JP Morgan’s $10 Billion National Security Power Play

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 Jamie Dimon just made his biggest bet yet—and it’s not on Wall Street. In this episode:

• JP Morgan’s plan to invest $10 billion directly into defense, AI, and energy companies
• The creation of a $1.5 trillion fund to secure America’s supply chains and critical minerals
• Why Dimon says the U.S. has become “too reliant on unreliable sources” like China
• How this changes global markets—and could upend commodity prices overnight
• The hidden danger: corporate collusion, inflated contracts, and the return of the $50,000 Pentagon toilet

This move could either rebuild America’s industrial base—or become the next big taxpayer-funded boondoggle

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it will have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
JP Morgan's investment in national Security okay. They stated that
they are going to directly invest ten billion dollars in
companies that it deems critical to US national security. They're
saying this is part of an initiative to help protect

(00:37):
the American economy as trade tensions with China escalate. They
said that they are putting together a one point five
trillion dollar facility in investments for companies deemed critical to
national economics, security, and resiliency. And they're going to do
this over the next ten years. That's ten billion dollars

(00:59):
of its own capital. They're going to take stakes in
companies such as defense contractors, mineral manufacturers, and artificial intelligence firms.
Jamie Diamond said, it's been painfully clear that the United
States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable

(01:20):
sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing, all of which
are essential for our national security. Again, I've always had
a problem with banks getting involved in any type of infrastructure.
I've had issues with banks being involved in oil and

(01:43):
basically being invested in the various different processes everything from
oil storage to refining. You get into problems. You get
into those Enron problems from time to time. But let's
take that and put that aside right now. Jamie Domody
also wrote an editorial in The Wall Street Journal. He

(02:06):
said his efforts will focus on four priority areas Supply
chains and advanced manufacturing and strength in the production of
critical materials, pharmaceutical precursors, robotics and components such as semiconductors
and rare earth elements. Defense and aerospace to support innovation
and scale production for modern deterrence including drones, autonomous systems,

(02:30):
next gen connectivity, energy independence and resilience to modernize the
US grid, and invest in reliable clean power like battery
storage to meet surge and demand. Frontier and strategic technology
to accelerate breakthroughs, and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum computing. And
he gives some examples in his op ed. You can

(02:50):
take a look at the Wall Street Journal. This is
the issue when it comes because people sometimes with certain
rare earth minerals and kind of boggle some mind to
some degree that various different rare earth minerals that we
need for defense is almost entirely sourced from China. And

(03:11):
people say themselves, well, that's dumb, that's dumb. That's almost
as dumb, equally as dumb as the European Union saying hey, hey, yeah,
we're gonna we're gonna source we're gonna shut down all
our nuclear power plants, and we're gonna source almost all
of our energy from Russia while we are members of

(03:32):
this organization called NATO, which is there to protect against Russia. Anyway.
You know, stupid as as stupid does is everywhere. What's
gonna need to happen in this situation? And how I
see this being structured? Because China again can dump a
lot on the market and drive prices down as probably,

(03:56):
they're going to structure various different contents with certain companies
that JP Morgan is going to fund, they're gonna invest in,
others are going to invest in, and they are going
to get They're going to get a a certain price
for whatever they're pulling out of the ground. Let me
try to put it this way, if they're let's say

(04:17):
if it's throw let's say it's lithium. I'll just pull
lithium out of it. Doesn't make a difference. Could be cobalt,
could be your could be anything else, and we could
say that, Okay, we're going to source start sourcing our
lithium mining here in the United States and avoiding other
places to get it. However, if I am going to

(04:38):
make this investment, because this is a national security concern,
I have to be guaranteed. I have to be guaranteed
a certain price for my lithium. You're basically gonna take
the globe we're gona it's gonna throw a bit of
a monkey wrench and to various different commodity global commodity markets.

(05:04):
Without a doubt, it's going to most certainly change the dynamic.
And it's going to be done based upon what national security.
I get this. I do. I understand this. I do

(05:25):
this is different than the United States. I like this
a hell of a lot better than the US government
taking stakes and certain companies. I don't like that at all.
I get it. Okay, we get national security. It's an
issue if we're saying that these materials that we need

(05:45):
that we're now sourcing from all over the place. We
want to do here. However, our extraction costs are higher
here in the United States for a myriad of different reasons.
If I'm going to put this mine in, if I'm
going to extract these medals, I need to be guaranteed
a certain price, and that has to be worked out,

(06:07):
and those contracts need to be put together. It's not
the most ideal, but again, as far as national security
is concerned, I get this, I understand this, and without
a doubt, this announcement by JP Morgan and op ed

(06:29):
by Jamie Dinand was part of part of the negotiation
negotiating tactics that are going to be used by Donald
Trump with China moving forward, because then we could say,
and it's not just the United States, also our allies
as well. We're going to say, Okay, this is what

(06:49):
your costs are going to be. This is what we're
going to charge you for these certain rare earth minerals,
and you're not going to have to worry about China.
You're not gonna have to worry about bargoes or anything
like that, and we will guarantee you this price and
then they'll work the numbers out and figure it out,
and you know, yeah, you're gonna there's gonna be because

(07:10):
of this, okay, because there's gonna be a limit on
how much the United States go. Well, you know that's
the thing as well. You know, it just popped into
my mind, you know, I all of a sudden popped
into my mind was fifty thousand dollars toilets that the
Pentagon buys. There better be limits for the taxpayers when

(07:31):
it comes to this, They're better be limits. I don't
want to have these companies oh oh geez, you know, well,
you know we got to charge more now now, now
all of this needs to be worked out. And again
you can get this is this is the cynic Markowski. Okay,
understanding how how these people operate behind the scenes. This

(07:58):
this better be handled ahead of time. Okay, we don't
want to be paying ridiculous sums of money for rare earthmen.
Is when we don't have to company wants to say, okay,
this is what our extraction costs is Okay, we will
contract you out for all of it. Your entire mind,
this is what we're going to pay. And that makes sense,

(08:20):
you know, But coming back later on after the fact
and then you start bringing you know, global supply chains
into No no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. Okay, it's
almost like you're buying an entire mind. Okay, we're buying
an entire mind. We're buying you know, we want to
put together a fact for pharmaceuticals, you want to put
together precursors. Okay, there has to be a limit and

(08:44):
what the taxpayer is going to pay, because again, who's
buying this stuff taxpayers? But we're going to be buying
these products again. I'm afraid of fifty thousand dollars toilets
and overprice lithium and pharmaceutical precursors as well. We shall see,

(09:06):
we shall see one point five trillion over the next
ten years. This is with that, this is a better
alternative than the United States government owning parts of owning
parts of the country. They want a contract to buy
from private enterprise. Have at it. Watchdog on Wall Street

(09:27):
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