Summary
Trump had to reverse his aggressive tariff rhetoric after CEOs from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot warned of empty shelves and higher prices due to supply chain disruptions.
Investors reacted negatively to his threats against Fed Chair Jerome Powell, prompting a market sell-off.
Trump backtracked, expressing optimism on a China trade deal and now denying plans to fire Powell.
Global markets remain volatile, and the IMF cited Trump’s trade war as a “major negative shock” to global growth.
I hope the repercussions land on Trump and his cronies, and but just on this particular show of global bullying around tariffs.
The thing is that real damage has already been done. Trust that was built over the course of - without exaggeration - most of a century has been squandered by imbecilic and ham-handed “move fast break things” tactics. Trust is very fickle, and the gain/loss dynamic is completely asymmetrical: it takes ages to build, but can be destroyed in an instant. And the recovery phase is always going to be slower than the initial build, and it generally doesn’t ever reach as high as was before the initial betrayal, because, you know, people remember things.
You talk as though trusting the USA is a good thing, something to be regained. The U.S. is and always has been a genocidal, slave-owning, patriarchal oligarchy that masquerades as a “democracy”. I am actually quite happy to see tRump destroy the U.S. standing in the world, he has done more to destroy the evil empire in 4 months than anyone else in its entire history. It truly is a glorious thing.
I am entirely confident that you don’t understand the full implications of the vacuum of power that this will create.
Oh no! A multi polar world, what will become of us if we don’t have big daddy USA (or actually the oligarchs that own and operate it) telling us all what to do? And what we can’t do, and who dies for their profit.