Even before taking office, United States President Donald Trump was preparing for war—trade war.

“Tariff,” he said, “is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

“We’re going to be a tariff nation,” he told Americans during his campaign. “It’s not going to be a cost to you. It’s going to be a cost to another country.” The rest of the world had been taking advantage of America for years, and he promised to get the money back.

President Trump is thinking strategically. He knows his tariffs could prompt trade-related retaliations from other countries.

Thus, he also focused on the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important choke points and the fact that China de facto controls it. “We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made,” he said. “And Panama’s promise to us has been broken.” “We didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back,” he said.

He also zeroed in on the importance of Greenland “for the protection of the free world.” When asked about both locations, he said, “We need them for economic security.”

The Panama Canal is vital to U.S. trade with the world, and even trade within itself, for ships sailing between the East and West coasts. Greenland dominates North Atlantic trade, a role that made it an important asset in World War ii and the Cold War. In making Panama, Greenland and the Gulf of America into major issues immediately upon taking office, President Trump is clearly thinking of worst-case scenarios. If other countries impose tariffs, restrict shipping routes, or apply even more aggressive pressure, he knows he must keep vital supplies flowing to the U.S.

But Donald Trump is not the only one thinking strategically.

Made in China

China has been gobbling up ports and other strategic bases for decades. Generally it has not been the Chinese military acquiring or conquering these assets, but rather huge Chinese businesses buying them up.

The trouble is, there’s no such thing as “private business” in Communist China. Even massively wealthy businessmen have been “disappeared” if they refuse to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party. ccp members sit on the boards of directors of the state’s major businesses. Big business can be quickly transformed into major military assets. Industrialized ports can become militarized industrial ports. Civilian ships are built with military use in mind. Even standard businesses all serve China’s strategic interests. By trading goods around the world and establishing itself as a key part of the global supply chain, China has amassed a lot of power—which it uses to threaten other nations.

A Chinese firm operates ports at both ends of the Panama Canal. China has financed the construction of many more ports across the region. Just this year, China announced it has finished a new $3.6 billion mega port in Peru that will sharply increase the amount of trade between China and Latin America. For the first time, massive modern container ships can dock directly on South America’s Pacific coast. This enables China Ocean Shipping Co. (cosco), a firm owned directly by the Chinese regime, to open a new shipping line and cut transit times from 40 days to 23. This opens up closer relationships economically, politically and, potentially, militarily.

China is rapidly expanding the quantity and quality of its strategic economic and military bases around the world. It has reclaimed 3,200 acres of land on the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, built an airfield and missile launch sites on Fiery Cross Reef, and stationed 10,000 troops on the islands. It has taken control of the Port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, opened a base in Djibouti, and built, financed or operated 100 ports across Africa. It has poured billions into Gwadar, Pakistan, including the recent construction of an airport that can serve 400,000 passengers per year. This is an unusually large facility for a port city of only 90,000 people. Gwadar is clearly becoming a major military base. Meanwhile, China is building ships at breakneck speed. It is building economic and military power as fast as it can.

Donald Trump sees clearly what China is doing. But there is another power expanding its economic and military strength that he does not see.

Return of the Empire

The European Union is gearing up for a trade war too. Some of its preparations are quite publicly visible, such as preparing retaliatory tariffs on American goods. But it is also shoring up its influence in Latin America.

The European Union and the Latin American trade bloc mercosur signed a free-trade deal on Dec. 6, 2024, after 25 years of negotiations. This process took so long that many gave up on it ever getting over the finish line. But Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 2019, “This trade agreement will impact the whole world! It is going to affect your life dramatically” (theTrumpet.com/18522).

The deal creates a free-trade area of nearly 800 million people and gives the German industrial machine much-needed access to cheap raw materials. It will bring Latin America and Europe much closer politically. And it will give Europe yet another reason to unite behind a strong leader and come together as a superstate.

Beyond that, it imposes a lot of EU regulation on Latin America. It will lead to mercosur drawing politically closer to the EU as they copy many of its laws. This will mean a lot of U.S. products getting shut out. Goods made for an American market often don’t conform to EU regulations. American businesses are free to set up smaller, more expensive production lines that conform to EU rules, but it will add to the cost.

mercosur consists of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay—with Venezuela suspended from the group—and several other associate countries. The EU does more trade with this bloc (about $115 billion annually) than the U.S. does, but it remains second to China.

The bloc is a key source of lithium and copper, both of which Germany needs as it shifts to battery-powered cars and high-tech industries. Germany specializes in producing cars, industrial machinery and chemicals, all of which are subject to high tariffs in Latin America. Some parts of mercosur have tariffs of 35 percent on cars or 20 percent on machines. Under the trade deal, those tariffs would be phased out over the next couple of decades. So not only will German industries have steady flows of inexpensive materials to work with, but their finished goods will also become much cheaper to millions more consumers and businesses.

mercosur and EU negotiators did finally reach an agreement, but there is still an imposing roadblock: Before it goes into effect, the trade deal must be ratified by EU member states. Ratification is not a foregone conclusion as it will put some major pressure on the EU.

If you know what to look for, you can see the world’s most powerful blocs preparing for a major economic clash—and worse.

Another Dangerous Cuba Deal

On January 9, President Joe Biden was scheduled to take his final international trip before Donald Trump’s inauguration—traveling to Italy to meet with Pope Francis. Wildfires in California changed his plans, but he still called the pope on January 11 to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom “with distinction.” The pope is the only person Biden ever honored in this way, and one of only five since 1990.

“Above all, he is the people’s pope—a light of faith, hope and love that shines brightly across the world,” Biden’s statement said.

Meanwhile, the Vatican was brokering a significant move, pushing it through with the blessing of Joe Biden just before he left office.

We have been here before. In 2014, following a personal appeal from the pope, Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would restore diplomatic ties with Cuba after 53 years. The Vatican had worked behind the scenes for months, hosting secret meetings and using cardinals as go-betweens. In his booklet Great Again, Mr. Flurry writes: “For America, this was a disgraceful surrender.”

The Catholic Church tried it again just before Biden left office. Biden announced that the U.S. would no longer consider Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, and he revoked a national security memorandum President Trump put in place in 2017 that restricts financial transactions with organizations linked to the Cuban government.

When he returned to the presidency, Mr. Trump quickly reversed both actions. But the deal still brought the Catholic Church and Cuba closer together, and created U.S. vulnerabilities.

Have the pope and the Vatican really supported freedom and been a friend to America?

One of the pope’s most consistent messages is that climate change is deadly—and that it is America’s fault. Rather than acknowledging capitalism as mankind’s most successful economic system for lifting people out of poverty, the pope has called capitalism “a new tyranny.” He has called for the U.S.-led global financial system to be replaced with a socialist system. To help do this, he has said that “there is urgent need of a true world political authority.”

If American capitalism is a “new tyranny,” that would suggest the pope is justified in fighting it. And if you look at his statements and actions from the very beginning of his reign, you can see that is exactly what he has been doing.

Meanwhile, Francis has been far less critical of Cuba’s Communist government. He said, “I am a Communist, and so too is Jesus.”

This message from the Vatican did not begin with the current and quickly fading pope. Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, who died in 1998, pushed for rapprochement of Communist regimes, while the Vatican’s secretary of state once said, “Catholics who live in Cuba are happy under the socialist regime.”

There is more to this message than merely a push for freedom of worship for Cuba’s Catholics. As the largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba is one of the world’s most strategic pieces of real estate. As Mr. Flurry writes, “For the Catholic Spanish Empire, Cuba was the single strategic port that served two entire continents” (ibid).

Fight for Sea Gates

Donald Trump, China, the EU and the Vatican are all making moves to control strategic choke points. These choke points go far beyond tariffs, increased prices and scarce goods. They can block the flow of materials and goods—and cut countries off from world trade.

The Bible warns that we are heading for a major escalation of trade war.

“The Bible prophesies of a deadly economic siege that is going to strike America,” writes Mr. Flurry. “It will cause one third of the terrifying damage that will be suffered in the Great Tribulation. That siege is about somebody controlling ‘trade routes’—so it is not difficult to see how Cuba could play a strategic role in that.

“The German-led European Union is the seventh and final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire—that same Holy Roman Empire which, centuries ago, used Cuba so powerfully to fuel its wars. If the present resurrection were to move into Cuba again, it would be well positioned to carry out these kinds of attacks. The advantage is that it can do so within a cloak of secrecy, since Cuba is essentially a police state with tight controls on information. Think of the control that it could have. Think of how valuable Cuba has been to America’s enemies in the past! You need to watch what is happening in Cuba” (ibid).

Europe in particular will have to make major changes to become the kind of dominant power the Bible prophesies it will be. Those changes will happen—and happen quickly.

“Before Europe can be closely tied to Latin America, something will have to change,” wrote Mr. Flurry. “The current politically and religiously disunified EU will have to become a politically, militarily and religiously unified Holy Roman Empire. Latin America is already quite united in its religion; the Holy Roman Empire will have to become united in its religion as well. And the only way to remove the division is by reducing that union to 10 nations” (Trumpet, March 2019).

Europe’s ongoing political paralysis and international divisions present major obstacles to ratifying the mercosur deal and cementing this alliance. “If this massive trade deal is finalized this year, then I believe we will see the current 28-nation European Union pared down to the prophesied 10-nation superpower this year as well,” Mr. Flurry wrote (ibid). They failed to finalize the deal in 2019—but it is finalized now and awaiting ratification. The mercosur trade deal is one more motivation for Europeans to seek a strongman and for European elites to dispense with national sovereignties and the restrictions of democracy to create a stronger central government over the core of Europe. Could we see the 10-nation superpower emerge this coming year?

Besieged!

In Genesis 22:16-18, God told Abraham that He would multiply his descendants “as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.” These descendants, He said, would “possess the gate of his enemies.” Rebekah, Abraham’s daughter-in-law, was told, “[B]e thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them” (Genesis 24:60). What, in the context of “thousands of millions,” could the Bible be talking about? What gates affect millions of people? What is the closest thing international relations has to a “gate”?

This has to be about sea gates.

The Bible says that one people would dominate the world’s passageways, especially its maritime choke points. And this is exactly what we saw happen with Britain and America.

But the Bible also prophesies that Britain and America will lose these gates. In Deuteronomy 28:52, God tells the recipients of these blessings that if they fall away, they will be besieged “in all thy gates.” The gates they once owned will be slammed shut on them.

Isaiah 23 describes a maritime alliance between Chittim (China) and Tyre (European merchants). “Considering that China now possesses most of the world’s strategic sea gates (at one time held by Britain and America), the German-led Holy Roman Empire will need to form a brief alliance with the Asian powers identified in Isaiah 23 (Russia, China, Japan—the ‘kings of the east’),” Mr. Flurry wrote in the Trumpet’s July 2016 issue (theTrumpet.com/13880).

Deuteronomy also pinpoints one of America’s and Britain’s core problems: “And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (verse 52).

“We trust in our walls today,” wrote Mr. Flurry. “We trust in our own power. We don’t look to the God who gave us that power. And God is taking that personally! God gave America and Britain those sea gates. He made Britain the greatest empire this world has ever seen, and America the greatest nation on Earth. We ought to acknowledge where our prosperity has come from. We ought to ask for forgiveness for using these blessings in a sinful way” (Trumpet, March 2019).

This is the only sure solution. President Trump’s focus on sea gates reflects a stronger will and clearer view of the danger in the world. But that is not enough to save America. The nations are preparing for trade war on a level Americans cannot conceive of. If Americans repent now, God can once again bless the nation with protection. If not, God will use the suffering that results to get through to America and all mankind.

God is bringing an end to the epoch when nations scheme, plot and ultimately war against each other. The war that nations are preparing for right now will lead to the end of man’s rule over man and to the establishment of the permanent, peaceful rule of Jesus Christ.