Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Monday, April 21st, and today we are catching up on, well, a lot.

Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it,

give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation,

come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly

slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, we are finally back from vacation, Disney, spring break, Easter, all that jazz.

And today what we're going to do to kick things off is do a quick high-level recap of everything

that we missed and everything that sets up the week to come.

This will bridge across both macro and crypto.

And to start off, let's talk about the trade talks

that have kicked off in Washington with Japan, South Korea, and the UK, as some of the U.S.'s

largest trading partners come to the table.

The South Korean delegation is heading into town this week, but Japan was the focus for last week.

As the first country to sit down for negotiations with President Trump, Japan served as something

of a litmus test for how trade talks might proceed. Initial reports weren't all that promising

for a speedy resolution. Veteran diplomat, Chas Friedman, said, the Japanese have just been in

Washington. Their experience apparently was that they went to talk to the American leadership on

this matter. The American leadership asked, what are you offering? And the Japanese said, well, what is it that you want? The Americans could not

explain what it is they wanted. This is a cockamamie approach to negotiation. Now, some will say that

this is an art of the deal strategy, never wanting to be the one to make a first offer at the

negotiation table. But with global trade on hold, there are many people who question the premise of the whole thing. Still, President Trump left

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