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Fourteen Ministers in Baghdad

Baghdad voted in 14 ministers Thursday. Finance went to al-Sari. Xi poured the wine in Beijing. CLARITY cleared 15-9. Warsh took the Fed. One session.

Acknowledging we have a lot of new members joining us this week. So have opened up today's briefing to all members. Enjoy.

🎧
AUDIO NARRATION - 11:29

Friday May 15. Yesterday, Baghdad swore in 14 ministers in a single chamber session. Beijing hosted a state banquet where Xi told Trump that "making America great again" and China's rise can go hand in hand. Senate Banking advanced the Clarity Act 15 to 9 with two Democrats crossing the aisle. Kevin Warsh took the Federal Reserve chair as Jay Powell stepped down.

Earlier this week in The Planned Collapse, we mapped the moves and the names that would carry them. Now we watch the proof land. The headlines tell you Thursday ran four separate stories. Now you know they are all connected.

The Chair Filled

Thursday morning, Iraqi parliament confirmed Ali Faleh al-Zaidi as Prime Minister with 14 of 23 ministers approved in a single sitting. 280 of 329 MPs were in the chamber. 266 voted in favour. Al-Zaidi is 40, the youngest premier Iraq has had, and Trump personally intervened in April to block former PM Nouri al-Maliki's run at the seat.

The Finance Ministry went to Faleh al-Sari. We have been pointing at this chair since the bank-chair quietly became the PM-designate, through the carry-forward weeks, and past every Tehran-forced delay. The Finance Ministry submits the budget the CBI is required to fund - it has been the single blocking variable, and the lever on the rate question. The Shia coalition had not picked a candidate. Thursday morning, in a single ballot, it finally moved.

Interior and defence portfolios did not seat. Several other portfolios were deferred. 9 of the 23 posts remain unfilled and the security-facing ministries are among them. The May 27 constitutional deadline is no longer the gun. Half of the cabinet that runs the economy is in place. The other half that defends Babylon isn't.

Al-Zaidi's programme, read into the chamber record, pledges state monopoly on weapons and "restricting weapons to state control." That is the disarmament language the Petraeus registry has been built to operationalise. Within hours of the vote, US Special Envoy Tom Barrack posted that Washington stands ready to work with the new government on "the elimination of terrorism." The phrasing names the militia file as the bilateral agenda, not a courtesy line.

The chair is filled. What it signs first and second is what we watch for next.

Xi Poured the Wine

In case you missed it. Trump landed in Beijing Wednesday and sat down with Xi Jinping Thursday for a bilateral followed by a state banquet. The joint readout carried 9 specific commitments.

Xi told Trump on the record that China opposes "militarisation of the energy artery" and "any effort to charge a toll for its use." Both sides committed that Iran "can never have a nuclear weapon." Xi pledged not to provide military equipment to Iran.

On CNBC, Bessent confirmed Kharg Island has loaded zero barrels for three consecutive days. Iran's storage is full. The country that bought 1.4 million barrels a day of Iranian crude just agreed with Washington that the Strait must be demilitarised and toll-free.

Xi committed to buy US oil, LNG, soybeans, and 200 Boeing aircraft - China's first major Boeing order in nearly a decade. Trump brought 16 chief executives with him - the names that finance, ship, refine, and supply the world's economy. Xi was invited to the White House for September 24. Two economies of this size do not sign a deal of this magnitude unless both rooms see the same opportunity.

At the banquet Xi raised his glass and said the two paths forward "can go hand in hand." He toasted Trump in the Great Hall while Baghdad swore in 14 ministers.

Tehran granted toll-free passage to 30 Chinese tankers during the summit. Iran has been charging $2 million per Hormuz crossing. It waived its own toll to keep China at the table - while China was at that table shopping for the replacement crude the United States is positioned to supply.

Clarity Cleared Committee

May 14. Senate Banking Committee voted 15 to 9 to advance the 309-page Digital Asset Market Clarity Act to the Senate floor. 2 Democrats crossed: Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland. Senator Warren called it "a bill written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry" and lost the room.

The bill divides oversight between the SEC and CFTC and gives digital assets, stablecoins, and tokens a legal home inside the regulated US banking system. It needs 60 votes on the floor. Memorial Day recess starts May 25, and every day Senate leadership lets it sit is a day closer to a slipped schedule. July 4 is the White House signing target and it is still on the calendar, only on a tight runway.

The plumbing under the bill kept moving. RLUSD passed $1.55 billion in circulation. On May 6, JPMorgan, Mastercard, Ripple, and Ondo settled a tokenised Treasury bond on the XRP Ledger in under 5 seconds. Rails are being laid with or without the legislation. The bill is the legal cover for rails that already exist.

Earlier this week in The Planned Collapse we read that Thursday morning carried 4 historical events inside 6 hours. The committee vote was the first signature for the digital settlement layer. The Senate floor is the next step.

Warsh Sat the Powell Seat

Kevin Warsh was sworn in Thursday morning to the chair Jay Powell held for 8 years. Senate confirmation 54 to 45, with Fetterman the only Democrat to cross. Powell stays as a governor for now.

Warsh has spent the last decade on the record - gold and digital assets are serious reserve facts, and the Fed's credibility depends on acknowledging both. A chair sworn in by a Republican Senate is not arriving with the room set for cuts.

Read the seat against the rails. CLARITY cleared committee the same morning Warsh sat. The legal path for digital settlement is moving and the chair that oversees dollar policy as those rails go live is now in place. Liquidity at the scale the next chapter requires - numbers with more zeros than the room counts in a day - flows through a Fed aligned with the digital layer and a reserve column that includes gold.

His first FOMC is June 16 to 17. The first signed paper from the Warsh Fed.

Baghdad Knocked On The IMF Door

The other half of the Iraq story is the door Baghdad walked through this week. Iraq approached the IMF for financial assistance directly tied to the Iran war.

Discussions began at the spring meetings in Washington last month. Oil exports are nearly all of Baghdad's government revenue, and the Hormuz situation has cut them.

This is not a programme-rate borrower walking into the Fund. Iraq holds $16 trillion in proven natural resources, the largest in-ground reserves between the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean. The conversation Baghdad walks into is about positioning that value at the level the rate has been held below for 22 years. Not patching a hole.

The CBI has spent the last 18 months pulling notes from circulation and moving the domestic system to digital. USD cash imports cut from $14 billion to $4 billion. 95% of the system on the electronic platform. 79 commercial banks queued for digital licenses. The project to delete three zeros contracts the IQD float from 93 trillion to 93 billion when the rate moves - and every three-zero note international investors are holding gets cleared in the same instant. Iraq has already laid the concrete on this foundation.

The chair is seated. Fiscal stabilisation, the rate file, and the hydrocarbon law are this government's opening agenda. The Fund engagement Baghdad opened weeks ago is the working room where each one gets prepared.

The Read

Four signed papers in one news cycle. Baghdad filled the finance seat that anchors the dinar. Beijing put on the record that Hormuz cannot be militarised and cannot be tolled. Senate Banking advanced the bill that places digital settlement under US banking law. Warsh took the Fed seat the same morning.

Most of the population will see the four separate headlines. Iraq runs on one timeline. Trump in Beijing runs on another. Senate committee votes sit in the politics column. Warsh sits in markets.

The reader who has been with us since February sees what is in front of them right now.

For 7 months Baghdad's parliament could not pass a cabinet. For 18 days after his April 27 nomination, al-Zaidi could not pass a confidence vote. Then Beijing put Hormuz on the record. Then CLARITY cleared committee. Then Warsh took the Fed seat. And within hours, Baghdad sealed the chair. The seat could not fill until the architecture around it was being wired in and the military had isolated the serpents.

Now connect the chain. Iran controlled Iraq's monetary policy through bank chairs and militia networks for two decades. Trump severed Iran's revenue at the Strait. China - Iran's biggest customer - sat at the table in Beijing this week and put toll-free, demilitarised Hormuz on the record.

The militias that depended on Tehran's cash and influence are being asked to register their weapons under a disarmament registry built by Petraeus. Al-Zaidi pledged state monopoly on weapons in his programme. Tom Barrack named the militia file as the bilateral agenda. The cabinet finally seated this week without Tehran's pick at the table.

You guys get to see what the headlines are not connecting. The chain runs from Trump's first term in 2018, through the maximum pressure campaign, the Soleimani strike, and the Bank Melli sanctions, to the Hormuz blockade in February, the Strait operations, the sanctions cycle, and now to the Iraqi cabinet that does not depend on Tehran sitting in the seats that anchor the dinar to the 1310 programme rate.

When the rate moves, the $16 trillion of in-ground resources sitting under Iraq starts pricing closer to value. The three-zero notes the CBI has been pulling from circulation clear in the same instant. And the redemption flow international holders have been waiting on sits on Tier 1 bank books in London, New York, Singapore, and Zurich. The CBI runs Iraq's domestic float. The Tier 1 banks run the conversion. Those institutions get the green light.

Trump's team has been writing this calendar since 2018. The week you watched it print is the week that was always coming. The signatures landing this week are the evidence.

What we watch for now: the Senate floor before May 25. Baghdad's next confidence vote on Interior and Defence. The hydrocarbon law moving toward Parliament. The IMF letter al-Sari signs. And the size of the deals coming out of Beijing as they print the contracts.

Who thought history would ever be this exciting.

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