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President Trump de-escalated the standoff with Minneapolis anti-ice protesters yesterday. After “very good” calls with Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, he removed Gregory Bovino, cut out Kristi Noem, sent in border czar Tom Homan to take charge, and signaled possibly reducing the force.

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I understand why. Public condemnation of ice operations escalated rapidly after high-profile shootings of people protesting. Even prominent Republicans openly criticized the administration’s response to these tragedies.

There is wisdom in tamping down hostilities; this was a lose-lose situation.

However, handing a victory to these left-wing politicians and the lawless mob they stirred up is sure to have consequences.

As Dale Wilcox, who heads an immigration policy group, told Fox News, “If the Trump administration accedes to Minnesota’s unreasonable, unlawful demands, it will have surrendered the rule of law to thugs and brigands.”

Evidence is rife that public resistance was highly organized and fomented, even by well-known Democrats. Among the revelations that have surfaced: Administrators set up private chat groups to track ice operations, including creating an illegal database of thousands of license plates supposedly linked to ice agents. Vigilante activists drove around, identified vehicles thought to be federal agents, then followed them, harassing them and demanding ID and addresses to prove they weren’t ice.

Notions that immigration enforcement is illegitimate, that officers should be resisted and shamed, that harassment and destruction of property is appropriate protest—these are highly corrosive to the cohesion of the nation.

Democrats appear to have turned these ideas into a winning strategy against President Trump. Expect them to use the war plan in more battles this coming year.

EU Signs Another Monster Trade Deal, With India

Today the European Union concluded negotiations on another enormous trade deal, this time with India. This follows its January 17 signing of what some consider the biggest trade deal in history with the Latin American trade bloc mercosur. The deal with India is, in some respects, even bigger. Both deals have taken more than 20 years to negotiate.

And both are designed to bypass the United States.

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced today: “We concluded the mother of all trade deals today. Our EU-India agreement is making history. The world’s second- and fourth-largest economies coming together for a trade deal between giants.”

The EU is the world’s largest market, and India is the fastest-growing major economy, recently surpassing Japan.

• The deal, when fully ratified by the EU and India, will connect 2 billion people and a quarter of the gdp of the entire globe.
• It will reduce tariffs on over 96 percent of EU goods such as cars, machinery and agricultural goods exported to India, and 99.5 percent of Indian goods exported to the EU, phased in over seven years.

The U.S. placed heavy tariffs on India last year, allegedly for buying Russian oil and thus supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine.

• The EU is actively opposing the U.S. strategy or, as the German government-funded Deutsche Welle put it, the Europeans want to “lure India away from Moscow’s orbit.”

The EU and India also signed a Security and Defense Partnership, as Politico wrote: “The hope is that India, which has traditionally bought weapons from Russia, will double down on recent weapons purchases from Europe ….”

These deals will enrich Europe and India and will likely serve as a new route for European goods and weapons technology to make their way into Russia. But their main effect will ultimately be to starve Americans.

The Bible prophesies the formation of two major new power blocs in our time, a united Europe under German leadership (Revelation 17) and an Asian superpower under Russian leadership (Ezekiel 38). Gerald Flurry explains in Isaiah’s End-Time Vision that Isaiah 23 contains a prophecy of “a brief alliance between the German-led Holy Roman Empire and certain Asian powers (Russia, China, Japan—the kings of the east). Should Europe … find a way to take advantage—even for a moment—of key resources and strategic holdings of China, Russia and Japan, it would have more than enough power to besiege the Anglo-Saxon nations and enslave them.”

Telegraph or Trumpet Headline? Europe a ‘New Superpower’

“The Plans to Turn Europe Into a New Superpower” looks like a 1996 Philadelphia Trumpet article or a 1956 Plain Truth article, but it’s a 2026 article in one of Britain’s biggest news outlets.

“At an emergency summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, the building blocks of an empire were beginning to take shape,” the Telegraph stated yesterday.

The lengthy article reported that European elites want to build a “bigger, richer, stronger ‘super Europe,’” resort to a “multispeed Europe,” bring in the Balkans, transfer more power to a central authority, and even form “an EU army (sort of).”

It sounded fantastical when Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about it a lifetime ago, but “a United States of Europe” is forming in real time right now.

Last week, the EU emergency summit discussed a common strategy to “resist the whims of the globe’s autocrats—[the U.S. and China]” (ibid).

• Some EU leaders are looking to build this superpower by staking claim to more nations in the Balkans, as well as Ukraine, Iceland and others.

While the EU expands its influence and discusses expanding its list of members—or at least its territory—at the same time, it is looking to have fewer nations call the shots. It is unwieldy to have so many nations, all retaining most of their sovereignty and requiring unanimous agreement. But the Telegraph reports:

There’s a new appetite to move forward on important matters in smaller groups of member states if necessary.

Unanimous decisions are out of fashion, with more and more being taken by a vote, with a majority vote, weighted by population.

In other words, Germany, France and Italy determine the EU’s course while smaller countries are forced to submit.

This would make Europe a de facto empire with subject nations.

Prophecy says: The EU may frame its plans as an attempt to expand membership, secure stability, and ensure peace, but Bible prophecy reveals this empire is preparing for war.

Europe has been accustomed to past empires, where one Vatican-endorsed nation exerts its influence over others. Most recently, Adolf Hitler tried to build an empire, calling it the Third Reich. That empire subjugated Yugoslavia to prevent the Soviet Union from using it to outflank Germany. After betraying Russia, Hitler invaded Ukraine to gain more resources and manpower, while using it is a launching pad into the Soviet Union’s core.

The Trumpet has long forecast that the European Union will shrink to 10 nations or groups of nations; the current trend toward expansion does not change that. There may be a main European superstate that has a wider range of influence over subject nations: an empire.

The final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire is forming. This time, Germany has conquered much of Europe already through peaceful means. Soon Europe will be powerful and unified enough—under a German strongman—to project power against foreign nations.

IN OTHER NEWS

China is training drones to fight like animals, the Wall Street Journal reported January 24. Engineers using artificial intelligence designed sets of drones to mimic the behaviors of hawks and doves, and in a “five-on-five” simulation, the “hawk” drones destroyed the “dove” drones in just 5.3 seconds. A group of Chinese military theorists warned in 2024 that AI will enable new styles of combat “based on algorithms, with unmanned systems as the main combat force and swarm operations as the primary mode of fighting.” Bible prophecy indicates that AI-controlled drone swarms may indeed be involved in future warfare—the immediate future.

Why China wants a South China Sea ‘code of conduct’: China’s ambassador to the Philippines said on January 20 that the nations of asean must finalize a “South China Sea code of conduct” with China by the end of 2026. Jing Quan said doing so will facilitate “regional stability.” But the Chinese Communist Party has said any such framework would carry no legal force over it, so analysts view the effort as a bid to strengthen Chinese dominance in the South China Sea, to the detriment of smaller nations such as the Philippines. Bible prophecy warns that China will dominate the nations of Southeast Asia and lead the world toward war. To understand, read Russia and China in Prophecy.

Last body of October 7 Israeli hostage coming home: On Monday, Israel recovered the remains of Ran Gvili from Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Gvili’s body is the last of 87 people who were killed in Hamas captivity, in addition to the 1,200 people murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday, “The government of Israel has completed its ethical and moral mission to bring all of the hostages back home, the living and the deceased.” Israel’s government has said that once the last remains of hostages were recovered, it would allow the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. This also means that “Phase One” of United States President Donald Trump’s ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is now complete. U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had already declared “Phase Two” to be underway, still without comment from either Israel or Hamas. While the deal might seem to be progressing, its fundamental flaws are leading to even more terror, murder, captivity and deaths.