Trump is running a war racket. Between arms dealing, prediction markets, and crypto, the war in Iran is looking more and more like a not-so-elaborate scheme to rake in blood money for himself and his cronies. Even his own Defense Secretary attempted to buy defense stocks on the eve of the war. At least, if you have been wondering what we’re still doing at war with Iran, then Trump’s financial dealings may offer an explanation.
The Trumps are war dogs. Powerus, a startup based in West Palm Beach, was founded only last year, specializing in counter-drone tech tailored for none other than Middle East operations. Then, in March, just after Trump started a war in the Middle East, the company went public–and Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump joined the board with sizable equity stakes. The conflict of interest may be their entire business model. Just weeks after the brothers came aboard, the Air Force gifted Powerus its first military contract for an undisclosed number of interceptor drones. At the same time, the company is pitching drone demonstrations to Gulf countries that know buying from the President's sons is sure to curry favor. As former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter put it: “This is going to be the first family of a president to make a lot of money off war — a war he didn’t get the consent of Congress for.”
Now, the Trump family is propping up and profiting from an industry that allows Americans to essentially gamble on blood: prediction markets. Airstrikes used to require strategic necessity, and ones that harmed civilians used to be called tragedies; now, they are “event contracts” for a young man–and a Trump insider–to trade. And regardless of who places the bet, the prediction markets benefit through transaction fees. Lo and behold, Don Jr. just became a paid adviser of Kalshi and an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket. What’s he doing there? Bet you can piece it together. The First Family’s cozy relationship with these prediction market platforms has turned geopolitical instability into a tradable asset–and they get a cut.
A chaotic global landscape is good for business in other ways too. Trump and his associates stand to see immense financial gains from increased black-market transactions using a digital financial system that allows our enemies to bypass our sanctions. I’m talking about crypto. While many call crypto worse than a Ponzi scheme, its main selling point is that it is decentralized and untraceable. That opacity is useful if you smuggle drugs, arms, oil, or humans (by the way, Epstein had unsurprisingly deep ties to crypto). Sanctioned regimes stand to benefit from backdoor crypto dealings. Now, so does the President of the United States, and so do his friends.
Trump won the 2024 election with the help of crypto megadonors and has been returning the favor ever since, with his family even co-founding the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial. Now, a new report just revealed that “the same exchange that holds the vast majority of Trump's USD1 stablecoin has now facilitated billions of dollars in transactions for Iran and designated terrorist organizations.” Iran is charging $1 per barrel of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz, in crypto. Trump wants to talk about crushing terrorists, but he is creating the conditions that fund them. He doesn’t mind, though, because he’s also getting a payout.
Our own Department of Commerce is being led by Trump-appointed and Epstein-affiliated Howard Lutnick, whose connections to the stablecoin Tether, the primary vehicle Russian oligarchs use to move sanctioned Iranian oil to China, are well-documented. Meanwhile, Trump continues to send Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff to negotiate peace deals. But Witkoff was a co-founder of World Liberty Financial with the Trump family! Why would any of these guys want to end the war when they’re getting a piece of the action, making billions of untraceable money? Clearly, they don’t. Saying “the arsonists are selling fire extinguishers” doesn’t quite cover it when the fire extinguishers are filled with more fuel.
Ultimately, the Trump regime is running a vertical integration of war where the policy, the weaponry, the financial bypasses, and the outcomes are all controlled by a small group of people enriching themselves at each step. American tax dollars are being funneled into a drone company owned by the President’s sons, who are profiting off a nouveau-gambling trend where users can cash in on casualties, all while the war feeds industries that strengthen our adversaries. They are turning the war, and our service members, into one big short. And they have the audacity to ask the American taxpayers to foot an ever-growing bill.
I got out of the Navy in June as a Lieutenant Commander. I crossed the Strait of Hormuz for the first time in 2013 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom; it was a stressful exercise even when we weren’t at war with Iran. Now, the President is putting American troops in harm’s way (and gutting programs Americans rely on to pay for it) to serve his bottom line. It is viscerally sickening.
Our military deserves a government that isn’t checking its stock options while indefinitely extending deployments. The American people deserve a government that doesn’t use their tax dollars as a personal checkbook. And the global community deserves stability unthreatened by the greed of a gang of billionaires. Congress is asleep at the wheel, and if the American people don’t get more involved soon, we’re all gonna crash. It’s time to investigate the entanglements at the highest levels and end the collusion–for the sake of our resources, our morality, and our hope for a peaceful future.Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
The worst deal in the history of deals