(0:00 - 1:31) Tariffs have dominated the headlines in recent months, with many Canadians very concerned about their economic impact here at home. But the truth is that U.S. tariffs are, in fact, a minor matter and unlikely to last beyond Donald Trump's administration. There are much larger forces at work globally, and the impact of those macro elements will stretch decades, possibly centuries, into the future. World War III, which the EU will start, which will create a Russia-China alliance, and which the EU will lose, even if they are joined by America. A probable global population crash, potentially a reduction in global population of up to 30% in the next 20 to 30 years, which will have a devastating effect upon our economy through the simple realities of supply and demand. The breakup of Canada, with Alberta likely to separate in the next couple of years, and other provinces will follow, and other provinces such as Saskatchewan and Quebec likely not far behind. And even the U.S. may fracture, as California is seriously discussing secession. There has not been this much uncertainty and instability in the world since before the Second World War. And instability is never good for the economy. (1:32 - 2:46) So where do you put your money in order to safely ride this out? To not be one of the billions of people who will descend into poverty when governments and global markets collapse? Laurent Lequeu is known online as TheMacroButler. He's a political analyst and financial consultant who specializes in seeing the big picture, and then providing his clients with advice, which takes into account the global economy. He joins me today to paint a very clear picture of what our world would look like in the coming decades, and it will be dramatically different from what it is now. And to provide essential advice on how to protect your wealth, your family, and your assets in order to not only ride out the coming economic earthquakes, but even to profit. Laurent, welcome to the show. It's my pleasure, Will, to be on your show. (2:46 - 6:02) And you have a very unusual or interesting name for your substack, TheMacroButler. I'm sure it means something to a financial consultant and political analyst like yourself, but could you explain for our viewers, TheMacroButler, what does this mean? Well, I decided to name my substack TheMacroButler because, in fact, it's what I'm doing professionally over the past 18 months. So since I left the corporate world and I set myself as an independent advisor, I try to be the financial butler of anyone who wants to listen to me. And I use MacroButler because I try to have a global view of the world. So I look at the lens of the world through different cycles. I try to connect the dots between the cycles. And I also would think it's important for investment to understand politics and geopolitics. So at TheMacroButler, we try to connect all these dots between finance, politics and geopolitics. All right. Thank you very much. And I do at some point in time, I'm really glad that you have that global perspective because I do want to talk about the EU and about Russia and about China. But of course, my audience is primarily Canadian. So let's start here at home. And Trump's tariffs. And there's been this narrative since the beginning that the tariffs were there to prevent fentanyl and terrorists from coming into the US. This is clearly nonsense. You know, he slapped tariffs on everybody. We don't have terrorists slipping across the border into the US from China, not unless they're very good swimmers. So Laurent, what's the real reason for the tariffs? Well, I can see three reasons for the tariff. And I think that all the three reasons are kind of linked together. So I will try to explain succinctly the three reasons that I see why Trump has decided to tariff the world. So the first reason I would say is the most common sense reason is just that Trump was looking to bring back manufacturing into the US. So I would say that since the 1980s, all US multinational have moved out of the US and use a lot of fiscal loopholes and also the deregulation around the World Trade Organization to move their manufacturing and even to move some development center outside the US. So I mean, this is the best example of all these companies are the magnificent seven or what we can also call the platform companies. (6:03 - 6:40) So these companies, in fact, still do some R&D development in the US, but for most of them manufacture in Asia can be in China or in India, and have some subsidiaries in Ireland. And these subsidiaries in Ireland are mostly there for fiscal purposes. So the first reason that Trump decided to implement tariff is to bring back manufacturing into the US and kind of create manufacturing jobs. (6:40 - 9:44) And this was to clearly attract, I would say, the MAGA voters that have supported Trump during his first mandate and that has brought back Trump to the White House since January 2025. I would say that I mean, this is a good reason to put tariff on everything imported into the US. The issue that I see for this to be successful is that, I mean, the US has not really anymore any manufacturing. No US infrastructure are kind of in a very poor state. So to be successful in this reindustrialization of the US, in fact, Trump needs foreign investment to do so and he mostly needs Chinese investment because whatever we can read or listen on financial news media, I mean, China today has the state-of-the-art manufacturing of the world. So I mean, if Trump wants to be successful in reindustrializing the US or re-manufacturing the US, he needs to attract the best manufacturers in the world, meaning that he needs to attract Chinese manufacturers as, I mean, it happened in the past where we had the Japanese automakers coming into the US to manufacture their cars and bring the know-how that they had during the 1980s, 1990s. So that's the first reason. And this reason is linked to the second reason that I see is that I think that Trump is what I call a man from the tree, meaning that he's not in favor of a globalist agenda. And if he wants to rebuild a fortress America, meaning that he wants to end the American empire and he wants to focus on America first, he needs to manufacture most of the goods that America consumes into the US. So I mean, the two are linked together. And I would say that, so these are, I would say, very understandable reason to put tariffs. I think that every country in the world, in fact, should focus on its domestic manufacturing capability. (9:45 - 12:34) At the end of the day, that's what makes the strength of a country. Here again, and this is also, I would say, a third reason without being the major third reason. The reason that Trump wants to focus on America first is that he understands that the US cannot spend recklessly anymore as it did, especially over the past four years during the Biden administration. So the US needs to reduce spending. And if we look at the budget of the US, I mean, one of the major spending of the US government is defense. So if the US reduces defense spending, I mean, it means that it focuses on America first, it rebuilds the fortress America. And to rebuild the fortress America, clearly the US needs to produce domestically. So I would think that these are very good reasons that any, I would say, politician will focus more on the interests of his own citizen rather than on a global agenda can have to put tariff. And I really understand, and in fact, a lot of countries in Asia itself have put some form of tariff. If it's not official tariff, there are some restrictions in terms of regulation that protect their own domestic manufacturing industry. And that's completely understandable from, I would say, an American domestic point of view. And so I would think that these reasons are kind of valid reasons. But to be honest, it's almost five months that Trump has been in office. And in fact, so far, I would think that Trump is not really very successful in being able to achieve this primary goal of the tariff. First, I mean, he creates such a mess with China that it will be very difficult to convince a Chinese manufacturer to invest massively in the US. (12:35 - 16:28) I think that a lot of Chinese manufacturers are now quite frightened by the possibility of the change of the rule of law in the US. So I mean, this is kind of a very negative signal that has been sent to Chinese manufacturers in a way that, given that there were so many flip-flops in the negotiation with China, that I think that it would be very difficult to convince, for example, BYD or any other Chinese manufacturer to come and set up a plant in the Midwest. So this is, I would say, the first roadblock that this Trump policy has reached. The second roadblock that the policy has reached is that if we look at the big, beautiful bill, I mean, the budget of the Pentagon is increasing. It's now at $1 trillion. So it doesn't really seem that the US is keen to reduce significantly its defense spending. And in fact, if we analyze the behavior of Donald Trump from, I would say, an Asian point of view or from a North side, the US point of view, we can see that, I mean, the US is still looking to be the cop of the world, is still looking to try to settle a war between Russia and Ukraine, which is, I mean, which has been since the start a proxy war between Russia and NATO, and where it will be very difficult for Trump to be successful in setting this peace agreement. He's still very aggressive on his statement around Iran. And so I think that, unfortunately, I don't see really Trump's success in rebuilding for Third America to come true. In fact, quite the opposite with the increase in defense spending. So I would think that, as I said, there were very valid points in setting up tariff, but the way that it has been done, and also the way that things are evolving, especially on the geopolitical front, are not very encouraging. And then I come to my last point of the implementation of tariff. I mean, if you look at history of the US, and when the last time tariff were implemented in the US, in fact, tariff were used as a source of revenue for the US government. So I guess that at some point in time, the goal of Donald Trump is by using tariff to reduce the income tax or even probably end the income tax for some Americans earning below what they say, 100,000 US dollar a year or another threshold that I think we will know if it happens one day. Here as well, I would think that this would mean that the US government would need to reduce its spending. (16:29 - 41:06) And unfortunately, I would say the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump show that it's very difficult for DOGE or anyone to reduce spending from the US government, and especially to cut the cake of many people who are still in the Washington swamp. So I mean, as I said, very good reason to implement tariff. And I would say a goodwill from Trump in the implementation on tariff. But so far after I was a five months being in office, it's not looking great in terms of the implementation. And it's not looking that the ultimate goals of this tariff will be achieved. I really speak a long time about this, but I think that that was, I would say, the best explanation that I can give for the implementation on tariff. All right. Thank you, Laurent. And there's a couple of things to be unpacked from what you've just told us. I would tend to agree with you on, it hasn't been very effective. And if I get any of my numbers wrong, please correct me because this is an area of expertise for you and not for me. There was a report that came in a couple of days ago that said that the tariffs so far have generated 3% of government expenditures. Doesn't seem to be a huge impact. So there's two things where we have, I think there's, this is a two-part question, Laurent. First, because his primary motivations are manufacturing and Fortress America. In other words, he wants to bring everything home. That's not going to happen quickly. And so that suggests that these tariffs are going to go on for a very long time, possibly his entire term in office. And so the first question then would be, what will be the impact on the rest of the world? Part one. And then the projection for America itself economically, because as you've said, it's not really working. But on the other hand, there were a lot of people, analysts, who when he first announced the tariffs said, oh, it's going to be a disaster. There's going to be a recession. Doesn't seem to be happening. In fact, another report came out just yesterday, I believe it was, that said that when Biden was in office, 25% of new jobs were government jobs. During the last five months of Trump's administration, 99% of new jobs have been in the private sector. So clearly that much is working. He's generating jobs for people. So just to reiterate my questions, number one, so soon, this goes on for a long time, possibly his entire term. What are the implications globally? And second, what happens to America itself economically? Well, I think that to answer your first question, in fact, the rest of the world was already quite well prepared for this tariff. It was quite well telegraphed, right? Because all over his campaign in 2024, and even during his first mandate, he already kind of gave the signal to the rest of the world, and especially to China, that, I mean, Chinese manufacturers and Chinese imports were not anymore welcome into the US. So, I mean, you know, the Chinese, especially, and Asian in general, I mean, they are planning a long time ahead. And I think that since the first mandate of Donald Trump, in fact, the Chinese government get the message and was quite well ready for this tarification of Chinese imports into the US. So we have seen the weight of Chinese export to the US compared to the whole global Chinese export diminishing quite dramatically since the first mandate of Donald Trump. And this has, in fact, accelerated during the Joe Biden administration, because I think that something that is not well reported is that the Biden administration put even more sanctions on China, especially in terms of access to semiconductors, access to some technological products than during the first mandate of Donald Trump. So I would say that the world and especially China and Asia were already quite well prepared to this. And so the consequence of the tariff being implemented, I would say, even beyond Trump mandate, because I guess that this tariff would stay in place even after 2028. So I would say that for the rest of the world, in fact, this means that the rest of the world will trade less and less with the US, and especially for the global source and the Asian countries, this means that they will trade more and more between each other. This is a trend that was also accelerated in 2022, when the US dollar assets from the Russian were weaponized and were frozen by the Biden administration and by the European Union. In fact, this triggered an acceleration of the trade relationship between Russia, China, India, and the rest of Asia and even the rest of most emerging markets from Africa and also Latin America. So I think that we are going into a world that is increasingly multipolar. And the US, I mean, the US is blessed with access to cheap energy, like Alberta is blessed to the access of cheap energy. So the US can in fact live on its own. What the US needs today, the US needs to bring manufacturing back and to bring the know of all to do manufacturing. So this means that the US needs to produce more engineers and less psychologists or less teachers of history or less lawyers and less Wall Street bankers, but more engineers who know how to build manufacturing. And I mean, for the US as well, since the US is kind in the driver's seat of AI, I would think that AI robotics will help the US in its reindustrialization. But I mean, reindustrializing a country can take almost a generation. So we are talking here of a 10 to 20 year time horizon. And so that's why I think that what Donald Trump tried to do at the start of his mandate was the right thing to do is to tell people you are not gonna get an easy job in the government anymore. You will need to go and work in a manufacturing plant, you will need to to be innovative and contribute to the industrialization of the US. Unfortunately, I mean, I still give him the benefit of the doubt. But I would think that the issue is that to be really successful, it needs to really cut meaningfully spending. And as you said, I mean, the tariffs are helping but are not covering any significant government spending. The DOGE cuts are also not covering any significant government spending. So the problem is to cut spending. And the problem to cut spending is that, I mean, government spending is someone's revenue, right? And we know that there are a lot of resistance, and especially in Washington, there's a lot of resistance because a lot of people have been living on government spending on the government checkbook for decades now. So it's very difficult to cut this kind of spending. I mean, we see the same thing in Europe. It's kind of, for this, it's quite similar. It's very difficult. Once the government gives something to someone, it's very difficult to, I mean, to take it back. So I would think that if Donald Trump is really successful, and if the US want to really rebuild the fortress America, I mean, he needs to clearly rationalize the government spending. I wish for him and for the US to achieve this goal, because this is also the way that the US will be a much more productive country and a much more productive economy. And whatever people can say, in fact, a lot of countries in Asia have dramatically improved their productivity over the past 10 years. And it's mostly in Asia, it has been a need to do so, because the demographic situation has been very unfavorable. I mean, I think here in Japan, I think also in China, when you have the population, the population of your country declining, I mean, to create economic growth, you need to improve the productivity of the country. So I mean, that's why I would think that this was also the one of the reasons that we have seen the success of the Chinese manufacturer is that they have been forced to improve productivity, they have been forced to invest in robotics, they have been forced to compensate for less manpower available. So I mean, if I circle back to the US, the US need to do so. And to do so, I mean, there's no secret, government spending need to be cut dramatically. And I come back to defense spending, defense spending needs to be cut dramatically as well. I mean, defense spending are clearly economically unproductive. I mean, because you spend trillions of dollars in building weapons. I mean, there are two outcomes to this. You don't need to use the weapons if there's no war, and then the money is wasted. And if you use the weapon, because the country is going into a war, in fact, it's not really a good economic outcome for the country itself. So I mean, what I think he should focus, I mean, I don't pretend to give Donald Trump any advice here. But he would be much, he should be much more stringent in terms of cutting spending, government spending, defense spending. And I think that he, I mean, unfortunately, we know that during his first mandate, he chose the wrong people. And it seems that once again, even after five months, he once again, moved to listen to the wrong people in Washington, and failed to listen to those people who are there to improve the productivity of the government, to improve the productivity of the US economy. Thank you, Laurent. And as TheMacroButler, you preach this concept that you can't really understand what's happening or make predictions about what is likely to happen just by looking at one area. And so now I'd like to pivot to Asia, and China especially. This is another area where you can correct me if I'm wrong, because what I have read is that their economy is not doing well at all. However, in recent years, they have greatly increased their own defense spending. So what is your analysis of China economically, politically, and your projection for what's going to happen there? Well, that's why the Chinese economy is not doing well. But here, I would think that the Chinese economy has pivoted over the past, since 2018, I would say, the Chinese economy has pivoted. So if we take a step back and look, let's say before Trump 1.0, the government focus was on developing cities and focusing on real estate. And because there was a need to bring people out of the countryside into cities, and bring these people who were working mostly in agriculture to make them work in manufacturing and services. When China realized that it cannot rely anymore on exporting goods to the US and, let's say, to the Western world, and its access to technology is blocked by sanctions, as it was the case during the Biden administration, the government pivoted and clearly gave the signal to the banks to finance manufacturing, to finance technology, and to stop financing the real estate sector. I think that for everyone to understand, in China, contrary to the US, most of businesses get bank loans to grow. There's not really a culture of China of IPO, there's not really a culture of using the stock market to raise funds to grow a startup. In China, to grow a business, you need bank loans, and the banks are controlled by the government. So basically, if the government tells the banks, the major banks, to finance EVs, to finance solar panels, to finance semiconductors, and to stop financing real estate, the banks will do what the government tells them to do. And so the Chinese economy is kind of pivoting, and that's why the Chinese economy is not doing well. I mean, the Chinese consumers are depressed because the property sector is depressed. China has been in a deflation for many years, even before the COVID crisis. So I would think that China is in this transition from it was a real estate focused economy, and now is moving towards focusing on major sectors like technology, EVs, semiconductors, robotics. And ultimately, I think that the goal of the government, the Chinese government, is to move to a consumer economy based on the model of the US, but where the difference of the US is that what the Chinese government wants, it wants to keep manufacturing domestically, and it wants also to create a consumer economy. So this is not something that you can do in one year, two years. I think that here again, it needs kind of a generation to be achieved. And this is in process. So clearly, when you have an economy, which is in transition, you have economic challenges, and China is clearly in economic challenges. But I really believe, in fact, that by the start of the next decade, China will be the economic center of the world. And I would say the strength of China, I mean, the weakness of China is that contrary to the US, it has no access to cheap and abundant energy. China is very reliant on the Middle East, and especially Iran, Saudi Arabia, for its oil supply. So China has to find, I would say, an alternative source of energy. That's why we see in China, a lot of government subsidies are poured into the development of the nuclear power energy. And China has also, since 2022, been able to buy much more Russian oil at a cheaper price, and can even pay in yuan. So I would say that the Chinese government understands the weakness in terms of, and the risk in terms of energy supply, and has been working on this over the past few years. And I guess that would find a way, I would say, by combining access to the cheap energy from Russia, will find a way to finally come into implementing its goal, which is to develop a consumer economy based on domestic manufacturing. I would also say that the Chinese government is well aware of the demographic challenge. And that's why you have seen over the past few years, China and India getting closer. I mean, historically, China and India had very tense geopolitical relationship. But again, since 2022, we have seen China and India getting closer. And China, in fact, is well positioned to supply the next big consumer market, probably of the 2040s or 2050s, which will be India. So I mean, as I said, to come back on the defense spending of China, I don't think China is looking to enter into a war with the rest of the world. This is not the Chinese culture. I mean, if you learn a bit about Chinese culture, about the religion, the way that people have been educated in Asia and in China, I mean, they have not an imperialistic agenda like the U.S. had post-World War II. I think that China is just getting ready in case, I would say, a war scenario evolves and China has to be a force to defend itself. I mean, we have seen over the past few weeks, Macron came to Asia and he tried to convince some countries in Asia to join NATO. And this is clearly a red line for China. China doesn't want NATO at its border. And that's why I think that in terms of defense spending, China is getting ready in case that we have this extension of NATO to Asia. And it's also clearly aware of what the West has done to Russia. So I think that is also part of this, I would say, policy of being ready. I'm really not convinced of all the theory that China will attack Taiwan. I mean, this doesn't really make sense from a geopolitical and political point of view. I know that a lot of people in the U.S. like to push this threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, just to push the Taiwanese government to spend a lot of money with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. But to be honest, there are not really any threats from China to invade Taiwan. And you would think that the biggest interest that China would have into Taiwan is, of course, the semiconductor industry, right? But I can tell you that over the past few years, a lot of Chinese corporates went into Taiwan and went to offer a very big wage salary package to Taiwanese engineers to come to work, to go to work to Shanghai or to go to work to Shenzhen. And usually, all these Taiwanese engineers are given the red carpet to go to work in China. So there's not really a need for China to invade Taiwan per se. I mean, the Chinese are not stupid. They know that if they invade Taiwan, all these semiconductor plants will be most likely destroyed by an attack of Taiwan. So this doesn't make sense to me, to be honest. All right, Long, thank you very much for those explanations of the U.S. and China. (41:06 - 45:43) And I've been heading somewhere with that. What I needed you to do was to create an environment for us, a framework in which to understand my next two questions, because they're very, very big ones. And obviously, we could keep chasing other countries. We could be here all day. But I think that now that we've got the two major superpowers dealt with, I think that's going to be enough. So question number one, war between Europe and Russia, in which there are analysts who are saying that if they go to war against Russia, China will ally with Russia. The EU is going to lose that war. Another analyst I've spoken to says even if the U.S. joins in, the EU-America alliance will lose that war. I want your opinion, because it does seem very clear that the EU is gearing up for war. I mean, they've radically increased their defense spending. They're making all this posturing towards Russia. And one theory that's been put out is the reason why they want to do that is because Russia has huge resources and the EU does not. And so they're looking at that and thinking, well, wouldn't that be great if we could grab all those resources? However, these are just the things that I've heard from other analysts. So now I want your opinion. Are we headed towards war between Europe and Russia? And if it happens, what will be the political and economic fallout? Well, I think that it seems quite clear that an extension of the war is inevitable. I mean, Europeans are keen to go to war and to extend the war. I mean, it's more for domestic political reasons. I mean, all these politicians in Europe, Macron, Merz, Stalmer, they have nothing to offer to their own citizens. So they need to create a foreign threat. And the Russian, I would say the Russian bear has been used to create the foreign threat for the European citizen to forget how dire their domestic economy is. And all the governments in Europe are restricting their freedom. So I would think that unfortunately, and in fact, I find that Putin has been very, I would say, cautious and has been always very reserved in terms of all the red lines that Ukraine and Europe have broken since 2022. And even before with the Minsk agreement, which were not a fair agreement, which were just a reason to buy time to increase the defence capability of Ukraine and ultimately the defence capability of Europe. So I would think that inevitably, we will see an escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine and extension to Europe. Because at some point also, I would think that Russian would have no other choice than to respond. I mean, if we look at what happened a bit more than a week ago, with this bombing of the nuclear airplane deep into Russia, I mean, this is kind of a declaration of war in one way or the other. So I would think that this escalation will happen. I would think that before Trump entered the Oval Office, he in fact, really tried to look for a peace agreement. We all know that, I mean, the Europeans didn't want this peace agreement to happen. And I think that Trump understood one very important thing. He understood that what the US must do and what the Western world in general must do is to break the alliance between Russia and China. I mean, this is not a natural alliance. In fact, Russia and China have been also in conflict for years. (45:44 - 48:05) And what the Ukrainian war managed to do, in fact, is to bring back Russia and China together. And as I just said, I mean, China lacks natural resources, but is very good in terms of manufacturing capability. Russia has plenty of natural resources. I mean, they're so good in terms of manufacturing capability, but not as good as China. So I would think that the combination of Russia and China would clearly create a block that could not be defeated even if the US joined Europe in this war against Russia. Thank you. So now the next question, and this one, it's rather depressing, I'm afraid. And you are the first political financial analyst I have asked this question of. And the reason is, I've been gathering data to get to a point where I believe that this question paints a potential realistic scenario. There are quite a number of analysts and experts that I have spoken to in recent months who are predicting that we're headed towards a major global population crash. That in the next 20 to 30 years, we could see the global population drop by 20 to 30 percent. Now, obviously, supply and demand economics, if you lose 20 to 30 percent of your population, that's going to have a huge impact. For example, real estate, which in North America has for the last, I don't know, 100 years, just been going steadily up and up and up in value. Well, suddenly, if there's nobody to buy those houses, it's going to crash. And so, obviously, I mean, none of us have a crystal ball. I've, again, spoken to a number of scientists, medical experts, even economists who are predicting that this is going to happen, but we don't know. But let's assume, for the purpose of this question, that it does, that in the next 20 to 30 years, we see that 20 to 30 percent drop in global population. What happens economically, politically? Well, I think that I agree with this forecast. (48:05 - 50:39) Unfortunately, I think that we are ahead of dire times for the world population in general. There are many reasons why the population will decrease. We can discuss about that. What would be the consequences? Clearly, I mean, it's very negative in terms of asset prices in general, right? Because we have seen what happened. I mean, let's take the case of Japan. I mean, the population of Japan is declining over the past two decades. There is more demographic effect. And you can see that a lot of asset prices, especially property prices in Japan, have been on the downtrend for many years now. So I would think that in general, it would be negative in terms of a lot of asset prices. And in particular, for real estate, it would be a big challenge. It would be a big challenge for the global economy. And that's, I mean, on the bright side, I would say we have AI coming, we have robotics coming. So this would help to compensate for the decline in terms of manpower that will inevitably happen in a scenario of a declining world population. I won't think that this is a short-term issue. I would think that this is more something that is beyond the second half of next decade. But clearly, if we are heading into a world war, I mean, this will also be a trigger for a sharp decline in population across the world. Thank you, Laurent. I really appreciate your input and your patience because we've been going for 45 minutes so that we could get to this point. I started out talking about the US and Canada and China in order to paint that global economic political picture. Then we talked about the potential of war in Europe and Asia because, of course, that will have huge impacts. And that gave a framework to ask the next two questions about population decline and other issues. (50:39 - 58:19) So now we have a framework to look at the next coming decades and the high probability that we are going to see World War III, that we are going to see a huge population crash. And so I've been accessing your knowledge so far as a political analyst. Now I want to access your knowledge as a financial consultant, because now that the viewers have that framework to understand what is likely coming, the next question everybody is going to ask, where do I put my money? Well, I would think it depends where you live. I mean, and my first answer would be since the world is increasingly multipolar, there's no one single answer to this question. But if I take the example, let's say an American or a Canadian investor, I would think that there are a lot of and do not implement in this context. Clearly, if we are going into a scenario of a war, I mean, historically wars have been a reason for government to default. Wars have been, I would say, stagflationary. So the asset that you do not want to own is everything that is government bonds. And in fact, everything that is fixed income, because we are likely to see a stagflationary environment in the foreseeable future. And when I say in the foreseeable future, I would think until the end of this decade. So asset not to own is clearly fixed income and especially government bonds. What you should own, I would think that, again, if we are in this scenario of war, I mean, war creates scarcity. So you need to own, I would say, companies that are producing real assets. And here, it can be oil and gas companies, it can be a copper miner, it can be any kind of mining company, or even any kind of companies related to the agriculture industry from far or from near. So I would think that inside equities, you must focus on what I call the energy producer rather than the energy consumer. But this term energy producer, as I said, is quite a very wide term, where I include oil and gas, miner, agriculture, even the very good quality manufacturing companies, because these companies will benefit from the boom of this energy producer in general, because, I mean, a lot of money will need to be invested to find more resources. So and ultimately, there's one asset that has no counterparty risk, and which is anti-fragile, and which has done historically very well during wartime, and it's physical gold. So I mean, I think that everyone now at least own a bit of physical gold. But from what I see here, at least when I talk with investors, is that usually they still own too much fixed income and too little physical gold. So I would think, and I'm not giving investment recommendation, I think it's a personal situation, but at least 25% to 40% of everyone's portfolio should be invested in physical gold or physical silver. And I think it's very important for investors to own this physical gold first physically. You cannot own, I would say, the ETF or the paper metals or the paper gold. And second, to store this physical gold outside the banking system. Because to be honest, I'm quite worried, especially in the Western world, that when governments will go through much harder times, they will go and come after the savings of everyone, and they could easily seize the physical gold, at least the one that is stored into the financial institution. So if you want to own gold, and I recommend really everyone to own a decent amount of their portfolio in physical gold, they must own this physical gold outside the financial system, outside the supervision of the government. In fact, I think that, and here maybe I will be a bit contrarian, I think that the Western governments, especially those who are following the WEF rules, will be much harsher against their citizens than the governments from Asia, and especially in terms of the ownership of physical gold. I think in Asia, there's a long tradition of owning physical gold for retail investors, for institutional investors. And in fact, I see in Asia, governments, central banks, even the tycoon of Asia own a lot of physical gold. So it's unlikely that the governments will come after the ownership of physical gold in Asia, but in the Western world, I'm not so sure to be honest. And I have to assume then that the reason why governments and private central banks in recent years have been buying up huge amounts of gold is because of what you've just said, that they're doing it for the same reason you're advising that individuals do it. It's a hedge against whatever happens. It doesn't matter what happens, that gold or silver is always going to have value. So that leads to this question. Canada is one of the few countries in the world that has zero gold reserves. So we have World War III, we have a huge population crash, we have all the economic fallout of that. What happens to Canada when they don't have any gold? Well, I would think that unfortunately for Canada, Canada will return to the Stone Age. (58:21 - 59:41) And that's why I mean, I know that you are based in Alberta, I would encourage Alberta to exit Canada as soon as possible and to set up a gold reserve for the new Central Bank of Alberta. That would be I think that the top priority of the new Alberta Central Bank would be to set up a gold reserve. I would think that I mean, Canada is still one of the major gold producers in the world. So I mean, there was still hope for Canada. But as I said, I mean, what Canada needs to do, it needs to exit this Mark's, Carney agenda. And it needs to refocus on what has made Canada great in the past, meaning that developing access to a cheap source of resources, it can be oil in Alberta, it can be uranium, it can be copper, or it can be gold in other provinces. (59:42 - 1:00:09) Not long after, in fact, just two days after Mark Carney was elected, he very quietly proposed that Canada should sell $300 billion of debt to the EU in the form of bonds in US dollars. And that the reason for this was because the EU had been screwing around with the American dollar by the Euro dollar. And then Trump put an end to that because of SoFi and the other system. (1:00:10 - 1:01:31) And so now, Mark Carney, yes, and I'm glad you're aware of this, that he is very much a globalist. He does not care about Canada. In fact, he's out to screw us over. So if that was to happen, and we sell $300 billion to the EU, and now we've created what is sometimes called a loonie dollar by the people who are looking at this, what's the fallout of that? Because now the EU has got $300 billion US dollars that they can play with outside of US control. And we've got another $300 billion of debt. What happens then? Well, I don't think that Canada will see its $300 billion back anytime, anyway. To be honest, this is a recipe for a government default. I mean, a Canadian government default sooner rather than later, because this is what has pushed a lot of emerging markets into default in the past, is to borrow in US dollar and to use this US dollar for useless purposes. So I would think that this would be the perfect recipe for a default of Canada. (1:01:31 - 1:02:18) And as I said, I mean, if Canada cannot be changed, it's up to every province of Canada to take its own future into its hands. I think that Alberta is well ahead of other provinces, but I wouldn't rule out any other provinces which also have, I would say, a lot of access to this cheap source of energy and resources to move ahead. And I would think that Ottawa is completely disconnected of what's happening in other provinces of Canada. (1:02:19 - 1:05:39) So let's just assume for a minute that I'm not paranoid delusional, that Mark Carney really is a globalist out to screw over Canada in favor of globalist interests. What you've just described, this basically financial suicide of putting the country in a position of defaulting. If he was actually to do this, do you think that might be the reason why? Because it would do to Canada exactly what happened to Greece years ago. You'll have the IMF move in, Canada's broke, and now we're not just by proxy under control of the globalists through a controlled government, they've got direct control now. Could that be what he's actually trying to do? Well, I think that he's part of, he's a warmonger. I mean, he's a warmonger and he has the same, I would say, political agenda as Macron, Merz or Starmer. He doesn't really care of what's going on for the next decade. His goal, in fact, is to keep his job until he, I mean, he goes for another election. And in fact, I want to highlight this. One of the reasons that Europe is so keen to go for a war is that all these politicians know that they must delay as long as possible the next election. And so wars have been historically a reason to postpone elections. I mean, to come back to the situation of McCarney and Canada, I mean, Canada nowadays is run on the same playbook as the European Union. I mean, joke apart, Canada could join the EU and adopt the euro at some point in time. And fit right in. We'd be just as woke and broke as the rest of them. Yes. Yes, but you will be, you will be welcome. I mean, Canada would be welcome among the Brussels bureaucrats because, I mean, they have the same mindset. And in fact, Canada, I mean, I think Canada is also understanding, understand the geopolitical kind of role it can play. It's there on top, above the U.S. And if there is, I would say, a war between the U.S. and Russia, I mean, we all know that Trump wanted to get access to Greenland because that's the best place where he can intercept the ballistic missiles coming from Russia. So maybe Canada wants to play a role and help Europe to bomb Russia or bomb China. (1:05:40 - 1:05:57) I really don't understand really what's behind McCarney's mindset. As I said, he's killing the golden goose, the Canadian golden goose. Canada has everything to be successful. (1:05:58 - 1:08:11) There's plenty of resources. I mean, there's a long tradition of mining. It's a bit like Australia here in Asia. Australia is also following a globalist green zealot agenda where clearly Australia should capitalize on its resources and does what it has done in the past, meaning be in a mercantilist relationship with Asia and sell its resources to Asia. So I have no answer to your question because I cannot, as I would say, as a normal human being and as, I would say, a financial professional, I cannot understand what is the rationale of Mark Carney's agenda today in doing what he's doing with Canada. All right. Second to last question. Earlier, you gave the viewers some advice on where to invest, but there was one specific area I wanted to ask you about. About a week ago, there was an American billionaire, and I'm afraid I can't remember his name right now, but he publicly said that the next huge market globally was going to be robotics, that this was going to become huge. Do you think that's an area where people should be looking at investing? Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, as I said, robotics is where AI and manufacturing meets. And clearly, if the world is looking to improve productivity, we need many more robots. We need better robotic capabilities. And you can see that a lot of money is already invested in this sector. I mean, unfortunately for the US, China is quite well ahead of the rest of the world in terms of robotics. (1:08:13 - 1:22:05) But for sure, the US will be able to catch up. And if you look, in fact, I mean, I circle back to the defence sector. I mean, we have seen since the start of the war in Ukraine, that drones are really the way of the new warfare. And drones is in fact, a kind of robotics that is applied to aerospace defence. So I mean, I would think that there are much better return to be done in robotics than in AI in general. But I mean, this will take some time. And I mean, there are not, why AI has been very popular, and not really robotics is because AI has been hijacked by the big US multinational, the Magnificent Seven. Why today is difficult to, I would say to name a very major robotic company they are, but they're almost all privately owned. And on the other hand, you have all these AI company that are going into robotics, because it's just the next step of development of AI. Laurent, final question. You've given, and thank you so much for your time today, because you've done a wonderful job of painting the picture of where the world is likely to be 5, 10, 20 years from now. And based upon that, your advice for where people should and shouldn't invest makes a great deal of sense. One, don't own anything that's government owned, such as bonds, invest in stocks of companies are actually doing something have physical value, invest in AI, invest in robotics, make sure you hold some physical gold. All these things are very sound advice. But you, sir, are the expert. I am not. What question haven't I asked that people should get the answer to? Oh, I would say is what's next? I mean, what's next after all these hands? Uh, what, what the world look like, let's say in 2035 or 2040? So that's the question then paint us a picture. What do you think is most likely that we're going to see 2030, 2040? What's it gonna look like? I would think that, uh, by 20, let's say the end of the 2030 or second half of the 2030s, uh, the economic power of the world, we would have moved, uh, east. And, uh, in fact, the axis, Russia, China, India will be the center of the economic world. Uh, and all the countries around what I, what is called, uh, in economy, the Valerie Piri's circle. So this is a circle of, uh, 3000 miles, uh, from Hong Kong. Uh, we see a, a gigantic economic boom, uh, because this way, uh, you will combine, uh, cheap access to resources from Russia with manufacturing from China and then consumer, uh, from India, uh, for the U S I would think the U S we'll do. Okay. But, uh, most likely the U S will not look the same as it is today. Uh, and we could, we could have a lot of, uh, a lot of maps are going to be redrawn over the next decade. It means that new countries will appear. Uh, some countries will sleep with split. Uh, some countries will take back, uh, some, uh, part of land that they gave up, uh, in the previous centuries. Uh, so for the U S I would think that, uh, unfortunately the U S is very polarized and increasingly polarized. Uh, what we have seen over the past few days, the riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere in blue states have nothing to do with the immigration policy. This is, this is kind of the start of a second war of secession. So I think that is clear that in the U S the blue and the rats cannot live together. And I would think that, uh, by the, uh, by the end of the next decade, uh, the, the blue and the red would have split, uh, because it's impossible for them to, to work together. I mean, uh, Los Angeles has nothing to do with, uh, Texas, uh, which has nothing to do with New York, uh, which has nothing to do with the middle West. So I would think that the map of the U S will be redrawn. The map of Canada could also be redrawn. I guess that, uh, we, we will see also some split, uh, between states. The map of the middle East will be redrawn because a lot of, uh, borders there have been created, uh, arbitrarily, uh, by the colonization. And this is not sustainable. Uh, and finally, if we talk about demographic development, uh, there's, there's a continent that nobody talks about is Africa. And if there is a continent, uh, where the demography is growing and where the population is still very young, it's, uh, it's Africa. So I guess that, uh, we will see a very different picture also in Africa and Africa is also blessed, uh, with, uh, many, uh, resources can be mining resources, can be agriculture resources. Uh, so I, I guess that there will be a new, uh, I would say a new pole of economic growth that will develop. Uh, this will take time. We will go through probably some dark ages or dark times. Uh, but I'm an optimistic. I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel and I would think that I would encourage everyone to look at that night. And, uh, I mean, everyone should have a goal is to, I mean, to, to, I mean, my job is to help people to preserve their wealth, to grow their wealth, but also to try to, to teach them to, to look, to look ahead and to try to forget the short term. And as I said, I think that, uh, I would, I would think that even that there are a lot of challenges ahead for, for planet earth. Uh, there's also a bright, uh, light at the end of all this tunnel for all of us. Laurent, I said to you before we started the interview that my interviews tend to be very organic, that you will say things that will trigger questions. And so I said that sort of blanket open-ended question was going to be my last one, but I'm afraid you've said something that's triggered one more question. And that is this in terms of the international currency of trade, given what you've just predicted, what is going to happen in your view between the U S dollar and the proposed BRICS currency? Oh, I won't think that there will be a BRICS currency. I think that, uh, the spirit of BRICS is more to trade, uh, in each other, uh, domestic currency and to avoid the U S dollar. So, uh, I would think that once the U S, uh, lose its imperialistic, uh, power, I mean, the U S dollar will fade in terms of the reserve currency of the world. I mean, this would take, uh, my guess is that this will take around, uh, five to 10 years to happen. Uh, but it won't be replaced by a single currency. Uh, I think that the BRICS member and especially the Chinese understand the curse of the reserve currency, and they don't want to face the same curse of the reserve currency as the U S has faced since world war II. So I think that the goal of BRICS is to establish a system where each country can trade between each other in their respective domestic currency. And at some point somewhere, uh, probably, uh, there will be kind of a BRICS bank. We can call it like this, where, uh, I would say excess reserve, uh, could be exchanged in gold or could be exchanged, uh, in oil. I mean, what people must understand is that the BRICS member, uh, among the largest oil producer, I mean, with, with Russia and among the largest gold producer in the world with China, Russia. So it would be very, uh, easy, uh, for this country, uh, to provide a place where, uh, I would say a Thai, uh, institutional investor or a Malaysian, uh, institutional investor can exchange, uh, his Chinese Yuan against, uh, gold bars or against, um, or against oil, uh, in case of Russia. So in short, you, you see limited trade between the BRICS nations, but the American dollar remaining the international currency of trade. I think that the US dollar will remain the reserve currency at least until, uh, the US, uh, empire is still around. So, uh, this means that, uh, it will take another five to 10 years, uh, to remove the US dollar as, uh, the reserve currency. Uh, what people must understand also, I mean, and I mentioned this earlier is that, uh, in the past and until, uh, 2022, in fact, a lot of BRICS countries, uh, issued debt in US dollar. So these BRICS countries still need, uh, US dollar to reimburse this debt. But nowadays, because, uh, they trade between each other in local currency, in fact, they generate less US dollar, uh, than in the past. And then China is trading much less with the US and will trade even less with the US in the next few years. So, I mean, there's a need for the BRICS, uh, countries, uh, to, to look for dollars, uh, to reimburse their past, uh, US dollar loan. And this will take at least over the next five, 10 years to close all these, uh, previous US dollar debt. I would, I would mention here that, uh, Hong Kong, uh, the, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which is kind of the central bank of Hong Kong, have almost half a trillion, uh, US dollar of reserves. So this was, this US dollar reserve could be used at some point. Uh, for now, uh, the HKME needs to keep this, uh, US dollar, uh, at home because there's a peg of the Hong Kong dollars against the US dollar. But once, uh, the Hong Kong authority and, uh, I mean, ultimately, uh, China, because Hong Kong is controlled by China, uh, once they decide, uh, to end the peg of the Hong Kong dollar against the US dollar, I mean, this half trillion, uh, US dollar, I mean, more or less can be used, uh, to reimburse, uh, US dollar debt, uh, from, uh, China, but also that's where China in fact can play, uh, the role of the IMF. In fact, China could use this US dollar and, uh, I would say, uh, lend this US dollar to any countries, uh, in the BRICS region or in ASEAN or, or maybe, uh, to Canada or so if they need some US dollar. Uh, I mean, they could use this extra US dollar, uh, in reserve in Hong Kong, uh, to, to shift the, the, the current situation of the US dollar reserve. (1:22:05 - 1:23:24) But this is something that will take a few more years to, to happen. As I said, I mean, it's difficult to give a timing, uh, but I would think that, let's say by the first half of the, the next decade, uh, we will most likely see, uh, the end of the US empire. And by this time, in fact, is the time that the US dollar will lose its role of reserve currency and where, uh, uh, a system that I just explained, uh, could be in place if, I mean, if China, Russia, and India dominate the world economically. Laurent, thank you very much for your insights and for the generous gift of your time, especially considering that it's coming up at 11 PM where you are. Folks, you will find on the IronWire site beneath this interview, a link to Laurent's substack, TheMacroButler, and you will also find his email address should you wish to contact him for his financial consultation services. Laurent, thank you again. Thank you very much, Will. It was my pleasure. It was a very good discussion and I hope that, uh, your listener have learned something. I am certain that they have. I certainly did. So thank you again.