Liberation last week. Now no liberation. Or perhaps some liberation. Ordinary USAians have had so much of liberation in the last week, they’ve been panic buying stuff before the prices are liberated by tariffs.
At any rate, there is now a standard tariff of 10% on everybody except China. These two countries are effectively running a trade blockade against each other, until smugglers find a way around it.
All part of the plan, says Lutnick. Something something markets something dumping US bonds bad, says an orange word salad on Truth Social.
There is supposed to be a 90 day break until the tariffs are reapplied, but of course nobody believes this. In fact the terms have already been “clarified”, probably with further clarifications to follow, as nobody really knows what is going on. It’s good that they got themselves a strong and decisive leader.
Presumably the rest of the world will use these 90 days, or however long it turns out this time, to reduce their exposure to the USA as much as possible. It has become a joke among traders that they want pronouns back, in the magical hope that things will go back to the way they were.
Hopefully they will quieten down for a few weeks and concentrate on terrorising their own population. I feel bad for the USAian citizens, but they created this problem and they should sort it out. Just leave the rest of us alone.