Going forward we’ll wait for the details and monitor the immediate impact on market technicals and begin assessing the potential longer-term fundamental implications for both our U.S. and non-US exposures, if any:
So much for this being about U.S. Jobs:
I assure you this is merely the tip of the ice burg in terms of weekend headlines to come. Look for many to feature upcoming proposals for retaliatory tariffs on all manner of U.S. exports.
As for the national security argument. Well, I just perused the State Dept’s website and roughly counted 57 countries with whom we have security agreements that ensure that an attack on the U.S. will be treated as an attack on them. Hmm… I wonder if we’ll ever be at war with all at the same time (other than a trade war maybe, which certainly doesn’t inspire the coming to aid when needed), and I suspect that there’s a mammoth amount of steel producing capacity spread throughout that group.
Remember, the President has assumed ownership of the bull market in equities, plus, history has not been kind to the reelection bids of politicians whose acts can be directly linked to economic pain. Thus, we may see a major watering-down of what the tariff scheme might’ve otherwise looked like.