The economic harm caused by the Trump tariffs aren’t confined to the stock markets. The broader economy is also suffering.
When Biden was approaching the end of the term, things were quite good. The economy was recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, jobs were being created, the stock markets were booming, and there was that overall sense that the worst was finally behind us and we can finally get back to a normal economy while tackling important problems like climate change among other issues.
Unfortunately, Trump was elected and he wasted no time in ruining everything. Without provocation, he started throwing tariffs around everywhere, burning economic bridges with other nations, and causing general chaos everywhere he went as the economic prosperity the Biden administration worked hard to build up was quickly being burned down to the ground.
All of this, of course, was reflected in the stock markets as over the last couple of months, we’ve witnessed crash after crash after crash after crash.
To make matters worse, Trump was psyching himself up by arguing that repeated stock market crashes are normal and that this was all part of the plan. This as he continued to disconnect himself completely from reality in general and proceeded to ignore the stock markets entirely as he continued on with his completely stupid trade war with the planet. This move caused a historic stock market crash that lasted four days. This was, of course, the Trump “Liberation Day” stock market crash which, in and of itself, wiped out trillions in value. This, naturally, was quickly followed up by the Trump China stock market crash which erased even more value from the markets after a momentary recovery.
Obviously, the stock markets is just some random number you can ignore – at least as far as the president is concerned. It represents people’s retirement funds and people trying to get ahead in life, not just the wealthy multi billionaires who own most of the markets in the first place. So when there was civil unrest cropping up, it wasn’t even surprising at all that thousands of people marched in numerous rallies across the US and across the world. In fact, some conspiracy theorists were arguing that Trump is intentionally crashing the markets to create a public emergency so he can give himself the excuse to declare martial law across the country. It’s notable because Trump, at one point, even reposted a video suggesting such a thing on his rancid social media site.
Intentional economic arson or not, the consequences of having such a senile psychopath in office is having real world consequences. Layoffs are happening all over the place (just look at the auto sector in Canada), uncertainty is impacting product delivery such as the Nintendo Switch 2, and travellers are having to rethink their plans now that the US has descended into general tyranny. The impacts are affecting people’s daily lives.
What’s more, there has been long speculation of an increased odds that Trump is plunging the US into a recession. Some gave the odds of 40% while others upgraded the odds to 60%. At this point, analysts are increasingly convinced that we may very well be in a Trump recession. From QZ:
As recession fears grow, the CEO of the world’s largest asset manager thinks one is already here — and he says he’s not alone.
“Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at an event for the Economic Club of New York on Monday, in remarks reported by CNBC.
Fink referred to the airline industry as a “canary in the coal mine.”
“I was told that the canary is sick already,” he said.
Fink added that he thinks President Donald Trump’s tariff policies could make it difficult for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates as it usually does during recessions, which could exacerbate inflation.
Indeed, Trump did announce that he is pulling back on the tariffs for semiconductors and computer chips, but the bottom line is the fact that the damage may have already been done. Confidence in the economic outlook has cratered and more and more businesses are increasingly deciding that America is just not worth the risk. This as layoffs continue to dot the landscape at increasing rates. The economic pain is being felt across the spectrum.
While most people aren’t sparing a second thought to the billionaires that are losing money, I think that Trump even pulling the tech tariffs was in response to Big Tech. After all, keep in mind the fact that people like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have been doing everything they can to kiss the Trump ring. They went all in on being part of the fascist takeover of America. Who gets hit hard by the computer chip tariffs? The Big Tech companies like Amazon and Meta. In all likelihood, there was communications from Big Tech to the Trump administration to say, ‘hey, you’re hurting us. Cut us some slack.’ Trump decided to cut whatever deal with them in exchange for lifting the tariffs afterwards.
I know people are speculating that Trump saw the stock markets and freaked out over that, but for that to track, you would think that the tariff removal would have been immediately after the markets crashed. That didn’t happen. Instead, there was a lag which could be explained by someone complaining and Trump responding to those complaints. After all, when the steel and aluminum tariffs hit, Trump didn’t even bat an eye at the ensuing stock market crash. What’s more, there are very few signs that Trump cares any more about what the stock market does and I’m not sure this recent pullback is even related to the double stock market crash last week.
At any rate, it seems like there are those who are no longer just thinking that there is a good chance of a Trump recession. If anything, analysts are believing it’s actually happening rather than just running the numbers on the odds of it happening. Given all that has happened up to this point, it the comments aren’t even surprising any more.
