THE ORB HAS SPOKEN: Xi Pulls the Emperor Card as Trump Draws the Tower in the Trade War Mist

Gather close, mortals, and keep your wallets where I can see them. Tonight I lay out two cards on the velvet: the Emperor, calm and patient, and the Tower, all lightning and falling bricks. One is Xi Jinping, one is Donald Trump, and the crowd has barely sat down before it started fighting over which superpower is actually winning the trade war. The candles are flickering. That might be the omen. It might also be the air conditioning.

First, what the tea leaves actually say. The trade war blew up again when Trump's second term began in 2025. Tariffs climbed to dizzying heights before a truce was struck in South Korea in October 2025, where Washington agreed to cut its average tariff on Chinese goods from roughly fifty-seven percent to forty-seven percent and both sides froze some rare earth and high-tech export controls for a year. Then came Xi's state visit to Washington in late September 2026. According to CBC News, that summit produced reciprocal tariff cuts on about thirty billion dollars of non-sensitive goods each way plus a new AI dialogue, though observers saw few big public breakthroughs. A rather small fortune for so much incense.

The bones under the surface are stranger. The Congressional Research Service reports that US imports from China fell by nearly a quarter in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier, while US exports to China slipped only slightly. The same report notes that Beijing, with few American goods left to tariff, has mostly hit back with canceled orders, market restrictions and export controls. And the truce has cracks in it: Euronews reported that in May 2026, weeks after Trump's Beijing visit, China put export controls on ten American firms after Washington expanded its blacklist of Chinese companies. Tension over technology and defence keeps coming back to the table.

So what does the orb show? On Morfi's opinion markets, where people put real money behind their opinions, XI JINPING leads with 66% consensus from 12 holders, and TRUMP trails at 34% with 7 holders. So far 17 unique traders have put $24,220 on the line, and the market is less than a day old. Remember, these numbers measure how strongly the crowd believes in each side, not a head count. Right now that conviction leans toward patience over thunder, which fits a record where China quietly chokes the supply lines while the tariff headlines grab all the attention.

Now for my own prophecy, and it is only that, an opinion whispered over smoke. I think the crowd is drawn to the Emperor because empires that play the long game look good in a crystal ball. Tariffs are the Tower card: dramatic, loud, great for photos. Export controls on rare earths are the slow poison in the chalice. But hear me, the cards have lied before, and a trade war usually has no winner, just two kings bleeding money while the merchants in between pay the bill. If anyone is winning, I suspect it's whoever sells the incense.

What to watch as the mist moves: whether that one-year freeze on export controls gets renewed or quietly dies, whether the thirty-billion-dollar tariff cuts grow into anything larger, and whether the next blacklist sets off another round of sanctions. Every one of those could flip the cards. The market only just opened, so the spirits are still restless. Cross my palm with your conviction and join the market on Morfi, before the orb clouds over.