Carpe Momentum: Empire Taxed: Trump's Budget is Burning Down the Dollar

Section 899 isn’t policy, it’s a fiscal ultimatum that threatens U.S. credibility, global stability, and the working class. The world is walking away, and Washington lit the match.

There’s a moment when empires no longer die with a bang, but with a bond sale nobody shows up to. That moment may have arrived.

Buried deep in Donald Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” is a provision known as Section 899, a clause so toxic, so shortsighted, that it may do what no foreign adversary has ever managed: break the world’s trust in the U.S. dollar.

Section 899 empowers the Treasury Department to designate countries as “unfriendly” and impose escalating withholding taxes, 5%, 10%, 15%, up to 20%, on dividends and interest paid to their investors. And this isn’t just for hostile regimes. It applies to allies like Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, any nation with a tax policy Trump deems inconvenient. Many of these investors currently pay zero withholding tax under long-standing treaties. Section 899 rips those treaties up in the name of power politics.