The TTT--Trump's Tariff Travesty
There were many to choose from, but none from the global perspective.
Trillions of dollars in market capital was erased today globally thanks to the TTT, although it’s difficult at the moment to calculate just how many trillions. IMO, the losses will need to be tabulated globally for the first ten days in April to arrive at the severity of the hit. There’s been lots of anticipation of this day, actually yesterday when the act was signed just after the markets closed in New York at 4pm Eastern. And in the run-up, there’s been lots of talk about tariffs. Today, there were two excellent programs that talked about TTT’s severity—the chat between Judge Napolitano and Jeffry Sachs and the three-way discussion between Nima, and Drs. Hudson and Wolff. The difference is Sachs and the Judge examined the legal side of the issue while the trio looked at the wider outcomes and the philosophy driving Trump’s behavior. Combine them, and you’ll be very well informed.
This cartoon from Global Times is closer to being correct as there will be a combined global effort to boycott and divest that ought to have been an ongoing project since the Outlaw US Empire abets the Zionist Genocide. Indeed, the Zionists dropped all their tariffs aimed at their benefactor only to discover they were on the list. Australia has a trade deficit with the Empire, meaning in Trump’s lingo Aussies weren’t “ripping off” Americans, but Australia was also on the Tariff list. Those are just two of many examples of the 100% irrationality of TTT. And even if the US judicial system finally rules the TTT is unconstitutional, the damage to many is already done. If Biden ruined the financial reputation of the Outlaw US Empire by weaponizing the dollar and the financial system, Trump is now finishing the job by destroying the Empire as a reputable trading partner and supporter of business. That last point is one major point made during the trio’s chat. And what the Judge asked Sachs is also crucial for the remainder of Trump’s term—“Didn’t anyone on Team Trump try to dissuade him from his irrational pipe dream?” Sachs’s answer doesn’t lend any confidence.
One last unrelated note, International Affairs magazine did air its full interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov but only in video format without a printed transcript; so, that’s why there’s no report on what fully transpired. Miffed, yes, but I used the time wisely.
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I find a poetic justice in Trump’s sense of timing. He was able to piggyback on an already skittish market mood — one that had already taken the Mag7 down to near correction levels since Trump’s inauguration.
So, in the face of Buffett selling his huge AAPL shares — and sitting on the cash! — the downturn in Tesla sales worldwide, and the crash in NVDA, Trump was able to deftly time himself perfectly into the DeepSeek body blow, which exposed the astronomical cost of American AI infrastructure AI (and likely money laundering) of Big Tech billionaires.
“Riding the coattails” is supposed to mean jumping on the bandwagon at the last moment with positive results.
Until Trump, no one understood that someone would willingly sucker punch a fragile stock market at the end of its bull cycle and claim “it’s coming along nicely”.
Trump is a proponent of the Magic Pudding.
Apparently (from Simplicius substack post) it's inspired by Stephen Mirin's paper "A Users Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System.
It looks like a rationalisation of rentier behaviour which drains a system of its productive resources through abusive extraction (blood sucking), and then blames the victim hoping the zombie will reanimate from some magical (economic) thinking.