The markets have been roiling for weeks and folks on this board have been scheming about how to profit from the Brave New Tariff World about to come.
Still early, but it appears to me that this is all just one big, badly played bluff by an administration that is just kind of winging it.
25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada that supposedly were going to right the trade imbalances and send jobs to America. Instead the tariffs have gone away because Canada has pledged to reduce the imaginary fentanyl and illegal immigrants coming across the northern border and Mexico is sending 10,000 troops from a military incapable of safeguarding local elections to the southern border. So this tariff thing was about fentanyl and immigrants?
Meanwhile a 10% tariff is imposed on China, which is likely to increase prices a bit but have no real significant impact on the economy. Certainly not enough to send manufacturing jobs to America.
I’m guessing that despite all the sound and fury, no tariffs will be actually imposed that will cause pain to Americans. The midterm elections are coming. This means no tariffs of consequence that would generate anything of economic significance.
I think a global economic downturn is coming. Economic growth in China, South Korea, the EU, and Japan are slowing or flat due to the inexorable impact of aging demographics. The US is facing the same aging issues and is also beginning to pay the cost of adapting to climate change far earlier than anyone expected. We chose to adapt to rather than mitigate global warming and now those adaptation costs are on the rise with exploding insurance rates.
I don’t believe the growing economies of India and Africa (or even getting the Panama Canal) back will be enough to offset these negative factors. In short, I think the macroeconomics is saying be conservative with your retirement portfolio.
At least we now have the Gulf of America. I know that has significantly improved my standard of living.
It has always been about promising “good paying jobs” for his poorly educated, white, base. The scheme had two vectors: running the brown people out of the country, and violating every trade agreement the US is party to, to tax imports, sold with the laffable claim that the other countries would pay the tax.
Outside of the show of brown people being herded onto military aircraft, nothing has been accomplished.
Now what? Back to the usual program of enriching the rich, while robbing the Proles?
It is also always about being the lead story. trump is always going to throw out nonsense just to dominate the news cycle. “Buy Greenland”. “Canada the 51st state.” “Occupy Gaza”. It is all part of the show.
The bottomline though is that very little of significance gets done.
I used to think he was just really dumb and clueless, but I think it is part of his strategy. Get everyone (media, dems, etc.) outraged over something that isn’t likely to happen while he gets the real threat, unqualified candidates, through their nomination process. There is only some much bandwidth for outrage each day and the more it is spent on Nancy Mace screaming a transgender slur [insert word TMF won’t let me type] during a session of Congress (really happened), then less we spend on high school graduates with no security clearance gaining access to the Treasury payment system.
The Gaza thing is probably different, because of the opportunity for personal profit. After the US spends Billions on the ethnic cleansing and cleanup, someone is going to build those resorts and hotels, probably with lots more government subsidies. Would not be surprised if the developers were Kushner Co (as a front) and BibiCo.
I watched Trump being interviewed about Canada. He said that some very bad trade deals have been made with Canada, and that was the reasoning behind tariffs. And not 1 “journalist” challenged Trump about the deal he made with Canada, USMCA, all the way back in 2020. How does TI* get away with denigrating trade deals with Canada, when he was the one who made the trade deal with Canada ?? Truly sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. If The Market hates uncertainty, The Market is going to HATE the next 4 years.
The journos know that, if they step out of line, they will lose access.
Meanwhile, the metro Detroit media is reporting the blowback from across the river. For years, the city of Windsor has subsidized a shuttle bus, which, primarily brings people from Windsor to Detroit, because there is more going on in Detroit, than there is in Windsor. A week or so back, the Windsor city council approved the bus subsidy for another year. The mayor of Windsor vetoed the subsidy. The city of Windsor is also considering not paying for a sponsorship of this year’s Indy car race in Detroit, for the first time in years.