... also not get swept up in the "project fear" aspect that comes with it. Immediate market reactions as a means to asses this specific strategy is pointless. Short-term market behavior have never been a good indicator on long term economic policy tbh. I have no doubt in my mind my positions will be recovered in a year or two too.
Over any long term duration stocks will go up - as for the duration, who knows. 2007-2013 was a long period I lived through an experienced. This is different, but it's also unique in that we are in uncharted waters. I can wait and see but the impact of tariffs are already hitting my business.
I want to be clear - I am not in project fear mode. I'm in the 'this was entirely predictable, will cause more harm than good, and this is not the way to conduct business on the world stage' mode, with a dose of anger that I have to experience Trump's orange-angry-face and correspondingly orange statue-of-liberty-sized middle finger being cranked up in the face of our closest allies. There will be serious repercussions for the USA long-term as a result of this simpleton's bonkers asinine strategy, created without any real semblance of a plan one can measure success against. What we saw yesterday was, as Tanis put it, theater for his base.
As to his other argument comparing this to Nixon's big shock - both are globally disruptive events, but Nixon's move was about monetary policy - not tariffs. We saw last time around the effect of tariffs, and they weren't positive. Neither was Smoot-Hawley. And neither will these. Glad you are sleeping easy through this. Mine and my wife's business are immediately affected.
Lastly, some years ago I attended a big even in SF hosted by the Australian gov't. It's a gathering that happens both sides of the water (every year I think). The Australian ambassador went through a long history what we call 'mateship'. Where we've fought together, our history, and how closely we are aligned. I'd never really understood that history with Australia. But there is similar history with the UK, Canada, Germany, France and Israel. And others. They have stuck with us and fought with us despite our numerous mistakes. And I think they stuck with us through orange man mania v1.0 because they suspected or hoped it would only be four years. And it was thank goodness. And things went back to normal, ish. We were on track to have a soft landing and inflation was reducing. Now, trump and his middle finger are active and in the process he's decided to stick that bronzed finger into our allies eyeballs and a bit in to their brain for good measure. You think this won't damage those relationships? Think again.
I think most Americans, and certainly most in this admin, do not hold reverence and respect for these allies and what they have done for us historically. Has the USA paid more in these relationships than our allies? Certainly. But we also got to hold the cards, and enjoy the influence. And the soft power. You may find we have lost a great deal of that soft power recently and I think this is overlooked by the average American - who let's face it - generally has a very limited view of what is going on globally.
