As of the closing bell on Wall Street Monday, there was “no room left for Mexico or for Canada.”
End of the road. The game’s up. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of America’s choosing.
Wait, sorry. Wrong Republican.
Trump’s not going to bomb Ottawa. That comes later, when Canada refuses America’s final offer to peacefully become the 51st state. Nor is Trump going to bomb Mexico. That too comes later, when Claudia Sheinbaum refuses to round up and gas all migrants caught transiting her country on the way to America’s southern border.
On Monday, “no room left” just meant Canada and Mexico couldn’t avoid the imposition of the tariffs Trump disingenuously delayed last month. “They’re all set,” he declared. “They go into effect tomorrow.”
By the time you read this, Trump might’ve changed his mind. If that’s the case, and you read it again two hours later, he might’ve changed his mind again. There’s absolutely no telling how this situation will look this time tomorrow, so I won’t even guess at it.
Instead, I’ll just note that Trump’s “no room left” remark was salt in the wound for Wall Street Monday, a day when the first of this week’s top-tier US macro releases pointed to a tariff-related drop in new order inflows to factories, and a surge in price pressures for manufacturers.
The figure below shows you the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker as it stood following the ISM release (and data which showed construction spending contracted twice as much as expected).
So, an economy which was tracking for a 4% annualized expansion early last month is now tracking a 2.8% contraction. That’s a helluva swing.
If this is all part of the plan, as some suggest, it’s not a good one. The plan, I mean. And let me remind everyone: No plan of Trump’s involves bad press, not about the economy, anyway, and certainly not about stocks.
Speaking of stocks. They hate it. And I love saying that.
Monday was the worst day for the S&P of 2025, and 10-day trailing’s the highest since late January.
Now cue 24 hours of competing tariff headlines and vitriolic recrimination.
You can thank for all this “Donald Trump and his very, very large AHH-brain.”
I know you don’t get fooled again after being fooled two times, but I’m going to need George W. to tell me what happens after “fool me three times” and about 37 more times after that.
Also, was “no room left” the one thing that stuck out to Trump from the Bible? He probably thought the innkeeper should’ve charged extra for supplying the manger.
On the plus side, anyone in Trump’s orbit who get advance notice of his “strategic bitcoin reserve” and “no room left” announcements did quite well today. On the crypto side, I read early today that some lucky person made a huge bet with 50X leverage on bitcoin/ether just prior to that announcement. I trust that that person was still all in on the bet at the end of trading today. Right?
That person closed their position with a $6.8M profit then turned around and word on the street is that they opened a Bitcoin short position prior to the market opening this morning. It’s almost certain that we’ll get a Scooby Doo villain reveal showing that one of the Trump children is the “lucky” investor.
This has the stench of Musk all over it. See what I did there?
Trump Decides
Article today said, aid to Ukraine was to be paused until which time Trump decided Ukraine is worthy.
I had an observation many years ago. Those countries with central, authoritarian, control do not do well economically. Almost without fail the economies confront repeated disaster after disaster, usually managerial failure is the cause. So how does this happen in a country with one person being credited with all good and bad? Afterall public opinion is what keeps any government in power.
I came across the observation that the economy of any nation is complex. The USA is more complex than most. However and authoritarian regime operates at the whim of one head of state. While some including Vladimir Putin who wisely rely on a cadre, our president is prone to delusions thinking only he can solve most problems.
The net result is a nation that only moves at the speed of one person. A nation paralyzed and moving at the speed of one person is a nation that has no resilience. The behavior is the opposite of entrepreneurial spirit. It is a nation that is papering over the problems waiting for the time when the nation state fails.
So what’s the over/under on when Trump will unceremoniously fire Powell for not sufficiently cutting rates to make the stock market go back up? I could have written this script months ago, it’s playing out exactly as I expected it would. If we somehow get to the midterms with an intact democracy and economy I sure hope people have learned their lesson this time.
IF
Plan ? We don’t have some stupid plan !