Trump-Netanyahu "Differences": A Good Cop-Bad Cop Routine

By Michael Every of Rabobank

As You Were... But As Who Was? 

Yesterday nearly saw a full restart of the Israel-Iran war, apparently pulled back from the brink by intervention from President Trump. After yet another Middle East rollercoaster for markets it’s now ‘as you were’, with oil --so everything else-- little changed. The larger issue behind that pricing, however, is the key question - ‘As who was?’

Iran set up its proxy network, centered on terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, to protect itself: if Israel attacked it, Hezbollah would attack Israel. However, Tehran now has to attack Israel, with counterattacks on it in response, to defend its ‘shield’. That’s a huge Iranian strategic setback. As such, Tehran is trying to tie Israel vs. Hezbollah to itself vs. the US to divide the US from Israel, which now have different needs: a deal vs. finishing the job militarily or via regime change. That dynamic has huge implications for when and how this war ends, so for energy, so for markets.

While Israel and Iran say they will stop their attacks, Israeli PM Netanyahu last night gave a public address where he stated: “Iran and Hezbollah are weaker than ever, and we are stronger than ever – but our battle against them is still not finished. In the last 24 hours, Iran and Hezbollah tried to impose a new equation upon us… an equation I find intolerable and unacceptable. They thought they would fire at Israel from Lebanese territory and from Iran – and we would not act. That did not happen, and it will not happen. Not on my watch!... At the moment, we are holding our fire, because after we struck the terror regime in Tehran, it ceased attacking us. In the event that Iran makes the mistake of resuming attacks on us – we will respond with overwhelming force.”

Moreover, Israel will hit Hezbollah in Beirut if it fires at Israel from south Lebanon, which Iran says is a red line that will trigger more attacks on the Jewish state, restarting this war.

If Iran tells Hezbollah to ceasefire, markets can relax;

If not, and Israel hits Hezbollah, Iran has to decide if it wants to fire at Israel - and restart the war;

If Trump forces Israel to hold back vs. Hezbollah, Iran will have linked the two fronts and divided the US and Israel – which likely sees more war.

After all, Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, its 1967 Six-Day War, its 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear programme, and its 2007 strike against Syria’s nuclear programme all took place against US wishes. To expect otherwise this time is unwise. Indeed, Trump-Netanyahu differences could be a good cop-bad cop routine to allow the US to push for a deal while Israel does the fighting.

In the background, Yemen’s Houthis claim they will restart a maritime blockade of Israel in the Red Sea, which was applied far more broadly the last time they put it in place. Obviously, that can threaten cargo and energy flows at this juncture, as a US Navy F-18 struck and disabled an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman and the EU hit Iran’s Navy… with sanctions.

In short, this crisis is far from over, even as Trump says “total victory” will be declared in the next two weeks as Iranian negotiators are “willing to give us everything,” and VP Vance added that the deal being discussed was “a home run” for the US. Yet the inside baseball question remains which negotiators the US is talking to given local reports that contact has been lost with Supreme Leader Khamenei Jr. and another that IRGV leader Vahidi was killed in a recent Israeli strike.

Elsewhere in geopolitics, Berlin says the Franco-German fighter jet project is dead, a major blow to future pan-European defence plans; Switzerland is weighing a Franco-Italian alternative to US air defences given a 5-year wait for the latter; and a French fighter jet shot down a suspected Russian drone in Latvian airspace.

That’s as Germany claimed it’s ready to take the reins from the US in talks with Putin despite Russia rejecting Ukrainian and European peace initiatives, saying instead that the battlefield will decide the war – but as Moscow pauses its CCTV systems after Israel hacked Iran’s to target its Supreme Leader. Back in the UK, a secret camera was found in the ceiling panel of the room in a sensitive government building where the decision was made to approve the new Chinese embassy.

Showing how lines on the map can move as the driver of lines on the screen, the US is considering buying the Chagos Islands to take control of the strategic UK airbase on Diego Garcia; Mauritius, whom the UK is controversially trying to hand the islands to, is today demanding they get them ASAP to avoid that outcome.

China’s Xi Jinping, on a state visit, pledged “unwavering” support for North Korea, making some things crystal clear, as Bloomberg publishes its estimates for the economic damage from a war over Taiwan: $10 trillion, apparently. Which justifies or incentivizes doing what as insurance?

In LatAm, Peru is set for lengthy vote count as its presidential race is still too close to call, and Colombia will see a presidential runoff ahead following the leftist Cepeda’s first round election loss.

In geoeconomics, the US added Alibaba, BYD and other Chinese tech champions to its military company blacklist. That’s as Anthropic's Mythos can reportedly now exploit new software flaws in mere hours and OpenAI gets ready for its IPO, Trump is mirroring Bernie Sanders in arguing the state should get stakes in AI giants - and presumably not just in military and security areas but across the economic spectrum. To say we are moving the political-economy Overton Window is an understatement: at this stage are there any actual windows left? Indeed, could the walls and the roof fall in on conventional analysis using conventional wisdom?

The European press talks of how ‘China is killing Europe’s chemicals industry. Brussels wants to intervene’ and France’s Macron is reportedly to court China to get them to address trade imbalances – offering and threatening what exactly?

Indonesia is also weighing export rule exemptions for commodity traders to try to calm local markets after the recent de facto state control of that key area of the economy.

At the same time, Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee was declared an unlawful “tax” by a US judge, as were his tariffs of course, which will now be appealed (was the lower via fee also a tax? If not, why not?).

As you were then… but as who was? And what will we be soon – besides confused?