Donald Trump’s latest and “greatest” tariffs kicked in Thursday.

By now, who cares? “What difference, at this point, does it make?” to quote someone who knew America’s experiment in autocracy would turn out badly.

I mean, sure, if you’re subject to the levies — or I should say if your exports are subject to the taxes — you care, but even epochs can be anticlimactic if the buildup’s exhausting, and Trump’s hourly tariff banter is nothing if not exhausting.

Ahead of Thursday’s implementation deadline for the “reciprocal” levies first announced, to disastrous effect, in April, most of America’s major trade partners secured deals putting tariffs at between 15% and 20%. The fact that such steep duties counted as a favorable outcomes spoke to the notion that markets have moved on from this, or at least to the contention that expectations have been recalibrated.

The figure below’s just another visualization of the same familiar spike. Deutsche Bank, like everyone else, expects the effective tariff rate to “settle” at 15% or so.

15% would be the highest in 100 years and it’s quintuple — and then some — where the rate stood prior to the beginning of Trump’s second term. But… well, “meh.” That’ the market’s assessment four months on from “Liberation Day.” “Meh.”

Yes, there’ll be more drama. This is Trump we’re talking about, after all. And yes, America’s reputation has suffered irreparable harm. But that’s nothing new. We’ve ruined whole countries before, killing hundreds of thousands of innocents in the process, and everyone lived through that. Except for the dead people.

None of this is to apologize for Trump’s trade war. And to be absolutely clear, he’s guaranteed to trigger, inadvertently or not, more market shocks, more vol events and so on before his second term’s up. But what we’ve learned (or relearned, I guess) since April is that in fact, a worst-case tariff scenario isn’t likely.

Take the big, bad semiconductor levies, for example. On Wednesday afternoon, during a glorified photo op with Tim Cook at The White House, Trump said sector-specific duties on chips will be 100%. Unless you promise to build something in America, in which case you’ll be totally and completely exempt. Apple made just such a promise, and I dare say a majority of the companies who’d be hardest-hit by the semi tax have either already made a qualifying pledge or will soon.

Sure enough, not three hours later, Taipei said TSMC will likely qualify for the exemption based on preexisting plans for investment in the US. The shares rose more than 5% to a record.

Apple was up another 2% through noon Thursday following a 5% gain the prior session.

Do note: A lot of the investments Cook touted at The White House Wednesday were planned well ahead of Trump’s reelection. We’ve seen this movie before. Trump did this during his first term. He threatened punitive measures against American companies unless they invested domestically, and then touted preexisting — i.e., unrelated to his threats — commitments as an excuse for letting them off the hook.

I don’t think I’m being a Pollyanna to suggest Trump might employ the same kind of strategy when it comes to exemptions to his threatened pharma tariffs. That is: Promise you’ll build a pill factory in America — or point to one you built two years ago — and voila! You’re exempt. And it’s a “huge WIN” for America.

Again, none of the above should be read as an attempt to justify the tariffs or suggest Trump’s policies are good ones. It’s all just to say what one ISM survey participant said earlier this week. Yes, tariff rates are much higher now, but that doesn’t change the fact that so far anyway, Trump’s bark is far worse than his bite. “More bluster than actual policy,” as the ISM panelist put it, before noting that “businesses have seemed to tune out the noise.” Stocks likewise.