Welcome to Ever More Chaos - April 9th 2025

 April 9th, 2025

Trump trying to be Nero

I am utterly flabergasted.  Trump has caved with his tariffs, again.

Trump had talked about a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico.  He first paused them and then simply sort of forgot about them.

He rolled out his random global tariffs a week ago and now he has paused and I think has said they will only be 10%?

Though he keeps putting more tariffs on China, 125% effective tomorrow?

The pause has resulted in a 7.3% increase in the Dow, 8.4% in the S&P 500 and 10.1% in the NASDAQ.  This is in 90 minutes.   This is turning investment into nothing more than gambling.

Businesses need to know what the landscape looks like years down the road.  You can not make an investment decisions if you have no idea what the state of the world will be in a couple of months?  OK, in the case of Trump, the next day. 

A few things that have become clear because of this pause:

1. Trump wants a total break down of trade with China.
2. Trump is not interested in onshoring any manufacturing
3. Trump is still tariffing his closest allies for no real reason.
4. Trump has given up on collecting new government revenues from tariffs.
5. Trumo is a weak leader and an utterly shit negotiator.  

Trump has caved on the tariffs before he could negotiate any new deals.  With a 90-day reprieve, I am not sure why anyone would negotiate with him now.

This may be a double-posting day.