Above, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa (Nikki) Haley (née Randhawa) the Republican politician and diplomat who served as the 116th governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and as the 29th U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018.
The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States took place on Monday, 20 January 2025. The notable “One Hundred Days” will be reached on Wednesday, 30 April 2025.
To say that Trump’s Second Administration has been disruptive is to understate the matter considerably!
Speculation can be market sensitive and therefore I am not going to heap fire onto New York’s turbulent financial markets. However, it is quite possible that actions by “other parties” (governments and institutions outside the USA) may take such actions that will seriously affect the USA’s and the US $’s stability in the not too far distant future.
There is something called the “Samson Strategy” (taken from Judges 16:30): Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.
This is not to say invoking a “Samson Strategy” necessarily means personal self destruction; it can denote actions that cause a crisis of sufficiently serious proportions as to bring about a figurative “bringing the house down”.
Were in the not too far distant future, the bond and stock markets of New York were to suffer “negative market consequences” of sufficient seriousness as to be a Black [select a weekday] this could force sufficient Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate to remove Mr Trump by impeaching him. Removing a President can be done relatively quickly. It is however very difficult for it requires two thirds of US Senators to vote for this. This means a considerable number of the President’s own party. Removing a Vice President can be done in the same way and with the same hurdles. It could be done at the same time!
Were the President and the Vice President removed from office the office of President would fall upon the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The current Speaker is a Trump loyalist, Mike Johnson. Therefore those wishing a “fresh start” would need to chose a less partisan Republican politician. An obvious choice would be Nikki Haley as she could possibly bring about some form of working consensus.
This because the USA’s Constitution does not explicitly require the speaker to be an incumbent member of the House of Representatives, although every speaker thus far has been, and as a member the speaker also represents their district and retains the right to vote. The speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate.
On 3 October, 2023, the United States House of Representatives voted to remove its speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, through a motion to vacate filed by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a fellow member of the Republican Party. McCarthy’s removal marked the first time in American history that a speaker of the House was removed through a motion to vacate. The vacancy started a process to elect a speaker that began following an eight-day recess.
Were this to be repeated it is likely that Nikki Haley would be elected into office more quickly.
It would be difficult to overstate the political consequences of such a dramatic series of moves!
However, the sudden change of government and the restoration of something resembling the status quo would have a positively dramatic effect on the bond, currency and equity markets across the globe.
Sadly, such a set of events could only come about were there was sufficient excrement hitting a sufficient number of rapidly rotating fans as to distribute significant quantities of excretia over sufficient numbers of persons and institutions!
We live in hope!