Trump is threatening to cut off trade with half the world to force interest rates down, and the bigger story is that America's longtime lenders are quietly walking away — bad news for anyone holding dollars or bonds.

• Trump has floated halting trade with Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, Germany and others, worth roughly $300 billion a month, mainly as pressure to get borrowing costs down.
• The problem: those same countries hold America's debt, and they are already selling — Japan just had its biggest month of foreign bond sales ever, and Norway's huge wealth fund is cutting its Treasury holdings.
• Germany, France and the Netherlands are moving their gold out of New York, and Europe and China are both changing rules to keep their savings at home instead of sending it to the US.
• Interest, Social Security, Medicare and veterans' benefits now eat up more than everything the government collects in taxes, so every uptick in rates makes the hole deeper.
• China is quietly the strongest player: it is outbidding everyone for oil, which pushes inflation and US rates higher without it having to sell a single Treasury.

Outlook: Expect the Fed to look tough on inflation at its September 16 meeting while the real money-printing gets moved somewhere less visible — banks, stablecoins and pension funds pushed into buying government debt at rates below inflation.