Not a huge surprise
in another thread, Billionaire Bill Ackman was quoted as tweeting
China has been isolated as a bad actor and every American company is immediately moving their supply chains out of China back to the U.S. or to trading partners of the U.S. who are likely to make favorable tariff deals with the U.S.
The bad acting continues
China Vows To Punish Countries That Agree To Trump Trade Deals
Great news. Commiserations to the Brits.
Dylan Mulvaney to move to UK
In an interview with Pink News, Mulvaney said he is planning to permanently relocate to London.
“I’m trying to move here permanent,” he said ahead of his role in the production We Aren’t Kids
Anymore at London’s Savoy Theatre.
I’m pretty sure the guy was half dead at the Easter event but still had better stage presence than Sleepy Joe at his last debate.
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The latest offer on the table from Putin seems to be a “frozen conflict”
Vladimir Putin offers to halt Ukraine invasion along current front line
Which would mean Russia would keep Crimea as well as the parts it currently occupies of the 4 eastern oblasts.
If the fighting continues, Ukraine risks losing another 4 oblasts and the entire Black Sea littoral, leaving Ukraine landlocked and Russia in possession of what Russia calls “Novorossiya” (New Russia).
Under the Minsk Accords, which Kiev agreed to but failed to implement, Ukraine would have kept all of its territory save Crimea, in return for restoring language rights to the Russian-speaking majority in the 2 oblasts (Dombas) which had declared independence following the removal of those rights after the 2014 coup.
It looks like Russia currently occupies almost all of Luhansk and about 2/3 of each of the other 3 (Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson)
A tough pill to swallow for the EU, NATO and especially Ukraine. Difficult for the “West” as a whole claim that “East” didn’t win this round. Consequences could be enormous.
This war on control of Crimea and the Black Sea (Sevastopol and Odessa harbors especially) is the 8th war/conflict in the last 300 years. If the Black Sea becomes a de facto inland sea of Russia, the next interesting developments will likely involve Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria (all NATO members). Those transport routes and the entire geostrategic location is vital for any nation that want to have a say on what happens in Europe. If history can teach us something, it’s that there will be a 9th war on that same location.
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That’s so yesterday’s news. China isn’t a bad actor anymore:
Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits (1936)
There are very strict rules regarding shipping through the Turkish Straits (Dardanelles and Bosphorus), with different rules applying for Black Sea and non-Black Sea nations.
It basically makes it impossible for non-Black Sea nations to have a significant naval presence in the Black Sea
If the Trump administration is trying to execute the Mar-a-Lago plan, I really hope the plan did include the possibility of market turmoil. But as much as I’ve read about the plan, I haven’t come across a clear contingency plan that responds to the negative market reactions we’re seeing. There seems to be no roadmap anymore for adapting to this fallout!
Trump Meets His Match: The Markets - WSJ
Corporate America puts Wall Street on alert over damage from trade war
To me it is starting to loook like the tariff strategy is largely reactive, CEOs are in a limbo and don’t know what happens next, there’s no backstop for market volatility and adjustments are made on ad-hoc basis.
It’s about the trade deficit not tariffs. The tariffs are a means to an end, and countries now know what will happen if they don’t come to terms with the US on trade.
We’ve also got deregulation and tax cuts to come, both of which will boost the US economy.
Yes, tariffs are a tax, but the revenue can be used to cut other taxes.
And it hasn’t gone unnoticed that Powell has chosen to end the Greenspan/Fed put which had been in place since the 1987 crash.
WSJ continues to criticize the lack of planning and ad hoc policy changes. My opinion is that the ship is without a captain.
Is This Trump’s Mitterrand Moment? - WSJ
In other news:
Donald Trump’s “Objectively Embarrassing And Hilarious” Message To Vladimir Putin Is Now A Meme
At 03:40 Lutnick explains very clearly that a 10% tariff will not have an impact on prices, like on mangos’ prices.
“A 10% tariff will not change virtually any price”
Lawrence: ‘Tariff scrooge’ Trump is already killing U.S. jobs and has the worst 100-day polling ever
Once again, WSJ and the population in general are stupid and don’t agree on the 7D chess logic:
At 100 Days, Trump 2.0 Is in Trouble - WSJ
At 100 days, Trump’s popularity hits historic lows amid tariff, foreign-policy turmoil
We have a data point from Trump 1.0 when tariffs did not cause inflation, despite Nobel laureates telling us that they would. We also saw under Biden that massive increases in government spending did cause inflation, despite Nobel laureates telling us that they would not.
But as we’ve been told repeatedly by the administration, tariffs are a means to an end, to wit a reduction in the gargantuan trade imbalances. Governor Carney up in Canada is going to have to renegotiate NAFTA/USMCA, because it’s up for renewal/revision this year
Trump 2.0 also needs to cut government (DOGE) and regulations, as well as extend the tax cuts.
I saw Lutnick on one of the business channels yesterday. Taiwan Semi had agreed to spend $60B on plants in the US in return for $6B (10%) from Biden. They’ve now agreed to spend another $100B on even more plants in return for nothing.
At the moment, 90% of Republicans think the US is on the right track, while maybe 1% of Democrats think the world isn’t ending. Under Biden and Obama, it was the other way round
My base case stands. The ship is without a captain and the Master Plan is a dud with a very high probability. No wonder Trump was surprised and annoyed that China dared to retaliate. The whole plan depended on countries not retaliating! In what world do these people live in??
Btw, I would’ve loved to have been in that room listening to this guy getting grilled.
“Miram got questions and that’s when it fell apart”…
Before joining the administration, Miran wrote about the merits of a so called Mar-a-Lago Accord to align global markets more firmly around US interests in trade and geopolitics…
Among his solutions were that countries should accept tariffs on exports to the US without retaliation, or simply "write cheques to Treasury that help us finance global public goods. Bond investors have balked both at this and at the rollout of Trump’s tariffs. Sinking long-term bond prices and a falling dollar suggest the US’s role as a market haven is under strain, investors say…
One person familiar with the situation said Miram had been increasingly distancing himself from the ideas in the 2024 paper in recent meeting with investors. "He is in full scale retreat", said the person familiar with the matter.“”
Stephen Miran is chair of the Council of Economic Advisers as opposed to the National Economic Council.
Miran’s Council of Economic Advisers provides research for the White House based on data, research, and evidence (I know it says “research” twice, but I cut and pasted that from wikipedia, and that’s what it says there).
The other one (National Economic Council) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for the consideration of domestic and international economic policy matters with senior policymaking and Cabinet officials, and forms part of the Office of Policy Development which is within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. The National Economic Council is headed by the assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council. Since January 20, 2025, that position has been held by Kevin Hassett. During Trump 1.0 it was headed by Gary Cohn and then Larry Kudlow. The National Economic Council is far more significant than the Council of Economic Advisors.
Where it says “Among his solutions,” that presumably means he considered a number of different scenarios, which would be the exact right thing to do, so that the White House would be prepared for all eventualities. Look at various scenarios which could happen and how they unfold. If they do this then we do this, and so on. As it transpired, countries other than China wanted to parlay and negotiate trade deals which would achieve the president’s goal of reducing or better yet eliminating the trade deficits with those countries and which also isolated China as a bad actor. From what’s been said over the past 2 days, Secretary Bessent (Treasury) is handling negotiations with China and Secretary Lutnick (Commerce) is doing countries other than China.
Sinking long-term bond prices
??
the 10-year yield is well below where it was when President Trump returned to office, despite the Fed’s decision to stop cutting rates once Biden left office and to abandon the Fed put which had been in place since Black Monday (1987) during the Reagan years.
It’s not the same. They track these polls trump is literally rock bottom. Yes republican majority but even that has waned. Moderates was a significant drop. And for liberals who cares what they think. They don’t even know their gender