Your IMPORTANT Weekly Briefing: (23rd January 2026)

The Neil McCoy-Ward Newsletter

January 23, 2026

Opening Note…

Well, what a week! To be honest, this week has been an absolute blur for me because I spent most of my time on one YouTube channel… yes, one single YouTube channel all week - this was the World Economic Forum.

And believe me, I took no pleasure in having to watch all these videos this week. But it was crucial that I did so, I could keep you informed of what's happening in geopolitics. And boy is it all kicking off!

I've just recorded the weekly walk and talk video today, so I won't repeat everything in this email that I talked about in that video. Because I'd prefer it, if you simply watch the video… but I'll cover a few of the things below.

Let's break down the latest...

Table of Contents

1. Weekly Spotlight

Trump’s “peace board” announcement

This week, Trump used the World Economic Forum as a stage to launch his new Board of Peace with a signing ceremony. It felt very fitting for what Davos is usually like, where leaders like to do big, symbolic unveilings because the whole world is watching.

But the leaders at Davos weren’t impressed. They feel like Trump gatecrashed their party…

Trump says he’s creating a new club of countries that can step into conflicts and help “manage” what comes next. It started as part of his plan for Gaza, with the idea that the board would coordinate money, oversight, and accountability as Gaza moves from war to rebuilding.

At the Davos event, he signed the founding charter alongside leaders from more than 20 countries (I think 35 have joined so far now). He also tried to calm one of the biggest worries by saying the board would work together with the United Nations rather than replace it.

The board is being built in a very Trump-shaped way; it has had invitations going out widely, with a serious buy-in cost of $1 Billion for a seat at the table. That’s not how the usual global system works, and it’s why some governments are nervous about what this could turn into.

FEAR I think, is the best word to describe this new situation. Many globalists are realising that they are losing control as a New World Order is shaped around them.

And this is where I think a lot of people miss what Trump is doing. He’s a businessman by instinct, and he uses a very classic business tactic (over and over again). In fact, he wrote about this tactic in his book ‘The Art of the Deal’, which you've heard me reference several times this year. Trump doesn’t open with what he really wants. He opens by asking for far more than he really wants. Then, when the opposing party declines, he arranges a meeting whereby they negotiate to the point that he ends up getting what he really wanted (but knew he wouldn't have gotten if he'd have started with that offer).

You saw that same pattern with Greenland. If Trump had simply said, “I want long-term U.S. bases and special access so American companies can extract minerals,” Denmark and Greenland would have treated it like a straight commercial negotiation. They would have wanted a real price, firm terms, and something that looked like an equal deal.

Instead, he pushed the talk all the way to annexation and “we need it” language. And once you do that, you change the whole picture. Suddenly, anything short of losing Greenland outright starts to feel like a relief. So Denmark and Greenland ended up offering something much smaller in comparison, like expanded basing rights or special zones around military sites, without Trump having to give much back in a traditional “deal” sense.

That’s the thread connecting these two stories. The Board of Peace is being sold as a global good, but it’s also a structure that puts Trump and the U.S. leverage at the centre of the action. And the Greenland pressure campaign shows how he likes to create leverage first, then “settle” for something that still moves the U.S. closer to what it wanted all along.

2. Quick Takes

Here are the other top stories shaping the week:

  • Trump Sends ‘Armada’ Towards Iran And Warns Of Possible Strikes

    Trump says a “massive fleet” led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is heading towards Iran, warning he is “watching Iran very closely” and refusing to rule out military action. The US president linked potential strikes to three red lines: Iran resuming its nuclear programme, its violent crackdown on protesters and any attempt to assassinate him. More than 5,000 people are reported to have been killed in recent weeks by the Revolutionary Guard during nationwide demonstrations over economic hardship, with Iranian leaders accusing Washington of stoking unrest and vowing retaliation. Trump claimed US forces attacked Iranian uranium enrichment sites last year to stop Tehran getting the bomb, while Iranian commanders say they have their “finger on the trigger” if the US moves against them. Either way, it doesn’t matter how you look at this - this situation isn’t good…

  • Ukraine, Russia And US To Hold First Trilateral Talks Since 2022

    Ukraine, Russia and the US are set for two days of three-way talks in Abu Dhabi, the first time all three have sat down together since the beginning of the war. The meeting follows Kremlin talks between Vladimir Putin, US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and will focus on security issues (although it’s unclear if Russian and Ukrainian officials will meet face to face). The biggest disputes remain over territory in eastern Ukraine, with Putin demanding Kyiv give up land in Donetsk and Ukraine refusing to surrender areas it has defended. Also, Russia’s insistence that Ukraine drop its NATO ambitions and bar NATO troops after any deal. Zelenskyy says peace proposals are “nearly ready”, and postwar US–Ukraine security guarantees are drafted, but he warns Russia must also compromise. Trump claims both leaders want a deal and that “boundaries” are still the main sticking point.

  • Canada Quietly Models Guerrilla Response To Hypothetical US Invasion

    Canadian military planners have been war-gaming how the country might respond if US forces ever invaded from the south, modelling an insurgency-style defence using ambushes, sabotage and hit-and-run tactics. Officials say they expect American forces to overwhelm Canada’s conventional positions within two days, so the plan assumes a shift to asymmetric warfare similar to what Soviet and US troops faced in Afghanistan. The exercise is described as a conceptual framework rather than a detailed battle plan, and insiders stress that an actual US attack is still seen as highly unlikely.

  • Trump Floats $2,000 ‘Tariff Dividend’ Payments Without Congress

    Donald Trump says his administration could hand out $2,000 payments to Americans as a “dividend” from tariff revenue without needing Congress to sign off. He claims soaring tariff income, roughly $260–300 billion in 2025, nearly triple the previous year, could both fund the cheques and help cut the $38.5 trillion national debt. His own economic team is more cautious: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and NEC director Kevin Hassett have both said any direct payouts would need new legislation from Congress. They’ve floated targeting “working families” under around $100,000 and possibly using tax breaks instead of cash, such as exemptions on tips, overtime and Social Security income.

  • US Completes Exit From WHO

    The US has now formally left the World Health Organisation, a year after Donald Trump moved to end America’s 78-year membership, but the WHO claims that the US still owes more than $130 million in unpaid dues. The break cuts US officials and scientists out of WHO committees and data-sharing systems that track viruses, pick flu strains for vaccines and coordinate responses to outbreaks like Ebola, polio and mpox. Public health experts warn the move will weaken global disease control and leave US researchers and drug-makers with slower access to crucial early warning information. Trump officials say they will instead build direct health-data agreements with individual countries.

  • Labour Starts Moving Migrants From Hotels To Military Base In Crowborough
    The first 27 male illegal migrants have been taken to the former military training base at Crowborough in East Sussex, as Labour begins shifting migrants out of hotel accommodation. The site will hold up to 540 single men for around three months while their ‘asylum claims’ are assessed, with a second camp planned near Inverness to bring total capacity to 900. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood says the goal is to close all 200 remaining asylum hotels, which still house about 36,000 people, by the end of this Parliament. Many Crowborough residents are furious at the lack of consultation, have staged large protests, and have raised nearly £100,000 to fund a legal challenge and possible injunction to stop more arrivals. - They have simply moved the problem around. We are still paying for this with taxpayers' money, and it's a HUGE safety concern for those residents. The whole thing is madness, BUT it will end, that’s the good news. We’ve already passed the tipping point now, so it’s only a matter of time until this problem gets fixed by the next Government.

  • Labour Backs Local Election Delays For 4.5m Voters

    The Government has approved plans for 29 councils to postpone May’s local elections, meaning around 4.5 million people will go without a vote. Ministers say the delays are needed so district councils can be merged into new unitary authorities, even though those are not expected to be fully in place until at least 2028. Critics from across the parties argue the move is a ploy to avoid heavy losses for Labour and some Conservative councils, with voters in parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, East Sussex and West Sussex potentially going seven years without choosing who runs their services. MPs and campaigners are now pushing to strip ministers of the power to cancel local polls and demanding guarantees there will be no further delays.

  • UK Green-Lights Vast New Chinese Embassy At Royal Mint Court

    The UK government has approved plans for a much larger Chinese embassy at the Royal Mint Court site near Tower Bridge, overriding local councillors, protesters and cross-party national security concerns. China bought the site in 2018 and submitted a revised plan in 2024 after Tower Hamlets Council initially blocked the project over its scale and security impact. Intelligence chiefs at MI5 and GCHQ admitted the location, close to key data cables and financial infrastructure, carries risks but advised these could be managed with a package of mitigation measures. Ministers say the decision follows an independent planning inquiry and argue that consolidating seven existing Chinese diplomatic sites into one will actually make security easier to manage. - This feels like one of those moments where the security services say, “We can probably manage it”, and politicians later discover what “probably” really meant.

  • Farmers Clash With Police In Strasbourg Over EU–Mercosur Trade Deal

    Thousands of farmers from across the EU, mostly from France but also Italy, Belgium and Germany, have protested in Strasbourg against the EU–Mercosur trade agreement, with some trying to enter the European Parliament building. Police used tear gas and stun grenades to push protesters back as they demanded the deal, signed by Ursula von der Leyen, be blocked. Farm unions say the agreement will flood Europe with cheaper food imports like beef, sugar and soy from South America that do not match EU production rules and will push European farmers out of business. Campaigners also say the deal makes a mockery of the EU’s climate promises by encouraging more long-distance food trade and relying on crops from places like Brazil, where heavy pesticide use and deforestation are already major problems.

  • TikTok Handed To Oracle-Led Investor Group

    The US and China have agreed on a deal that spins TikTok’s American business into a new company, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, majority-owned by Oracle, Silver Lake and UAE fund MGX. ByteDance will keep a 19.9% stake, with a seven-member board mostly made up of Americans, chaired operationally by Adam Presser and including TikTok CEO Shou Chew. Under the agreement, US user data and the recommendation algorithm will sit inside Oracle’s US cloud, with retraining and security checks overseen by American partners and external cybersecurity reviewers. The move heads off a near-total US ban mandated by a bipartisan law that forced ByteDance to sell or lose access to its 200 million American users, after years of political pressure over Chinese control.

NEIL’S TAKEAWAYS:

In The United States:
When the White House talked about possible tariffs on Europe, stocks fell because traders started to expect slower growth and higher costs. Markets then recovered when officials hinted there was a path to a deal and suggested tariffs were less likely in the near term.

A second issue is Fed independence. News coverage about legal and political pressure on the Fed has made investors more alert to the risk that interest-rate decisions could become political. When that fear grows, long-term Treasury yields can rise, the dollar can weaken, and gold can attract more buying. That combination can tighten financial conditions for households and businesses even if the Fed does not raise rates.

The labour market is the third factor shaping expectations. A weaker December jobs report kept the idea of “rate cuts later this year” alive, which has helped parts of the market that benefit from lower rates on calmer days. The risk is that markets keep swinging between sudden headline shocks and the slower question of whether growth and hiring are cooling enough to justify easier policy.

Prepare: Expect sharper market moves when tariffs and geopolitics are used as negotiating tools, because investors will reprice growth risk quickly. Watch long-term yields, the dollar, and gold as a quick signal of whether worries about Fed independence are spreading into broader financial conditions.

Across Europe:
With inflation close to their target, policymakers feel more able to hold rates where they are and let earlier rate rises keep working through the economy. Trade risk has also returned as a confidence problem. The Greenland-related tariff threats were enough for the European Parliament to pause work on an EU–US trade agreement. For exporters and manufacturers, that kind of uncertainty can delay orders and investment plans even before any tariff is actually put in place.

In the UK, the message is similar but with an extra complication. Inflation has been higher than expected, which has pushed expectations for the first Bank of England cut further out. Markets still expect cuts at some point, but the timing is important because it affects mortgages, consumer confidence, and how quickly pressure eases for sectors that depend on lower rates.

Prepare: Europe is in a period where policy is mostly on hold, so confidence is the main swing factor, especially around trade. Watch for any follow-through on EU–US trade friction and for signs from businesses that orders and investment are being delayed. In the UK, keep a close eye on the next inflation releases because they will shape when the BoE can realistically start easing.

On the Global Stage:
The Davos meeting showed us that if tariff threats can appear overnight, firms will try to keep more options open. That often means spreading suppliers across countries and avoiding putting all production capacity in one place. This shift is slow, but it matters because it can raise costs, delay investment decisions, and change which countries and sectors win new factory and logistics spending.

China is central to that adjustment. The latest view is that China met its 2025 growth target, but the mix still depends more on exports and manufacturing, while domestic demand remains the weak spot.

For the rest of the world, that can mean two things at once: tougher competition in global goods markets, which can help limit price pressures, but weaker support for countries and sectors that rely on China’s consumers and property cycle to drive demand.

Japan is also important because it is unusually exposed to trade shocks, especially through autos and export supply chains. Officials have warned that shifts in US trade policy could hit growth, while Japan’s own policy debate keeps markets sensitive to moves in rates and the yen. When Japan’s outlook becomes more uncertain, it can ripple through global bond yields and wider risk appetite.

Prepare: Keep watching trade policy as an economic force because it is shaping where investment and supply chains go next. Track China for signs that domestic demand is improving, since that will determine whether global growth broadens out or stays narrow and export-led. For Japan, watch for new trade warnings alongside signals on rates and the yen, because either one can quickly spread into broader market pricing.

3. NATO Still Leans Heavily On US Defence Spending

NATO’s total defence budget for 2025 (we don’t have the 2026 figures yet) is projected to come in at about $1.4 trillion, with the United States providing an estimated $845 billion, or just over 60% of the total. European NATO members plus Canada together are expected to spend $559 billion, making up the remaining 40% despite recent increases in their military budgets. Without US spending, NATO’s collective military capacity would drop by more than half, underscoring how central Washington remains to the alliance’s firepower. The figures also feed ongoing arguments over burden-sharing, showing that even after years of pressure, Europe still hasn’t closed the gap with the US.

4. Market Overview

S&P 500 (U.S.)
In the U.S., the S&P 500 was down slightly this week. Markets were jumpy as investors weighed company updates and the outlook for interest rates ahead of the next Fed meeting. A sharp drop in Intel after a weak forecast added pressure late in the week, and trade and geopolitical headlines also kept sentiment cautious.

FTSE 100 (UK)
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was down for the week. The index was dragged lower by renewed geopolitical worries linked to U.S. tariff talk, with weakness in areas like travel and parts of financials. Energy shares helped offset some of the decline as oil prices rose, but not enough to keep the market positive overall.

S&P/TSX Composite (Canada)
In Canada, the TSX was roughly flat to slightly down over the past 5 days. Strength in gold-linked miners and firmer oil prices supported the resource-heavy parts of the market, especially later in the week. But that was balanced by more mixed moves elsewhere, leaving the index little changed overall.

ASX 200 (Australia)
In Australia, the ASX 200 was down this week. Gold miners and tech held up well, helped by a surge in the gold price and strong moves in a few large tech names, but weakness in banks and many other sectors kept the overall index slightly lower by week-end.

🇺🇸 United States – S&P 500

  • High: 6,933.64

    Low: 6,791.14

🇬🇧 UK - FTSE 100

  • High: 10,231.52

  • Low: 10,052.37

🇨🇦 Canada – TSX Composite

  • High: 33,125.32

  • Low: 32,694.45

🇦🇺 Australia – ASX 200

  • High: 8897.60

  • Low: 8768.90

Cryptocurrency:

  • Bitcoin (BTC): -5.9%

  • Ethereum (ETH): -10.8%

  • Tether (USDT): -0.1%

  • BNB (BNB): -4.7%

  • XRP (XRP): -7.1%

  • USDC (USDC): 0.0%

    Solana (SOL): -11.3%

  • TRON (TRX): -2.7%

  • Lido Staked Ether (STETH): -11.3%

  • Dogecoin (DOGE): -10.1%

Metals Market:

Gold–Silver Ratio: ~50:1. The ratio was roughly steady near 50:1 this week. It moved around mainly because silver moved more sharply than gold day to day, but by the end of the week, both metals were higher, supported by a weaker U.S. dollar and stronger demand for safe-haven assets as political and policy uncertainty stayed in focus.

Gold & Silver:

  • Gold: Rose about 9.09% with a Week High: $4,971.19, Week Low: $4,546.50

  • Silver: Rose about 14.35% with a Week High: $101.80, Week Low: $87.57

5. Faith & Success

❝

““The prudent give thought to their steps.”

— Proverbs 14:15

I was reminded of this verse this week after giving some solid advice to someone who needed my help. Yet rather than do as I instructed, they went against my advice and did the thing I told them NOT to do. In effect, they did the opposite of what I advised.

Now, as a result, they've made their situation two or three times worse. In fact, it's so bad that even I’m not sure how to get them out of this mess. And as much as I didn't like doing it, I had to tell them that they were on their own now. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes people need to learn the hard way - especially when what they were doing was wrong in the first place.

I’m sure we can all agree that life is moving fast right now. Yet, many people are looking for shortcuts where they don't exist. And this often causes more trouble than it's worth. Real growth comes from leaving pride at the door. It comes from listening to people who we respect and being prudent about the steps we take.

Your own development isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing the right things on purpose. Thoughtful steps, even small ones, compound over time. When you slow down long enough to think about where you’re going, you avoid a lot of unnecessary issues and setbacks.

This week, pause before you make the wrong move. When was the last time you spoke to your mentor? Or at least someone that you respect for their advice and wisdom? Remember, progress isn’t accidental; it’s built one correct decision at a time. And when you make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, don't double down - it just lands you in hot water.

Until next time,

God Bless,

Neil,

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This newsletter is 100% FREE & is designed to help your thinking, not direct it. These newsletters shall NOT be construed as tax, legal, or financial advice and may be outdated or inaccurate; all decisions made as a result of this information are yours alone.

Trading/Liability: Neil McCoy-Ward operates/trades under a private Ltd company within the Isle of Man.