Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday rolled out what President Donald Trump billed as “ECONOMIC D-DAY” against Iran, in the form of the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!”
But we all know this can’t possibly be so.
Trump has already executed the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country. He did it to the United States.
If tanking the American economy were the goal, it’s hard to imagine a more potent suite of policies than Trump has deployed: imposing tariffs, willy nilly, against just about everybody and everything; starting an intractable war in the Middle East and causing a worldwide oil shock; giving loads of tax breaks to the rich and pushing the federal debt above $40 trillion; and defunding scientific research and setting off a brain drain. Now he is starting a trade war with Canada and threatening the world with sanctions.
It’s no surprise that financial markets have taken a vote of no confidence in the long-term prospects for the U.S. economy. Just last Tuesday, investors pushed the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond to a level not seen since 2007, before the crash.
But fear not. Trump has a new plan. He is threatening a military attack on the bond market.
After Bessent tried and failed last week to push interest rates down with a buyback of U.S. bonds, a reporter asked Trump late Friday afternoon if there had been any talk “about another type of intervention.”
“We have many types of intervention,” Trump replied while standing in front of Marine One at Joint Base Andrews. “The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.”
Brilliant. We’ll call it Operation Epic Foolery.
Trump’s threat to launch a military strike on bond markets inspired another round of the now-common debate about the president’s mental acuity, and another round of the now-familiar questions. Did he really say that? (Yes.) What is he talking about? (No clue.)
The bomb-the-bond-markets idea would seem to confirm that the president has no actionable plan to ease Americans’ stagflation anxieties. He finally got the Federal Reserve chair he wanted, but interest rates aren’t going down anytime soon. He’s treating ordinary Americans’ cost-of-living struggles with insouciance — “I love the inflation!” — while improving his own standard of living.
Taxpayers and donors are buying him a new ballroom, a new Air Force One and new statues in his newly paved Rose Garden outside his newly gilded Oval Office. He’s ordered up a parade, a UFC fight, an IndyCar race and ceaseless flyovers for his amusement, and coins, passports and buildings to bear his name and likeness. Last week, he showed off his multimillion-dollar helipad.
“Very strong granite,” he boasted to reporters. “This is the highest quality stone you can get.”
The people can’t afford groceries? Let them eat helipads.
***
A president who wanted lower borrowing costs for Americans might spend less time on stone selection and more time on tariff reduction. He might also try to get the government’s finances in order, rather than adding nearly $12 trillion to its debt during his two terms.
But sure, let’s bomb the bond market. In fact, bomb the shit out of it, as Trump just threatened to do to U.S. ally Oman.
Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth was kind enough to share the war plans with me in a Signal chat, along with a top-secret sequence of emojis illustrating the strategy:
👊🏻📉🔥
The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, now returning to San Diego after more than 270 days at sea, will instead be diverted to New York Harbor. Trump has said the sailors’ record-setting deployment was “not nearly long enough,” so it will continue, without resupply of toilet paper, until its F-18s and F-35s have not just flattened the yield curve but obliterated it.
The 82nd Airborne will land in lower Manhattan with orders to fight, basis point by basis point, starting with the two-year T-note and not stopping until it has pacified the 30-year bond.
The Pentagon’s missile supply is running low, but remaining munitions will be used to shoot down any yields that rise above 3%.
Special forces in helicopters will seize control of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the other primary bond dealers to make sure that only “buy” orders are placed. Any dealers found selling U.S. debt will be sent on a small-boat Caribbean cruise and sunk by drones.
There are many bond villains, of course, and it is anticipated that the enemy will fight back with a web of repos, swaps, futures and offshore trading. In reality, the bond market is a dangerous adversary, which is why James Carville once asserted that he would like to be reincarnated as one, because “You can intimidate everybody.”
But the bond market can’t intimidate Donald Trump. And that is why I say: No mercy for the traders in our midst!
***
The threat to attack the bond market may be outlandish, but it is no less convincing than the threats Bessent laid out against the whole world on Monday afternoon.
“The United States Treasury has begun Operation Economic Outcast,” the secretary announced, with an anxious delivery at odds with his menacing words. “In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries. Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe.”
He piled on the bellicosity. Every country would have a “defined timeline” to obey or face “the full reach of American power.” Bessent warned that “no one should test our resolve” and that world leaders must “make a decision between … America and Iran.”
But there were no specific demands, no countries mentioned and no actual sanctions — only the threat of future sanctions. Bessent’s threats melted at their first exposure to reporters’ questions.
Why didn’t the Treasury target Chinese banks?
“We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy,” replied the formerly menacing Bessent.
Why not impose sanctions today?
“Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent answered, explaining that a “warning shot, and a level-set of expectations, is appropriate.”
So “ECONOMIC D-DAY” turned out to be another “warning shot.”
My money is on the bond market.
Dana Milbank is a NOTUS Perspectives columnist.
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