It’s Thursday, which means today’s Donald Trump gets to look the Donald Trump who refused to shake Angela Merkel’s hand square in the eyes and say “hold my beer.” Chinese President Xi Jinping (also known as the most important person on the planet) will visit Trump at the President’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida (where else, right?)…
It feels quiet out there. Maybe a little too quiet. There’s plenty of G-20 banter about the US/Trump having “won” at the weekend gathering in Germany. In this context, “winning” means successfully getting the “resist all forms of protectionism” language removed from the communique. Remember, in Trump/Navarro make-believe land, free trade is a bad thing, so telling everyone…
Courtesy of a guy who no one except Donald Trump takes seriously…
“According to research from the Peterson Institute, under a full trade war, the US economy would be pushed into a recession over the next 2 years and the unemployment rate would push above 8%.”
So you know, the percentage of the European population that’s still sane (and that’s an ever dwindling number apparently) would have really appreciated it if Trump would have just been satisfied with the damage he’s already done rather than piling it on by dispatching Peter Navarro to weigh in on the legitimacy of the common currency.
The “big” news overnight should have been Chinese FX reserves just like China should be back in the global spotlight more generally as it becomes increasingly apparent that the PBoC is leaning towards financial stability at the possible expense of growth (i.e. they’re in tightening mode). Overnight we learned that Beijing’s FX reserves fell below the magic $3…
I’m not into hero worship. You might say that this is one time where I agree with Donald Trump who, when asked about heroes last month, hilariously said the following: “I don’t like the concept of heroes. The concept of heroes is never great.”
Tuesday’s most read post, oddly, was this one: “Trump’s Idiot Trade Czar Tanks Dollar With Absurd Attack On Germany.” I say “oddly”, but I guess I shouldn’t be entirely surprised. After all, Peter Navarro – who I’ve taken to calling Trump’s “economic spirit animal” – is an exceedingly controversial fellow. In academic circles, he’s considered something…
But as far as markets are concerned, the new administration’s FX policy is just as crazy. In fact, that statement is itself crazy. That is, the fact that the new administration has a discernible “FX policy” is nuts. And this isn’t some “well it would be nice if…” kind of thing.
One wonders if Navarro’s comments might just reflect the political biases of Steve Bannon, whose Breitbart News has been fanning the populist flames in Europe for years in an apparent effort to bolster the prospects of nationalist politicians in France, the Netherlands, and yes, Germany.
Last Wednesday, Donald Trump decided that China critic Peter Navarro should oversee American trade and industrial policy. The Harvard-trained Navarro is the director of “Death by China,” a documentary you can now suffer through watch for free on YouTube if you’re too cheap to pay for Netflix. I’ve embedded it below for posterity’s sake. Navarro isn’t what you…
