). Under Trump thus far, it’s $6.7 trillion, less than a third of the figure he’s bragging about on the campaign trail.

With less than a month remaining before the midterm Election Day, pundits are trying hard to read the tea leaves in an era when political polls have increasingly proved inaccurate. In that context, attention has turned to another election with some striking similarities to this year’s: the 2006 midterms in which George W. Bush’s Republicans were shellacked, losing control of both the House and the Senate. As with this year, in 2006, voters were faced with a war, rising costs and consequently, a deeply unpopular president.

In some respects, Donald Trump is facing a more difficult situation than Bush confronted. In 2006, gasoline prices were an issue, as they had shot up by more than 50% in the first 18 months following Bush’s second inauguration. But in the middle of 2006, they began to decline and by Election Day, they were only slightly higher than they had been when he entered office. Under Trump, however, gasoline prices shot up as soon as the Iranian war began and on November 3, are almost certain to be substantially higher than they were in 2006 (after adjusting for inflation). Trump promised $2 gasoline but Americans are currently paying $4.46 a gallon.

Oil prices have been a significant contributor to the overall increase in inflation this year. Rising prices have cut into workers’ purchasing power and have completely offset the wage increases that Americans achieved over the past year. That’s the opposite of what happened in the first 21 months of Bush’s second term. Inflation-adjusted wages fell in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina pushed up gasoline prices, but they rose sharply in the months before the election as pay rose and the inflation rate declined.

Most — although not all — other economic indicators are still tilted against Trump. At 3.4%, the inflation rate is more than double Bush’s 1.4%. And while the unemployment rates are similar, Trump has added just 500,000 jobs in the past year, compared to 2.2 million for Bush in the year before the 2006 election. Economic growth has been comparable across the two periods but mortgage rates — another thorn in the side of consumers — are substantially higher this year than they were 20 years ago (7.3% versus 6.4%).

That economic data caused both presidents to suffer from declining popularity at very similar rates. Unlike Trump, Bush began his second term just above the 50% mark, a level Trump has never attained in his second term. And while Bush’s popularity reached a low of 31% in May 2006, by Election Day, Bush had an approval rating of 38% versus Trump’s current 37%.

The most striking difference between the state of the country across the two periods is in the mood of consumers. Under Bush, consumers were relatively sanguine and, apart from a dip after Hurricane Katrina, remained so from Inauguration Day to Election Day. Under Trump, Americans began 2025 far more pessimistic and that pessimism has only grown since then. Among the differences between the time periods has been the tariffs; consumer sentiment took a particularly sharp fall around Liberation Day. Another difference is the chaos and corruption of the Trump era, which, while not directly economic matters, may be affecting Americans’ moods.

Another important non-economic factor is the war and here again, Trump is at a disadvantage, albeit a small one. On the other hand, the redistricting that Republicans forced through in a number of states this year has raised the longstanding Republican advantage in the median district, to R+3 from R+2 in 2006. Experts believe that this could add a net Republican advantage of about four House seats. Also important to note, the number of swing seats (those that are plus or minus 5 points) has dropped to about 80 from 108 in 2006, reducing the number of seats that would likely flip even in a wave election.

Perhaps the best news for Trump is that the current polling average for a generic ballot gives Democrats an advantage of 7 points. In 2006, they held an advantage of 11 points.

All told, Democrats added 31 House seats and 6 Senate seats in 2006. Current estimates are for Democratic additions of 20 to 35 House seats and 2 to 4 Senate seats.

Long-term interest rates have been marching upwards — and not because of anything that the Federal Reserve is doing. The rise brings higher costs for mortgage-seekers and businesses and may signal increasing worries about the state of federal finances.

The rate on 30-year Treasury bonds has risen by about three-quarters of a percentage point since Donald Trump returned to office, reaching its highest level since 2002. Much of that has occurred in just the last several months — an exceptionally fast rate of increase for the usually slow-moving Treasury market. Note that this has little, if anything, to do with the decision by the Federal Reserve to raise short-term interest rates. Longer term rates, including those on debt with maturities longer than 10 years, are influenced by the market’s perception of a number of factors, ranging from the level of inflation to the size of federal deficits and debt.

As every American knows, inflation soared during the Covid period and then began to work its way down, in part because the central bank raised short-term rates from near zero to a high of 5.5%. But inflation never got down to the Fed’s 2% target before several of Trump’s policies sent it back up. First came the tariffs in the spring of 2025, which directly added to costs for consumers. Then came the war against Iran, which led oil prices to spike. Those costs, including for gasoline and diesel fuel, are still working their way through the economy. Investors don’t want to buy bonds unless they are confident that the interest rate will be meaningfully in excess of the inflation rate.

Then there’s the state of federal finances. Trump came back into office promising to reduce the national debt and even begin to start paying it off. But the opposite has happened. A variety of policies — particularly his signature tax legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill — are adding to the deficit, at a time when we should be reducing it. All told, these changes will add at least $1.2 trillion to the deficit (and therefore to the debt) over the next five years. Economists have long worried that at some point, the credit markets may become deeply fearful of the amount of debt that the nation has amassed.

On top of that $1.2 trillion, Trump has made a number of promises that could add another $2.2 trillion of debt. Most notably, he recently said that if Republicans retain the House and the Senate, he would give every American adult a $5,000 payment. That would cost $1.2 trillion. That’s on top of two large earlier promises that have yet to come to pass: a $5,000 “DOGE dividend” to each household and a $2,000 per person “tariff dividend.”

All of these factors show up in what economists call the term premium — the extra interest investors demand to lock up their money in a 10-year Treasury rather than rolling over short-term Treasury bills. When investors become nervous about the future, they demand a higher interest rate for what they perceive to be the added risk. In addition to the aforementioned factors, there have been indications that some foreign central banks, including China and Japan, have been reducing their holdings of Treasuries. And our own Treasury Department may be worsening the situation by intervening in the market in unusual ways.

Higher interest rates are generally the enemy of stock prices. When interest rates on Treasuries and other debt rise, those investments become more attractive than buying stocks, with their lower dividend yields. So far, stock market headlines would not suggest this is happening; share prices remain near record levels. But if you separate out the artificial intelligence related stocks from the rest of the public companies, the market is actually down more than 5% from its peak just over a month ago.

President Trump is hosting his Chinese counterpart Xi Xinping today for a much-anticipated summit between the world’s two superpowers. Near the top of the agenda is, of course, the Iran War – along with tariffs, trade, and Taiwan. In recent weeks, another question has taken center stage: the existential questions both of our countries face in confronting and managing the rise of artificial intelligence.

The United States has a running start as it relates to the power of our A.I. models, but the Chinese are closing in fast. OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra and Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.1 have been the most recent entrants in the race, keeping frontier U.S. models ahead of their Chinese competitors – but just barely. Over the past year, DeepSeek’s V4, Moonshot’s Kimi K3 and Alibaba’s Qwen have put Silicon Valley on edge as they have closed that gap at a much lower cost of investment. On Epoch AI’s index, the best Chinese model now trails the best American one by about nine points – roughly six months.

The United States’ small but persistent advantage at the top comes after a much larger lead in the early years of the A.I. revolution. In 2022 – the year when ChatGPT was launched – U.S. companies released 42 major A.I. models against China’s 4, a tenfold difference. This year, China has released 29 of these systems, a 600% increase in four years and only 30% behind the U.S. count of 41.

The Chinese models are not only gaining ground in their capabilities, they are edging out the United States in their adoption by software developers. Data from OpenRouter, the marketplace developers use to access hundreds of models, shows that the Chinese share of tokens processed surpassed the American portion in March and is now more than double it – constituting two thirds of the total, against a third for U.S. models. In January 2025, the Chinese share was just 6%. While U.S. models – particularly ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude – still dominate the consumer market and corporate enterprise deals, independent developers have switched to Chinese offerings en masse. The reason? Most Chinese models are released “open weight,” free to download and run, and they cost 60% to 90% less per token than the American systems. To complete, OpenAI and Anthropic have responded in recent weeks with price cuts of their own.

The fundamental physical inputs for artificial intelligence are microprocessors, and on that front, U.S. corporations dominate. Of all the A.I. computing power sold since 2022, chips designed by American companies account for 96% – with Nvidia alone responsible for two thirds. China’s Huawei is under 4%. Here too, however, China has its own bargaining chip: Taiwan, where TSMC fabricates over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips – including virtually all of Nvidia’s – and which Xi Jinping has promised to reunify with the mainland. Presidents Biden and Trump have pushed to bring chip production home to prepare for this eventuality, and TSMC has committed $165 billion to fabs in Arizona. However, this build out will take time and has barely made a dent on global output thus far – making managing our bilateral relationship and protecting the status quo in the Taiwan Strait all the more indispensable.

Outside microchips, China remains the world’s industrial powerhouse. Much ink has been spilled in the press enumerating the weaknesses of the Chinese economy: depressed consumer spending, massive private debt, and demographic decline. These challenges are real, yet so are China’s strengths. Automation, for example, has huge potential to deliver productivity gains for several industrial sectors and depends on Chinese production. While A.I. is its software component, implementing automation in factories requires industrial robots – and China installed 295,000 of them in 2024, 54% of the world’s total and more than every other country combined. For its part, the United States installed 34,000, about 6%.

When I last visited China, I toured a car factory and saw how transformative robot-led automation can be. The scene looked like Jurassic Park – with T-Rex-shaped robots assembling automobiles to be shipped abroad with little human surveillance. These robots help replace the nation’s declining working-age population, and they open up a new frontier in the technology race with the U.S. Competing – and cooperating – with China on this terrain and others will require smart policy and steady leadership from the White House – both of which this administration has yet to deliver.

The 2026 midterm elections are in full swing and as usual, candidates are campaigning not just for votes but also for the funds needed to mount the ever-escalating cost of a campaign. Party committees and political action committees will continue to play a major role in the money race. And for the first time, the election will be fought under a somewhat amended set of rules, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling handed down at the end of June.

Campaigns access funds from three principal sources: direct contributions, funds from party committees and the efforts of political action committees. When it comes to money raised directly by candidates (which is limited to $3,500 per person for primaries and another $3,500 per person for general elections), Democrats are in the lead. As of June 30, Democratic House candidates had a total of $438 million on hand, compared to $386 million for Republicans. Similarly, Democratic Senate candidates had $210 million in the bank compared to just $121 million for Republican candidates. Democrats similarly lead in funds amassed by traditional political action committees, where donations are limited. But when it comes to party committees, where effective donation limits are in the hundreds of thousands per year, and super PACs, which operate with no limits, the picture is reversed.

Donations to candidates are generally more valuable because they can buy television time at discounted rates whereas traditional PACs can accept money while coordinating directly with candidates. In addition, until the recent Supreme Court decision, neither party committees nor super PACs could freely coordinate their activities with those of the campaigns. But now party committees can do so without spending limits, which makes their ability to receive almost unlimited donations more valuable.

When it comes to the most closely fought Senate races, Democrats are generally excelling. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia incumbent, had $42.6 million on hand on June 30, compared to just $2.1 million for his Republican challenger, Mike Collins. Similarly, James Talarico, a Texas challenger, reported $21.5 million of cash while his opponent Ken Paxton (who fought a tough primary with incumbent John Cornyn) had just $1.8 million. Likewise for Roy Cooper in North Carolina and Sherrod Brown in Ohio.

The disparity in funds on hand is largely made up for by the huge amount of cash reported by the Republican National Committee compared to just $16 million for the Democratic National Committee. In addition, the DNC had $18.5 million of debt while the RNC was debt free. The DNC has become an object of scorn among party regulars, in part because of its botched “after action” report. When it comes to the House and Senate committees, Republicans also lead, although by relatively modest margins.

As for Super PACs, the money race isn’t even close, in large part because of the huge war chest amassed by Donald Trump (part of why so many Republican candidates kowtow to him). Trump controls more campaign money than the House and Senate Republican Super PACs combined. But even putting Trump aside, Democrats still trail. (Democracy PAC II is George Soros’s Super PAC.) Note that the Supreme Court decision did not change the requirement that campaigns not coordinate with Super PACs.

Putting it all together, the 50 biggest donors have donated a total of $1.6 billion into these various buckets. Among those donors, the vast majority of the money has gone to Republicans, $1.05 billion compared to just $362 million to Democrats.

That disparity is even more pronounced among the very biggest donors. While George Soros was the biggest single donor at just over $100 million, nine of the 10 largest individual donors directed their money toward Republicans. Interestingly, half of the 10 largest contributors earned their fortunes in the technology or cryptocurrency industries. Some, like Marc Andreessen, had been major contributors to Democrats in past cycles.

At 2pm today, the Federal Reserve will announce the results of a particularly closely watched meeting to deliberate a possible change in interest rates. While the central bank is likely to leave rates unchanged, that outcome is not foreordained. And economists and financiers will be equally interested in what the new chairman, Kevin Warsh, says at the second press conference of his short tenure. While President Trump lambasted his predecessor, Jerome Powell, for not cutting rates, Warsh has been known for favoring a tough stance against inflation, which has now been running above the Fed’s 2% target for 63 months. Even if the Fed leaves rates unchanged, there could well be dissents among the 12 open market committee members.

Earlier this year, financial markets were expecting rates to continue to decline this year by as much as 0.75 percentage points, as the Covid-related inflation surge ebbed. But that trajectory has flipped around and in just the past week, markets have raised the probability of an increase today to just over 30%. Even if the Fed holds rates constant today, traders expect two hikes (a total of 0.5 percentage points) by the middle of next year. That would take rates back to where they were last October.

Why? In large part because of the upsurge in inflation since Trump began the war against Iran at the end of February. Last December, the Fed believed that inflation would ebb significantly in the course of this year. Even in March, after the war began, it expected the rate of price increase to ebb rapidly. But in its June forecast, as the war continued to grind on, it projected inflation remaining above 3% into next year. That was a month ago and with the war showing no sign of ending, expectations of future inflation have continued to deteriorate.

The Federal Reserve only controls short-term interest rates. Long-term interest rates are principally a function of inflation expectations and the real returns investors demand, so no surprise that those have also been increasing. The rate on the 30-year Treasury bond has been above 5% for about 30 days, the longest such stretch since 2007. For now, mortgage rates, which are currently around 6.6% have not fully reflected the increase in Treasury rates but that could be coming. In any event, Fannie Mae expects mortgage rates to still be at 6.4% at the end of the year, which obviously has negative implications for potential homebuyers.

Adjusting for inflation, rates are even higher relatively, at nearly 3%, the highest in at least 15 years. Inflation-adjusted rates at this high a level has significant negative implications for both consumers and businesses.

Why are “real” interest rates so high? It’s a particularly negative signal about how the bond market is feeling about the state of government finances. Because short-term interest rates are almost always lower than long-term interest rates, a succession of administrations have been borrowing to finance deficits for shorter and shorter periods of time. That means more refinancing – an estimated $8.3 trillion over the next year. And because much of the earlier borrowing was done when rates were lower, it means higher interest costs for the federal government.

That comes at a time when deficits are still increasing (Trump’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding). The deficit this year will be $1.9 trillion, roughly 6% of gross domestic product, a level traditionally only seen in war or recession. And the Congressional Budget office projects that by 2036, under current policy, the deficit will reach $2.5 trillion and the national debt will be $46 trillion in today’s dollars (or 120% of U.S. GDP).

Promises made, promises not kept. President Donald Trump returned to office 18 months ago with a commitment to improve the economy in a variety of ways, from sharply curbing the deficit to getting the price of gasoline down to $2 per gallon. While the economy continues to grow and (most months) add jobs, all of that is happening more slowly than Trump promised and has been significantly aided by the artificial intelligence boom that the president has had virtually nothing to do with.

Start with the deficit. When Trump arrived, the deficit was $1.8 trillion (modestly lower than it had been the previous year). Now, even after adjusting for inflation, it is up to $1.9 trillion and projected to remain there for a few years until rising steadily to $2.5 trillion in 2036 (also after adjusting for inflation). As a share of the size of the economy (gross domestic product), the gap is projected to hover at or above 6%, compared to 3.4% in 2017. How did this happen? Mostly via the One Big Beautiful Bill, which extended many of the tax cuts passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration.

Not surprisingly, the continued high (and rising) deficits has pushed the national debt upward. It has already passed 100% of GDP and is projected to exceed the 1946 post-World War II record of 106% of GDP around 2030. That is two years sooner than what the Congressional Budget Office projected before the OBBB passed last year. By 2035, this important ratio could reach 120%.

Among Trump’s promises was that he would sharply cut federal spending via the now famous (or infamous) Department of Government Efficiency, run by Elon Musk. DOGE was tasked with cutting federal spending by “at least” $2 trillion without any specified timeline. But when DOGE essentially shut down, it only claimed $215 billion in savings. Even that was suspect as a compilation of the “receipts” that DOGE offered only totaled around $35 billion according to third-party analysis.

Another promise that hasn’t worked out for Trump was that his tariffs would generate “literally trillions of dollars” of revenues. For that, Trump can thank the Supreme Court, which struck down many of his levies. Now the government has to provide refunds, which some experts have estimated could add up to nearly $200 billion.

On another front, Trump’s promise to bring back manufacturing jobs and increase factory construction has also not unfolded as promised. Indeed, the number of manufacturing jobs has dropped by 75,000 since Trump took office. Some of that reflected a continuation of a trend that began in early 2023. But it also resulted from the effect of Trump’s tariffs, which raised the cost of key inputs like steel and aluminum, causing U.S. manufacturers to cut back.

Similarly, the dollar value of factory construction has dropped to an estimated $175 billion on an annualized basis as of May of this year from $250 billion in November 2024. Again, policy changes ranging from tariffs to sharp cuts in clean energy subsidies played an important role as did the tailing off of the effects of the CHIPS Act, which stimulated construction of semiconductor plants. Trump likes to cite the upsurge in data center construction, but his policies had little, if anything, to do with this increase and in any event, that increase doesn’t come close to offsetting the drop in new manufacturing facilities.

Tuesday’s inflation reading came in a bit better than expected, but for individual Americans, the challenge of higher prices remains, in part because the renewed closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already started to push oil prices up again. And the persistent high inflation risks an increase in interest rates, as the new Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh intimated in Congressional testimony this week. Among the few winners from the Iranian crisis has been the oil industry, whose profits and stock prices have been soaring.

Wednesday’s June inflation reading can be read two ways: Compared to May, prices declined because of the fall in oil (and derivatively, gasoline) prices. But compared to a year ago, prices were still 3.5% higher. That is the same amount by which wages are higher than a year ago, meaning that consumers have not achieved any “real” growth in the purchasing power over the past year.

Of course, those are averages and there is much data that shows how consumers further down the economic ladder are enduring more hardship than those at the top. For example, a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that higher income motorists have maintained their purchases of gasoline at roughly pre-war levels while those in the middle and – even more so – those further down have curbed their driving. Something similar happened when oil prices rose in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine, but the disparity is significantly greater this time around.

Gasoline prices rose in tandem with crude oil prices when the war started, but they have been coming down more slowly. Today, crude oil prices are about 18% above where they were at the end of February ($85 per barrel compared to $72 per barrel back then), but gasoline prices are 31% above where they were on February 27. That means the average price for a gallon of gas is $3.86 a gallon, compared to $2.94 per gallon before the war and a high of $4.50 a gallon.

Why is that? A mix of reasons. Speaking generally, prices sometimes “rise like a rocket and fall like a feather.” In other words, retailers try to hold the higher prices as long as possible. More specifically to the oil situation, inventories remain tight, particularly for refined products like gasoline, and refinery disruptions caused by the war have made it harder for oil companies to ramp up gasoline production.

But the oil companies have also been enjoying robust profits, which in turn has filtered through to their stock prices. An index of oil and gas companies is up nearly 28% this year, compared to less than 10% for the S&P 500 and just 2.7% for the “magnificent 7” technology companies. Meanwhile, the average worker’s wages are up just 1.3%.

The prospects for oil prices and inflation remain, at best, uncertain. The Strait of Hormuz never really reopened during the short truce that the two sides negotiated, and now it is closed again. Global oil inventories remain low and a number of countries, including the United States, have drawn down significant amounts of their strategic petroleum reserves.

That has led financial markets to once again revise expected oil prices. Before the war, crude oil averaged $72 a barrel. It then surged to $118 per barrel before declining all the way back down to $72 a barrel. Now a barrel fetches $85. More concerning, the market does not expect oil prices to decline to prewar levels for the foreseeable future. That’s because the Iran War currently seems to have no durable offramp, and even once the conflict is resolved, it will take months to rebuild transportation and energy infrastructure in the Gulf region.

Seemingly with each passing day, more revelations emerge of the extraordinary financial “success” of the Trump family. We shouldn’t be surprised. Donald Trump and his sons have been clear that the more traditional approach to avoiding conflicts of interest that marked the first term was not going to be maintained during the second term. “The first term, we did everything imaginable to avoid any appearance of impropriety, and frankly, we got crushed anyway,” Eric Trump told The New York Times in late 2024. “We can’t just sit out in perpetuity, and I won’t,” he said.

Last week, President Trump released his 2025 financial disclosure, and Forbes estimated that his net worth had more than doubled, to $6.5 billion from $3.1 billion in 2019. How did Trump achieve such remarkable success? Not in his traditional stomping grounds of hotels and hospitality but in the new territory of cryptocurrencies and social media. After having disparaged crypto since it emerged as a new financial instrument, Trump embraced it, to the point of now having $2.1 billion of holdings. And he launched a public company, Trump Media, on the back of Truth Social.

That’s just the president. His sons have been busy following Eric Trump’s signal. Donald Trump Jr. joined a venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, whose assets quickly jumped to $1 billion from $150 million. The firm then invested in a number of companies that quickly garnered federal money – a total of more than $800 million. The biggest piece of this was a $620 million Pentagon loan (the largest ever from the Office of Strategic Capital). ProPublica reported that the White House initiated the request to the Pentagon.

Much of the family’s success came at the expense of the public. Reuters calculated that the Trump family garnered $2.3 billion from four crypto ventures while individual investors lost almost exactly the same amount. Each followed a similar pattern: The family launched a coin or token and sold them to the public, pocketing both the proceeds and an additional fee every time one of the tokens changed hands. More than $600 million came from $TRUMP, a token with no intrinsic value or use purpose.

The flagship token has been $WLFI, which also has no use case (other than some theoretical governance rights). The coin, which was launched last August, quickly jumped to 31 cents each and then fell steadily, to less than 6 cents, a fall of more than 80% — a classic “pump and dump” scheme. That alone put $1.1 billion into the Trump family coffers. “Fun fact”: Two days before the inauguration, the national security adviser to the United Arab Emirates bought 49% of the venture for $500 million.

Trump’s family has also used the presidency to garner an estimated $13 billion in foreign investment capital. The biggest piece came from Qatar, a $5.5 billion commitment to a golf resort. Meanwhile, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, which raised almost $3 billion after Trump’s first term from Persian Gulf countries, raised another $2.7 billion from these same investors, much of it while Kushner was serving as a principal Middle East negotiator.

Then there’s clemency, which turns out to have a price. Many of the happy recipients of pardons from the President provided him with substantial financial benefits. Some sent money to his inaugural committee. Others contributed to his Super PAC. But crypto pardons appear to have yielded the biggest rewards to the family; Binance’s CZ Zhao parked $2 billion in another of the family’s tokens, USD1, to receive clemency. It was estimated that the pardons cost the U.S. Treasury and victims at least $1.5 billion in forgone penalties and restitution.

As the United States anvd Iran arm wrestle toward an agreement to end the war, the current state of play suggests an outcome that will deliver more financial and other benefits to Iran — and do so sooner — than did the Barack Obama deal (the JCPOA) that Donald Trump has been deriding for years.

For starters, Iran has already been relieved of the sanctions on its oil sales, a move that is expected to provide Iran with an extra $6 billion of revenues just during the 60-day negotiating period. And Iran will have $12 billion of its frozen assets released before a final deal is agreed to. (Neither of these happened before the JCPOA was signed.) Then, over roughly the next two years, Iran would garner an estimated $66 billion of additional revenues as well as about $66 billion in unfrozen assets. Unresolved is who specifically would contribute to the $300 billion fund for reconstructing Iran that has been floated. (The Trump administration claims it has identified private donors in the U.S., Gulf States, and other countries, but no specific entities have been identified.)

All told, by having sanctions lifted on its oil sales, Iran could receive anywhere from $47 billion to $96 billion in extra oil money, roughly comparable to what it received during the 2.3 year life of the JCPOA.

A side by side comparison of the two deals shows stark differences. Obama did not afford Iran any sanctions relief until the JCPOA was signed; some of Trump’s relief has already occurred. Obama ultimately unfroze about $50 billion of “usable” Iranian funds; this time, because the amount of their frozen assets has grown, Iran could receive nearly $80 billion. On top of all that, Obama released a small $1.7 billion of Iranian claims that were frozen at the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979; this was the planeload of cash that Trump loves to talk about. As for the current negotiations, we don’t know yet what else Trump may do, particularly about the $300 billion reconstruction fund. Lastly, Obama’s deal was enforced by international inspectors; Trump officials have talked without specificity about linking release of Iranian assets to compliance with a nuclear deal.

Adding it all up, Obama provided Iran with $117 billion in return for agreeing to the JCPOA; Trump is offering at least $150 billion and possibly more depending on the fate of the $300 billion reconstruction fund.

Two important collateral effects of Trump’s war on Iran. In order to maximize oil supplies, the president relieved Russia of the price cap that had been imposed on that country’s exports as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine. That has provided Russia with an estimated $22 billion in oil revenue just during the 98-day period the price cap was suspended.

Lastly, there is the cost to the U.S. of the war. While the Pentagon has pegged this number at $29 billion, it has asked Congress for a special appropriation of $80 billion, tacitly acknowledging the irrelevance of the lower figure. Meanwhile, one private forecaster — Moody’s Analytics — has put the likely total at $132 billion while two other experts think the tab could ultimately reach as much as $1 trillion, once costs like veterans’ benefits and rebuilding damage to American bases are incorporated.