Trump has used “negotiations” as cover for military strikes three times in the past year. In January, US officials indicated they were seeking negotiations with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro hours before the raid in which he was kidnapped by US special forces. In June 2025, while indirect talks with Iran were ongoing, seven B-2 bombers hit Iran’s nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer. On February 28, the US murdered Iran’s supreme leader and launched the current war while negotiators were engaged in talks in Geneva that had concluded just two days earlier. Every time, Trump talked peace while plotting a criminal war of aggression.

It cannot be excluded that discussions are ongoing in some format. But if talks had been taking place, they would have been with the same people Trump has publicly threatened to murder or already attempted to murder. In statements to the press on Monday, Trump boasted: “We’ve wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two and largely phase three.”

Don’t believe the nonsense narrative that TACO Trump will back down, the cowardly thing for him to do is escalate and that is what he will do.

The fact that the financial markets so easily lean into the delusion Trump is going to take an offramp really shows how untethered the US based global financial system is from reality or the lived experience of humans.