Doug Casey: Politically, and in every other way, it's all about Trump. As Shakespeare said of Julius Caesar, "he doth bestride the narrow world. Like a Colossus, and we petty men. Walk under his huge legs and peep about. To find ourselves dishonorable graves."

Trump has his finger in everything, in all countries, all spheres of enterprise, everywhere. He's a political phenomenon with authoritarian tendencies. Which is a natural consequence of an unstable "democracy." In fact, Caesar rose to power because of the late Roman Republic's chronic political instability—much of which he caused. Trump could be America's answer to Caesar.

I made that observation to a friend who, like me, is prone to classical references. He countered that perhaps Trump sees himself as a Cincinnatus lookalike. Cincinnatus, you'll recall, was a patrician citizen appointed dictator in about 458 BC to deal with a military emergency. He quickly did so. Instead of serving out the rest of his six-month term, he handed back his power and returned to his farm.

Trump sees that the US is on the cusp of a cultural crisis, and wants to avert it. He's certainly a cultural conservative who wants to return the country to the halcyon days of yesteryear, the way it was in "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best." But he's also a narcissist and a megalomaniac, trying to reorder the world by signing hundreds of Executive Orders, creating chaos with his tariffs, subsidies, threats, attacks, and arbitrary blustering. At heart, Trump is a Caesar, not a Cincinnatus,

Economically, the U.S. is imitating Argentina. His actions are pretty much those of Perón, who was responsible for the destruction of the Argentine economy: tariffs to protect domestic industries, lots of arbitrary regulations, and government "partnerships" with corporations. Both Peron and Trump are reminiscent of Mussolini. It's a slippery slope.

He's surrounded himself with sycophants and lickspittles. His tariffs have an excellent chance of upending both the domestic and world economies. He claims that he will replace the income tax with tariffs, which sounds great. It's true that tariffs paid for over 75% of government expenditures up to 1916. But that was when Federal spending was tiny, about 1.5% of GDP. Today, the only way to reduce taxes is to reduce spending—but Trump loves spending. DOGE is long forgotten. I predict he'll outdo FDR by every measure in spending.