Germany signed a pact with the devil, and got burned. That’s the way many view Germany’s Nord Stream pipeline with Russia. It wanted cheap gas, built a couple of pipelines to Russia, and shackled its economy to Russia’s. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and doing business with Russia became a major risk—leaving Germany with a lot of egg on its face.

Now Germany is doing the same with China—signing major infrastructure deals that tie its economy with China in a fundamental way.

Viewed purely through economics, it seems crazy that Germany would make the same mistake all over again.

But this isn’t just economics. The new deal with China reveals a deliberate strategy to shift Germany away from the United States and into the arms of America’s enemies.

There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about Germany’s new deal with China. The Chinese government-owned shipping giant cosco wants a major stake in Germany’s largest port: Hamburg. Almost everyone in German politics doesn’t want cosco to have it. The Greens and Free Democratic Party, both part of Germany’s coalition, were against it. Six government ministries opposed the sale. The Foreign Ministry was so incensed that, according to Reuters, it wrote a note of protest. Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, pleaded for the government to stop it. Germany’s European “partners” all opposed it.

Yet despite all this, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz allowed China to buy a 24.9 percent stake in a company that runs the three main terminals in Hamburg’s port. His one concession to all the opposition was cutting the stake down from 35 percent, which means cosco will no longer get to appoint one of the port’s managers. But in reality, this is just a delay for China; it’ll start a bit smaller and get a bigger stake later. It does this all the time.

cosco already owns stakes in Europe’s two largest ports: Rotterdam and Antwerp. Hamburg is the third-largest. It also controls the port of Piraeus and is developing a major rail freight terminal at Duisburg in Germany, near both the Ruhr and Rhine rivers, to boost overland trade between Europe and China.

covid has exposed how critical the supply chain is. Delays at ports can snowball into economic crises. One ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal reverberated around the word. Yet Europe is handing over the keys to its ports to China.

Scholz has his eyes on much bigger deals with China. He is planning his first trip to China November 3 to 4—and he’ll be bringing Germany’s top businessmen with him: the ceos of Seimens and Volkswagen, as well as the president of the Confederation of German Industries.

“Exports are the lifeblood of the German economy, and its large manufacturing and chemicals firms have serious influence over German policymaking,” wrote Geopolitical Futures. “They also aren’t shy about using it.” So German industry is pushing the German government to agree to a major infrastructure deal against the will of the German people. That sounds familiar.

Angela Merkel approved the Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal with Russia. She reportedly told former Polish President Donald Tusk that she believed it was a mistake, but she was “helpless” in the face of pressure from German businesses.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote, “On this issue, German business leaders had enough power to overrule the chancellor! The people may vote for one thing, but if business leaders want something else, they win.”

There’s more to this than profit and loss. Russia has proved that doing deals with aggressive autocracies can land you with massive losses. Yet German businesses want to charge right into a deal with China.

Why are these businesses pushing the country into bed with dictators?

Mr. Flurry continued:

When big business has this level of influence, it is concerning, no matter which country it’s in. But in Germany, there is an additional, critical cause for concern.

Toward the end of World War ii, in August 1944, representatives of massive German companies like Krupp, Messerschmitt, Volkswagenwerk and Rheinmetall met with senior Nazis at the so-called Red House meeting. A U.S. intelligence document, declassified in 1996, says that these business leaders were told they must “prepare themselves to finance the Nazi Party, which would be forced to go underground ….”

… Those at that meeting understood that the most prominent members of the Nazi Party would be condemned as war criminals. “However,” the document maintains, “in cooperation with the industrialists, it is arranging to place its less conspicuous but most important members in positions with various German factories as technical experts or members of its research and designing offices.”

Documents proving this have been declassified and in public for several decades now, yet few have paid them much attention. Now we see some of the same businesses named in these documents pushing Germany toward Russia and China.

The Bible directly prophesies the revival of the same spirit that dominated Germany in World War ii. And it even prophesies that this rising Germany will forge an economic partnership with China.

Isaiah 23:3 describes a trading bloc that allows merchants to grow rich. This chapter describes Tyre and its allies (such as Zidon) as a new “commercial center” of the world—coming as a rising European power in modern times, as Mr. Flurry writes in Isaiah’s End-Time Vision. The Bible describes “Chittim,” a biblical name for China, as a major member of this new economic system. Ezekiel 27 gives a parallel account. It adds that Tubal and Meshech—ancient names for the people of Russia—will also be a part of this market. These three will be key members of the new world economic system.

Note, there is no place for Britain and America in such an alliance.

Meanwhile, God prophesied that an economic siege—being cut out of the global financial system—would be one of the major curses to hit modern-day Britain and America. In Genesis 22:17, God promised Abraham that his descendants would possess “the gate of his enemies.” Deuteronomy 28:52 says that the enemies of modern Israel—the nations of Britain, America and Israel in the Middle East—would besiege them using those same gates.

In today’s world, these are the great gates to global commerce—trading routes and sea lanes. America will be cut off while “merchants … pass over the sea” between Europe and China (Isaiah 23:2).

Isaiah calls this great trading alliance a “mart of nations.”

Just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained that “the dollar is being used as a weapon” and “the United States, and the West in general, have discredited the institution of international financial reserves.” He called on other countries to join him in creating a de-dollarized global financial system. China is already his ally in such a project. And Germany is beginning to join them.

What is rising up in Europe is a new Holy Roman Empire. Herbert W. Armstrong forecast the revival of this empire from the ashes of World War ii. Last week, historian Niall Ferguson wrote that “one might say the Holy Roman Empire has been reincarnated in the form of the European Union, at once extensive, German-centered and weak.”

It may look weak right now. But the picture of a German-led Holy Roman Empire joining a Russia-China alliance should be a major concern in Washington, London and many other capitals.

“When the Holy Roman Empire attacks North America, there will be no help or sympathy from Asia. In fact, considering that China has come to possess most of the world’s strategic sea gates … we believe there may be a brief alliance between the German-led Holy Roman Empire and certain Asian powers (Russia, China, Japan—the kings of the east),” wrote Mr. Flurry. “Should Europe, the resurrected Holy Roman Empire, 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.”

“This is why Isaiah’s prophecy of an end-time ‘mart of nations’ that includes both European and Asian powers is so intriguing. And why the trend of collusion between these two great economic blocs is worth watching.”

To gain the biblical background you need to watch this trend, read our article “The Great ‘Mart of Nations.’”