Valuetainment - “Iran’s BREAKING Point” - Trump’s 25% Tariff THREAT ESCALATES US-China Tensions

00:00:00.000 Trump says any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% U.S. tariff, 25% U.S. tariff.

00:00:11.740 President Trump said on Monday, any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% tariff

00:00:15.540 on any and all business being done in the U.S. That new tariff on imports from Iran's 1.00

00:00:21.000 trading partner is effective immediately, Trump said in a true social disorder. This order is

00:00:25.600 final and conclusive. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Further details about the tariff

00:00:30.680 announcement were not immediately clear. A White House official declined to answer.

00:00:35.280 Disapparent effort by Trump to economically isolate Iran comes as in, as the,

00:00:41.920 that was good. As the oil rich Middle Eastern country struggles to suppress an ongoing

00:00:49.080 swell of massive anti-government protests, dozens of those protesters have been,

00:00:53.280 well, it's not dozens anymore. The report was 2,500 and CBS reported allegedly 12,500

00:01:00.240 killed. Tom, 25% tariff on people doing business with Iran as if they're not already suffocating

00:01:09.140 with inflation being 55%, water issues, right? Unemployment issues. The average worker making

00:01:15.280 less than a gram of gold per month, $110 a month. How bad is this when he puts this on them?

00:01:22.620 Okay. So it goes like this. My dad got really upset with me and grounded me. So I have to go to my

00:01:27.540 room when I get home from school and I'm sitting in my room. Then he gets home the next night and my

00:01:33.700 mom says, Hey, the report card just came in the mail. The report card sucks too. He knocks on the door 0.99

00:01:38.580 to my room and he says, you're not grounded for one week. You're grounded for two weeks. Well,

00:01:42.460 I'm already grounded. So really I looked at this when it came out and I said, really, what's he saying?

00:01:47.240 He's saying anybody that's doing business with people that I'm already punishing. And remember,

00:01:52.560 India is part of this. He said, then, um, okay, we'll put another 25% on anybody doing business.

00:01:58.060 So in other words, I already have China tariffs. I'm already got sanctions on Russia and I've already

00:02:04.180 sanctioned on Iran. But if anybody wants to even look like they're doing a backdoor deal on Iran,

00:02:11.440 on, with, uh, Iran for, um, uh, I mean, Russia's buying drones. There's some black market oil being

00:02:21.160 sold. So anybody caught doing that now it's another 25%. So the really, I think the, the,

00:02:27.440 what really happens here is that he wants to cause what few customers that Iran has to, to even lower

00:02:35.020 what's what they're buying, which points to China because China is trying to buy, they buy black market

00:02:41.020 oil. So he's like saying, okay, we're going to put another 25% on China. So this is really like

00:02:47.700 hitting again, a dog you've already been hitting for a month.

00:02:53.580 Brandon, your thoughts on this? Yeah, no, it's, um, I think they're at the breaking point where

00:02:57.440 something could happen here, like where the, you know, leadership change could happen. And, uh,

00:03:01.160 this is, um, you know, you just gotta keep like piling like layers on top of it to see what breaks.

00:03:05.720 And I don't think, uh, organic revolution leadership changes ever happened without the assistance of

00:03:10.840 an outside powerful force. So, you know, I think he, he's in favor of leadership change. I think

00:03:14.780 he's trying to do whatever he can without putting boots on the ground to make that happen. I think

00:03:18.300 it's close to happening, but, um, yeah, I, uh, it's interesting. Like we were talking about last

00:03:21.880 week, how China's real power or their edge in, in, um, geopolitics is getting cheap oil from Russia

00:03:27.960 and Iran. So, you know, we're kind of putting them in a situation too, where it's more difficult to

00:03:32.040 get that cheap oil from Russia and Iran. So maybe China could, um, be helpful here. I don't know.

00:03:37.000 Yeah. And do what? And, um, you know, like go somewhere else for oil in the meantime and

00:03:41.340 stuff. Why would they, they're getting it at a massively discounted rate? Yeah. Well,

00:03:45.280 that's where negotiation comes in. Like, like, it's like, what do we care about more? For

00:03:48.520 us to say, stop doing business with them. Yeah. Take a pause. You realize this 25% is really,

00:03:54.100 who's he talking to with the 25%? I think China countries. Yeah. China and India. Yeah. So 0.99

00:03:59.240 China is going to sit there and say, yeah, I'm pretty much getting it for free. I'm not paying anything

00:04:03.860 for it. And you think, you think he's really going to come through with this 25%. I know. I think it's

00:04:09.600 a good, uh, threat, but you know, now we have Venezuela oil that we get, we get, um, put on the

00:04:13.800 table. You just imagine if you're the accountant, like you're the comptroller general of the U S

00:04:17.480 who the hell is the comptroller general of us right now, Rob used to be a guy named David Walker 20

00:04:23.380 years ago, who, whom I interviewed one time, who is the comptroller general of the U S today? We're not

00:04:30.180 even talking about this guy. This poor CFO must be having, there's no way this person is sleeping.

00:04:37.780 Can you, this is the CFO of America folks. Let's give him some credit. Can you pull up his picture

00:04:42.640 Rob? Who are you? And no one's even talking about you. Yeah. She's the comptroller general of the U S

00:04:49.660 okay. Go to her. Is she really the comptroller? I think there's a better picture than that one on

00:04:54.220 the American flag there. She looks kind of crazy. No, no, but I'm actually being serious. Is this truly 0.95

00:04:59.000 the comptroller general of the U S today? Is she the comptroller general of the U S or a state

00:05:05.700 began December, 2025 says she's the acting comptroller who sat in the chair following the

00:05:11.640 retirement of Jean Dorado, who retired just a couple of weeks ago on December 29th. So who's

00:05:17.400 the new one? She's the acting and it hasn't been named. So they haven't announced the new one yet.

00:05:22.540 Right. And this is just a couple of weeks ago. Well, go to Jean Dodaro, who is a Jean Dodaro was the

00:05:28.680 one that was doing all the stuff in 2025? Correct. Can you go to Jean, please? He was official.

00:05:33.580 Who is Jean Dodaro? Funny that we don't even know who this person is. This guy's probably aged more in

00:05:40.560 the last 12 months than the last 40 years. The amount of every day, 25%. It's like, it's like

00:05:46.140 working for a sales company and the CEO keeps changing the comp plan every day. Okay. You have

00:05:51.220 change it here, change your commissions to this year, change your commission to there's a,

00:05:53.980 it's like this constant, you know what I'm saying? Like that, that's, that's what it is

00:05:59.340 working in that environment. But, uh, the threat is you're suffocating Iran to have no choice, 0.92

00:06:05.380 but for everybody to stop doing business, to eventually give up, he's trying to get these

00:06:10.740 guys to quit and give up. Do you think it'll happen? Mark Iran?

00:06:15.080 I think there's a bigger problem at play here. And so, uh, while I certainly hate what's

00:06:21.480 happening there and I hate to see the people getting slaughtered. I mean, it's just absolutely

00:06:25.360 insane to think that people still live like that in today's day and age is insane to me, but

00:06:29.820 the bigger problem that we have is, is China. And so what China is doing is they're setting up a, 0.54

00:06:35.740 a new parallel financial system. The dollar is the reserve currency of the world. The U S dollar

00:06:41.920 is the payment network of the world back to Visa and MasterCard. The U S dollar is the payment

00:06:45.300 network of the world. And so the U S is able to sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions,

00:06:49.840 but eventually you kick so many out of that payment network, that financial system,

00:06:52.940 and they go find a new one. And China is setting up a parallel system through Hong Kong that's being

00:06:58.000 settled in gold. And the, and they've now set up swap lines with 32 countries, almost every country

00:07:03.640 except the United States. And so now all of these countries can do business with themselves

00:07:08.900 using the RMB being settled in gold in real time, and they don't have to use the dollar network.

00:07:15.040 And so this is happening and it's happening very, very quickly. And the more that we weaponize the

00:07:20.560 dollar and the more that we slap sanctions, the more it drives people to that network. And so

00:07:24.400 what happens is this has diminishing returns. And so while I certainly would love to help the people

00:07:30.960 in Iran and I would love to see the United States somehow changes, you said it needs an outside power

00:07:35.380 to affect this. The problem is, is that it's accelerating the demise of the dollar.

00:07:42.220 Very good point. Because behind closed doors, this is getting people to say, well, I want to

00:07:46.720 independently do it. So let me lean on China to help me out with this. If that ends up actually

00:07:52.400 happening, you know who behind closed doors is celebrating right now with Iran getting hit left 0.93

00:07:57.240 and right. And they're, they're hoping Iran doesn't have a revolution. You know, it's the one country 0.83

00:08:01.800 that is hoping Iran doesn't have a revolution. Iranian people don't become free. Iran doesn't 0.96

00:08:06.880 become a democracy. Humberto said it in the back and you know who it is. Saudi Arabia. Saudi

00:08:12.320 is sitting there saying, no, man, like let him stay like this. Let the sanctions stay on.

00:08:18.560 Let people not do business. Keep it like this. This is more business for us. Saudi is quietly 1.00

00:08:24.480 sitting there saying, please stay chaotic. Please don't get rid of IRGC. There's no other

00:08:32.060 country in the world that is probably quietly supportive of IRGC than Saudi. Quietly in their

00:08:39.560 own way, not in a way that they're helping them out in their own way. Brandon, you look

00:08:43.620 like you want to say something. Yeah, no, I do agree with you. You're saying with the demise

00:08:47.060 of the dollar, but the renminbi, I've never thought of that as like something the rest of the world

00:08:50.960 would rely on. They're not relying on it. They're not relying on it. It's only used as

00:08:55.300 liquidity and it's all settled in gold. They're relying on gold.

00:08:59.000 Held in China, though? It's not. They're settling it. And so it's not fully functional 0.62

00:09:04.940 yet, but it's rapidly accelerating. It's all happening through Hong Kong. So the Shanghai

00:09:08.700 Gold Exchange is working or partnering with the Hong Kong board. And so it's all being used

00:09:13.720 only as liquidity, but again, settled in gold. And so we're seeing the reserve currency of the

00:09:18.340 world. The U.S. Treasury has been dropping right from 60 percent down to just under 50 percent in

00:09:24.560 just like the last decade. But we've seen gold now rise to about 30 percent. It's happening very,

00:09:29.620 very quickly. And behind closed doors, isn't it if you, Rob, type up what country has been buying up

00:09:36.520 the most gold the last five years or four years? I think China's at the time. Well, China doesn't

00:09:39.960 report it all, so we don't really know. But to answer your question, nobody's going to trust

00:09:43.880 Chinese currency. It is not a free, oh, it's not an open capital market. Nobody will trust it. 1.00

00:09:49.960 They don't have to. All they're using it is for the liquidity, and then the gold is what's settling

00:09:54.580 it. Yeah. So you're not saying that the China's threat to be the next reserve currency at all,

00:10:00.220 right? No, gold. That's why gold's 4,600 bucks an ounce right now.

00:10:03.160 Gold standard? Really? Interesting.

00:10:07.100 That's a whole conversation. But yes, I mean, that's what's happening. We've seen, like I said,

00:10:12.580 U.S. Treasuries has dropped below 50, gold's up over 30 percent in reserves right now.

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Valuetainment - January 16, 2026

“Iran’s BREAKING Point” - Trump’s 25% Tariff THREAT ESCALATES US-China Tensions

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