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Countdown To July 9
According to the ubiquitous people familiar with the matter, a comprehensive US-Europe trade accord
I doubt he still remembers that he threatened the EU with a 50% tariff rate, partly because it feels like so much has happened in the short time between then and now. With Trump 2.0, a month = a year’s worth of action.
You can’t control the real world of facts with lying, bullying, name calling and an infallibility cloak gifted by SCOTUS. Unfortunately, the first three are all Trump has ever known and he has never learned new tricks. How soon do we get to the ‘shootout at the OK coral’ with nukes instead of 6 shooters.
“. . . an infallibility cloak gifted by SCOTUS. . . .”
That’s certainly what it seems like.
He also runs into some math problems if the tariffs are too low, as he’s promised fiscal conservatives that the budget deficits they’re concerned with will be immaterial with all of the tariff money that the country will be taking in.
I think they’ll pass the bill using higher projected tariffs, and then just grouse about the much larger deficits that are realized as time goes by.
We’re standing between two poles with rock steady profit margins on one end and recently variable prices and inflation on the other, set against a backdrop of large caps mostly insulated from near-term rate increases, should either inflation or the term premium decide to get unruly.
As a consumer and employee, that would appear to be an unfavorable set up for me. But as an investor, not the worst scenario. Unfortunately, if profit margins and equities remain buoyant, there may be little to restrain the worst of our vengeful dealmaker’s hellscaping, whether domestic, next door, or abroad.