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European capitals have had enough. The old playbook, where leaders like Shinzo Abe managed Trump through flattery and token concessions, isn't cutting it anymore. The policy shifts are too big this time: Ukraine abandoned, reciprocal tariffs targeting European VAT systems, steel and aluminum exemptions yanked.

So Europe is moving to what diplomats call de-risking, which really just means weaponizing the one thing Washington actually needs from them: money. The EU and UK together hold roughly $2.5 trillion in US Treasury securities. That's more than China's holdings. It rivals Japan's. If Brussels and London decided to dump even part of this onto the market, they could spike yields high enough to freeze the US housing market, trigger a banking crisis, and push federal interest payments past a trillion and a half annually.

Here's the catch: doing this would blow up Europe's financial system first.

The mechanics aren't as simple as hitting a sell button. European leaders have three ways to execute this threat, and the nastiest one doesn't even require central banks to do anything.

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Any of these would hit the US economy like a freight train.

The immediate effect would be a violent repricing of US risk. The Fed isn't buying bonds anymore, might even be selling them. The market depends on private buyers willing to step in. If Europe flips from buyer to seller, the imbalance turns catastrophic.

A coordinated shock, with confidence collapsing, could spike the 10-year Treasury by 150 to 250 basis points in weeks. The term premium, what investors demand to hold long-term risk, would explode.

Housing would freeze instantly. Mortgage rates price off the 10-year Treasury. If that jumps to 6.5% or 7%, mortgages blow past 10%. At 10%, housing affordability dies. Transactions stop. Construction financing evaporates.

Home values fall, wiping out middle-class wealth and killing consumer confidence.

Banks face a mark-to-market nightmare. They hold trillions in Treasuries. When yields rise, bond values fall. Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in 2023 from unrealized losses on its bond book. A 200-basis point spike would create trillions in paper losses across the banking system.

Even banks that survive would hoard capital and stop lending. Small and regional banks, the ones without massive hedging operations, would be staring down insolvency.

The federal government, the world's biggest debtor, would see debt service costs explode. Interest payments already rival defense spending. A permanent rate shock pushes that past $1.5 trillion annually. To cover it, the government either cuts spending or prints money, creating an inflation spiral.

And what she claims is what the American people voted for.