Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gets it.  When asked about the Strait of Hormuz, Bessent notes that yes, things will likely never return to the way they were before; however, there is a distinction that must be applied.

Even if Iran completely acquiesced to all of the most stringent terms and conditions requested by President Trump, they will never again recapture the position they held with the Strait of Hormuz as a chokepoint.

Capital markets respond to risk in the medium and long term; risks are always mitigated.  With the Strait now identified as a strategic risk, the emphasis will be on forever neutralizing that risk and avoiding the issue in the future.  As a consequence, Iran’s strongest point of leverage is disappearing now and will continue to disappear.  WATCH (prompted):

As further explained by James Thorne on X: “By repeatedly signaling its willingness to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran hasn’t strengthened its hand, it has accelerated the market’s exit. Capital does not tolerate chokepoints; it routes around them.

Saudi Arabia is expanding its East-West pipeline. The UAE has already built out Fujairah as a bypass. Iraq is revisiting overland export corridors. Every marginal dollar now flows toward redundancy, not reliance. What was once a geopolitical lever is being engineered into irrelevance. Bessent gets it: markets don’t absorb coercion; they arbitrage it away.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent continues on two domestic financial approaches to block banking services for illegal aliens and simultaneously target use of the financial system by those engaged in fraud of the U.S. government.

Secretary Bessent has extended the Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) within Minnesota that covers two counties, Hennepin and Ramsey.

All financial transactions over a $3,000 limit are subject to increased reporting requirements and scrutiny from the U.S. treasury.  {citation}

The measure is intended to identify any person who attempts to transfer funds obtained by fraud who operate in the region to take advantage of HHS funding programs. “Treasury promised to follow the money, and that is exactly what we are doing,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “We will continue to give law enforcement critical tools to trace criminal networks that siphon taxpayer dollars and move them overseas.  The Trump Administration will not allow criminals to profit from programs intended to help vulnerable Americans.”

Additionally, the Treasury Department has now concluded the 90-day assessment laid out in an executive order titled “Restoring Integrity to America’s Financial System,” on May 19 and directed the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, FDIC, National Credit Union Administration and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to strengthen customer identification and due-diligence rules and to reassess how banks weigh credit risk for borrowers without work authorization. 

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The article itself is weak sauce in the extreme, “according to new U.S. intelligence reports that posit possible scenarios” blah, blah, blah…  You know the routine.

However, that said, there is a general alignment of intent that tracks this narrative as expressed by the Wall Street Journal.

CTH doesn’t try to convince anyone. Convincing is an endless quest. However, if you just look at the datapoints that have surfaced since June 11th, there is a greater likelihood of some kind of western kinetic activity that can be carried out in order to stimulate more opposition to Russia.  Some form of false flag operation.

That approach would track with what we have witnessed in the past two months as Ukraine makes public claims in media that are expressly opposite of the action they are taking.  CTH has been pointing this out along the way.  It is prudent to notice things, particularly when those things can be consequential to the interests of EU-controllled intelligence.

WASHINGTON—Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test NATO’s resolve with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years, according to new U.S. intelligence reports that posit possible scenarios ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion.

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President Trump signed several executive orders today on the topic of computer chip manufacturing, birthright citizenship and birth tourism.   The media questions begin at 7:30 of the video below.

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Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn finally dropped their opposition to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche advancing the nomination with a judiciary committee vote 12-10 along party lines.

Senator Chuck Grassley navigated a pathway out of the committee with an agreement by AAG Blanche that an IRS lawsuit settlement agreement between the DOJ and Trump attorneys would not create a J6 victim’s compensation fund.

The $1.8 billion settlement between the IRS and lawyers representing President Trump for leaking the candidates’ personal tax returns still remains at the heart of the matter. What Donald Trump and the Trump Organization plan to do with the settlement is unknown, hence the political consternation about the settlement remains in place.

WASHINGTON DC – […] Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said ahead of the vote that Cornyn and Tillis’ concerns about the fund “and the IRS settlement were shared by many, including this senator.” He added that the changes Blanche made “put this issue to bed once and for all.”

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What we can take away from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) index on manufacturing [Data Here]: overall, the U.S. manufacturing sector is continuing to expand significantly.  The current index of 55.6 percent in July is 2.3 percentage points above the June figure and the highest reading since May 2022 (55.9 percent), when we were trying to recover from the COVID-19 shutdowns and supply chain problems.

PMI – The overall economy continued in expansion for the 21st month in a row. (A Manufacturing PMI^® above 47.5 percent, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy.) The New Orders Index expanded for the seventh consecutive month after four straight readings in contraction, registering 56.7 percent, up 0.7 percentage point compared to June’s figure of 56 percent.

The July reading of the Production Index (58.5 percent) is 6.3 percentage points higher than the 52.2 percent recorded in June and the highest figure since November 2021 (60.5 percent). The Prices Index remained in expansion (or ‘increasing’ territory), registering 71.1 percent, a 1.9-percentage point decrease from June’s reading of 73 percent. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 55 percent, up 4.5 percentage points compared to the 50.5 percent recorded in June.

The Employment Index reading of 52.8 percent is up 3.1 percentage points from June’s figure of 49.7 percent, putting the index in expansion territory for the first time in 33 months.” (source)

All that data and a couple of bucks will buy you a cup of coffee, but here’s what it means in common speak.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down with Fox News Lara Trump for an extensive discussion on his role and responsibilities in the Trump administration.

In the second segment, Rubio actually touched on something many have been curious about regarding his changed perspectives and positions.  It is still annoying that no one has ever asked him directly, ‘why have your views changed so dramatically in the past two years, and/or are you just playing a role.‘

The two video segments and transcript are below:

[Transcript] – QUESTION: Secretary, great to have you back. Thank you so much.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Glad to be back. It’s been a while.

QUESTION: Yeah. There’s so much to talk about, but I want to start with Cuba.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah.

QUESTION: This has been of particular interest to the State Department right now. You guys released a 100-page report on Cuba, calling it, “The Capital of 21st Century Communism.” And this report talks about the fact that Cuba’s goal essentially is to erase the United States from the Earth. It also details a Cuban spy network that’s been undermining American interests. How did we get to a place where Cuba has become so much of a threat – it feels like again – to the United States?

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CNN propagandist Dana Bash had a full mask down episode today while trying to deny the truth about COVID-19 (all aspects) and defend Anthony Fauci (who she frequently text with according to Fauci’s diary).

HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was not going to allow CNN to fraudulently present nonsense claims under the guise of “settled science,” and he pushed back hard against her claims. At one point Bash notes she didn’t want to litigate the COVID-19 outcomes and RFK Jr appropriately pushed back saying the experiences need to be relitigated because Americans were censored, shut down, lied to and had liberty destroyed by a political health system devoid from science.

Things became even more heated as Bash was staring at the multi-page talking points prepared for her by corporate advertisers and Kennedy was systematically destroying them. Bash doubled, tripled and quadrupled down with the manipulative and combative questioning, ultimately removing any facade of journalism in the process. WATCH:

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Promethean Action PAC puts together another video drawing attention to the connection between pressure on both Hezbollah (Lebanon) and Hamas (Gaza) that is forcing the terrorist networks within both conflict zones to suddenly discuss disarming and a pathway to peace.

Kokinda notes Secretary Bessent’s sanctions and money intercepts against all of the various Iranian financial systems are creating problems for the networks they support.  That is leading to unexpected pressure on the terror networks.

“From Camp David, President Trump framed a reported Hamas disarmament agreement as a breakthrough enabled by pressure on Iran, arguing the regional strategic terrain has shifted. The episode highlights two developments presented as unprecedented: Hamas agreeing to disarm and Israel and Lebanon resuming talks after three decades, both attributed to cutting off Iranian funding for proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Kokinda claims the decisive “weapon” was Treasury action under Secretary Scott Bessent—sanctions, OFAC tools, anti–money laundering measures—described as “economic fury,” including designating over 1,000 Iranian-linked individuals, ships, and companies and disrupting routes through shipping, insurance, and offshore finance. The script also points to the February 19, 2026 launch of the multinational “Board of Peace,” tasked with rebuilding Gaza, as a preplanned institutional blueprint that helped secure the Hamas agreement.”

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The Security Assistance Group (SAG) is a unit of NATO command operated in Germany that specifically focuses on the military training and development in support of Ukraine.  The U.S. is transitioning out of SAG leadership and handing the responsibility to Europe or Canada.

EUROPE – Another NATO member will eventually take over running the Security Assistance Group, according to a U.S official and three people familiar with the plan, which has played a central role in equipping and training Ukrainian troops since the full-scale Russian invasion began. But the removal of U.S. leadership from a pivotal program on the continent reinforces the extent to which America is distancing itself from European partners.

The move will mean the U.S. no longer helps shape what Ukraine’s future military will look like. It follows a swath of changes the Trump administration has made to the decades-old alliance. The Pentagon has reduced the number of American officers running commands in Europe and canceled some rotations. Officials are reassessing troops stationed on the continent and warning countries they won’t receive assistance unless their defense spending increases.

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