Trump's relationship with tariffs is more “will they, won't they?” then Ross and Rachel or Ted and Robin!
Lats week he imposed new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, but then exempted many of those goods just two days later. Trump also doubled a blanket tariff on goods from China to 20% (from 10%).
In retaliation, China introduced tariffs on US farm products that came into effect today including on chicken, beef, pork, wheat, and soybeans.
Meanwhile in Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, said he was going forward with a 25% surcharge on energy exports to the US in retaliation, and promised that if Trump further escalates, “I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely.”
The announcement of new tariffs and economic instability led to significant declines in US stock markets. The S&P 500 index fell by 1.8%, while the Nasdaq-100 index dropped by 2.6% (so far today).
In an interview with Fox News, Trump didn't rule out the possibility of a recession, saying:
“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America.”
Did I miss anything? The fact that I can barely keep up with changes in tariffs, as someone who regularly follows this information for my job, is absolutely insane. What are business owners and consumers supposed to do?
Rather than go into yet another rant in this newsletter about how destructive this is to the US economy, you can read my LinkedIn post from a month ago detailing the dangers.