Start with the macro. Not the US macro. The global one. Five central banks. Five different directions. The bond market is already pricing in more inflation risk than central banks acknowledge.

Now layer in geopolitics. The US and Israel struck Iran on 28 February. Strait of Hormuz crossings dropped over 70%. Brent crossed $100 on 9 March and has not looked back. J.P. Morgan's conservative estimate puts global GDP growth depressed 0.6% in H1 2026, based on oil at $80. Stagflation is now on the table. This is the single biggest risk variable in global capital markets right now, and it is not priced in.

This is the backdrop every market on the brief shares. What makes the US specifically fail the framework is what comes next.

The administration is simultaneously pursuing deregulation, tariff escalation, and immigration enforcement that is actively contracting the labour force. The policy mix is internally contradictory. The White House has challenged federal court rulings on immigration enforcement with no modern precedent. For foreign capital asking whether the rules will hold, that question no longer has an obvious answer.

US · Jurisdiction Risk Stack

States with foreign real estate ownership restrictions 20
FIRPTA withholding at exit 15% of gross sale price — not the gain, the entire sale price
1-year Treasury yield move in March Up 33bp — now pricing a rate hike by late 2026
Foreign CRE investment 2024 Lowest level since 2011 — before current political overlay fully priced in

Then three weeks ago, something happened that did not get the attention it deserved.

The Liquidity Signal · Private Credit · Same Quarter

BlackRock private credit fund Gated withdrawals — $26 billion fund, 9.3% of NAV redemption requests in one quarter
Blackstone non-traded REIT Injected $400 million of own capital to cover redemptions
Blue Owl Stopped honouring withdrawals — issued IOUs
Morgan Stanley Capped payouts at 5% after investors requested nearly 11%
Signal World's largest asset manager gated alongside three of its largest peers — same market, same quarter

The US remains the deepest market on earth. Exit liquidity for core commercial assets is genuinely without peer. None of that has changed.

But the permission environment is shifting. The geopolitical risk is not episodic, it is structural. And that liquidity signal is not noise.

Capital flows to permission first. Right now, the permission environment in the US carries more open questions than answers. That is why it did not make the brief.

Advisory

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