Trump Is Serious About A Global Trade War
By: GoldCore
GoldSeek.com
Friday, 13 July 2018
by John Stepek of Money Week
If you hadn’t realised by now, Donald Trump is serious
The copper price is sliding.
Chinese stocks are sliding.
Oil tanked by 7% at one point yesterday.
It does all rather suggest that maybe investors are really starting to worry about the burgeoning global trade war, and its impact on global growth.
And they’d be right to.
First things first. If you didn’t realise it already, then you need to get this into your head: Donald Trump is serious. He has believed for a long time in an “America First” world where the US stops playing the role of global policeman and instead looks out for itself.
As far as he’s concerned, other countries have been freeloading off the US and taking advantage of its good nature and overweening sense of responsibility for way too long.
Whether you agree with this or think it is deluded, is irrelevant. He’s the president. That’s how he thinks. That’s what his policies are aiming at.
He has also surrounded himself with advisers who agree with him. “Yes” men, you might say. That’s exactly what you’d have expected given his corporate history.
So talk of trade war is not a craft feint, or a bluff, or a tactic in some 3D chess game Trump is playing. It’s just what he wants.
Secondly, other countries are not keen to roll over and play nice or make concessions. National pride is one reason. Another is that they can’t quite believe that the established world order is being overturned. There’s a sense that “you can’t do that”.
He can. He is.
Given all that, then as Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics puts it, “it’s hard to see how a full-blown trade war can be avoided at this stage”. And that’s the reality that we, as investors, have to deal with.
So what does that mean?
A full-blown trade war would be an expensive business for everyone
The Rest…HERE
