Here's our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news Trump's tariffs are bringing the same level of global uncertainty back as we had from China's pandemic. This time however, officials in charge lack the credibility or the instinct to change policy for the common good, or the courage to withstand the nutters. In fact, the nutters are in charge of this latest mess.
However their tariff policy took a jerk overnight with the US announcing a one month delay to the start of them against goods from Mexico. Meanwhile, Canada released the list of products that they will hit with counter-tariffs for US products. Probably more importantly, there is widespread evidence Canadians are already boycotting US products, tariffs or not. That will have a more immediate impact that official actions.
But the effects have yet to show up in the data, and there was a lot of PMI data out today for surveys that pre-dated the tariff news.
The ISM factory PMI for the US rose to a modest expansion in January from a downwardly revised small contraction in December. This was a better result than expected and is the first expansion in the factory sector by this survey after 26 consecutive months of contraction. New orders increased at a faster pace and that drove the change.
Separately the globally-benchmarked S&P/Markit factory PMI came in with a similar recovery recorded, and slightly better than the ISM one.
In Canada, their factory expansion slowed slightly in January. But it is still at a level higher than either of the US surveys.
Although the internationally-benchmarked China Caixin factory PMI slipped to a no-expansion/no-contraction state in January, the underlying data did feature a rise in new orders. Prices eased and at their fastest pace since July 2023. Looking ahead will be difficult now given the unknowable impacts of the impending tariff war.
The Singapore Manufacturing PMI for January slipped to a marginal expansion but it was the 17th consecutive month of expansion, even if it was the weakest in three months. Slower increases were recorded in new orders, new exports, factory output and employment.
EU inflation in January rose marginally, to 2.5% from 2.4% in December. What is interesting about this is that it is the first where energy prices weren't the restraining factor they were in 2024. But it is the 3.9% rise in services costs that is keeping this elevated.
EU PMIs were contracting for their large economies, expanding in the smaller ones. Overall the contraction was less in January than December.
And the S&P Global Australia Manufacturing PMI was revised higher to 50.2 in January from a flash of 49.8, and compared to 47.8 in December. It's their first expansion in the manufacturing sector in a year, as output returned to growth. New orders fell at a softer rate and employment levels increased, supporting the clearance of backlogged work.
Retail sales in Australia fell by -0.1% in December from November, the first such retreat in nine months, though the drop was milder than the forecasted -0.7% contraction. The result points to weakening consumer spending, fueling expectations that the RBA may start cutting interest rates at their February 18 meeting. Year-on-year, retail sales only rose 3.0%, barely more than inflation's 2.5%.
And staying in Australia, building consent levels were essentially unchanged in December from November to be more than +12% higher than in the same month in 2023. For all of 2024, they were +4.7% higher than in 2023. Despite those gains, the powerful construction lobby is calling for a "$12 billion injection into infrastructure" to have the taxpayer subsidise its activities.
CoreLogic reported that Australian house prices and sales activity were weaker than usual in January. They had a -0.2% price dip in January, the same as December and the fourth consecutive monthly decline. Annual price growth has continued to slow, dropping below +4% now.
The UST 10yr yield is at 4.52%, down -2 bps from yesterday at this time. The key 2-10 yield curve is flatter at +29 bps. Their 1-5 curve is also flatter at +13 bps. And their 3 mth-10yr curve is now at +19 bps and flatter than yesterday. The Australian 10 year bond yield starts today over 4.43% and unchanged. The China 10 year bond rate is unchanged (while they are on holiday) at 1.64%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.54%, down -5 bps from yesterday.
Wall Street has opened its Monday trade with a -0.5% slip on the S&P500. Overnight European markets were all down more than -1%. Yesterday Tokyo closed down -2.7%, But Hong Kong ended unchanged. Shanghai is still closed. Singapore ended down -0.8%. The ASX200 ended its Monday session down -1.8% and the NZX50 was down -1.4%.
The price of gold will start today at US$2817/oz and up +US$18 from yesterday and back to a record high.
Oil prices are virtually unchanged again at just on US$72.50/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now US$75.50/bbl and also holding.
The Kiwi dollar is now at 56 USc and down -40 bps from this time yesterday. It fell -60 bps lower during the day but recovered some of that. Against the Aussie we are down -20 bps at 90.5 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at just under 54.3 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today just on 66.7, and down -50 bps from yesterday.
The bitcoin price starts today at US$98,885 and up a minor +0.8% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been high though at +/- 3.9%.
And we should probably note that the $Trump meme coin price is now lower than when it was launched. Trump collected more than US$100 mln in fees from the suckers who bought the hype in what has to be the icon case of grifting.
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178 Comments
It did not take long for Mexico to fold. Hearing that they are saying, If Mexico does not stop the drugs, US holds the right to clear out cartel activity inside Mexico with military action. Now I know the Cartels think they are tough against local unarmed Mexicans, but they will also fold up against helicopter gunships etc.
I think Trump may be be quickly seen as a man who delivers in this Presidency.
It is perhaps the one are I feel fully in agreement with.
Over the weekend though I saw a Youtube video of Trump address a meeting of Middle Eastern leaders from 7 years ago, and it was a version of Trump we do not generally see here in NZ. And I have to ask why? In that video Trump was fully presidential, calling on all the ME leaders to reject violence and extremism. That is the Trump the world needs.
Personally I think the best option is to increase the supply of better drugs than fentanyl, bring back some of the 70s clasics. The war on drugs is like prohibition was; druggy people will still do the drugs, but terrible ones via a black market that turns them into criminals.
Yet also fairly astute.
As we've embarked down this merry road of trying to stop people getting bent, which virtually every culture has done since the dawn of man, all that's happened is the drugs are being refined to be stronger, more harmful and addictive.
Prohibition of alcohol led to people drinking stronger forms of alcohol.
Prohibition of cannabis has tripled or quadrupled it's THC content to be paranoia inducing.
Prohibition of Cocaine has people taking Meth
If people are getting strongly addicted to any of this stuff, the cause is often psychological, and rarely addressed. And ironically, many of these illegal substances are now being looked upon to aid with mental health treatment.
Yet we've always had plant medicines, only they were used better and given by someone better trained in their holistic benefits. It wasn't about getting bent.
Obviously a medicine alone won't have the desired affect without attending to ones environment, both inner and outer.
So the real question is why the increase in usage, and not only of illegal drugs, but also of legal pharmaceutical drugs. Now you've also got to ask why some drugs are legal and promoted, and others are not. Is it by design?
It's suggested that addiction has an emotional cause. In many ways it's an escape from feeling a certain way or to achieve a certain feeling. The majority do it every day one way or another, only we've focused on drug addiction being bad and normalised addictions as perfectly ok.
The issue of processed synthetic drugs can equally be attributed to our highly processed foods.
So the real question is why the increase in usage, and not only of illegal drugs, but also of legal pharmaceutical drugs.
Because this wonderful way of being we have engineered is terribly unhealthy for us, body and mind.
Now you've also got to ask why some drugs are legal and promoted, and others are not. Is it by design?
I often wonder this regarding alcohol. Let's permit the drug that's the most violence inducing, advertise and sell it everywhere.
Profit has a lot to do with it, some drugs cost next to nothing to produce, which compete with more lucrative drugs people need to spend lots of money consistently on. A $5 tab of acid offers a lot more entertainment than however much $5 of alcohol gets you. And you're probably not going to have one every day after work either.
Because this wonderful way of being we have engineered is terribly unhealthy for us, body and mind
Exactly.
And many who are trying to break out of it are the ones who present with "mental" health problems, given legal pills, and enough support, if any to try and fit them back in the box.
It's all part of the system. Many drugs were outlawed in the 60's in the USA as the hippy movement threatened to get the mass rebelling against the idea of war and challenging the status quo (a healthy trait). Harry Anslinger had a large vested interest in the log trade so outlawed cannabis to ruin the ubiquitous industrial hemp trade also. You're told to seek help when you need it, only to be fed designed pharmaceuticals that don't treat the root cause, as it is easier and more profitable than gettin the real help one needs.
It wasn't meant to be. What part do you disagree with?
There is a big difference in harm between the worst drugs and the least worse ones. I am not sure if I would go as far as legalising the least worse ones (as that almost implies they are accepted), but something similar to decriminalisation, and also apply that to dealers and importers where the sentences for the worse ones are significantly higher.
It's a way of denigrating someone who is not a Trump supporter, you could interchange it with "woke", as a way to disagree without having facts to back up your point of view. In classic Trump style.
I'd prefer the term TDS to be applied to all Trump supporters though.
People with TDS are typically obsessively critical or overly emotional. You can be critical of Trump and not have TDS. However, most of the "woke" crowd would definitely suffer from some degree of TDS. If you can barely go a day without mentioning his name, like some on here, then you fit the definition.
1) Most of the people you accuse of being Trump supporters would be more financially literate than you. Happy to disect the Modigliani-Miller theorem with you at your leisure.
2) Most of the people you accuse of being Trump supporters aren't really supporters per se, more there was no alternative (I don't support him but would have voted for him over Harris 100 days out of 100)
The Afghanistan withdrawal may be the single worst American foreign policy snafu in my life time - crickets from the press. If Harris had 2 assasination attempts against her there would have been millitary on the streets.
We don't support Trump, we just hate hypocrisy. He was overwhelmingly elected by the US to sort out the Biden/Harris mess, perhaps it's democracy you object to and not Trump?
The Afghanistan withdrawal may be the single worst American foreign policy snafu in my life time
Not the actual invasion itself? (George W Bush)...how odd?
$5 trillion or more on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with minimal vetting, minimal public hearings, minimal attention through the executive or congressional branches. And now Iraq supplies oil directly to China....win win
One of the major cartels was founded by the special forces operators that the US trained. They’re presently in an internal civil war. If you think trained killers with their own private armies will simply fold and not fight for their multi-billion dollar cash cows, you’re deeply mistaken.
Does it mean that the US and Mexico shouldn’t try? No. But when you have 100k+ cartel members within the US itself, I would be wary of retaliatory terror attacks. Glad I don’t live there.
SKF
Say the US occupies Mexican territory.... then what do they do? Occupy the country for 20 years before pulling out and everything returns back like it was? Also costing billions of dollars and countless lives for no actual gain.
If anyone believes that this complex problem is as simple as USA sending in the troops, they are simply wrong. The US are terrible occupiers, they have no idea how to rebuilt afterwards ...and the US public have no appetite for another drawn out 'war', especially when serving military members start coming home in body bags.
It the taliban can ultimately holdout and win against the gunships, do you really think the cartels will just fold?
Amazing how this is seen as Mexico folding. Theyve won a delay in imposing of tariffs for a month. Biden had already an agreement for Mexico to provide 15000 troops on the border and Trump appears not to know this and so his deal is 5000 less Mexican solders on the border.
Yep, and then a noisy cohort of edgy, uniquely-informed dipshits roll up on here bleating that Dan has "TDS" when the derangement is very much weighted the other way.
Trump is achieving some things, but very little. Mostly he is waving his wand based on other people's pet peeves, with scant regard for the impact, and wilfully blind to the fact that imperfect institutions exist and their flaws are visible because of, not in spite of, generations of best effort. However, American systems have not become the frumpy behemoths we love to hate without developing some pretty onerous checks and balances, both intended and inadvertent, and Trump is again beginning to discover his magic has limits.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, 1945
10,000 extra Mexican border control guards on their way within 48 hours -- seems to me that he's getting exactly the result the tarrifs were designed for without having to implement them on Border number 1 !
Its all smoke mirrors and negotiation tactics - but looks like this one has worked about 5 years faster and ten times better than any previous attempts
Be interesting if it can generate similar results on his northern border !
I am thinking the same. Its not really clear what he wants from Canada, but I'm sure he has something in mind. Maybe he wants Quebec, to go with Greenland lol.
Maybe its just to pressure the populace to vote Right in the election. I doubt that it will backfire, it seems to me that the swing to the Right is happening globally.
Reuters are reporting that Canada has misunderstood the tariff order as a trade war. Trump however said
When asked what Canada and Mexico must do to lift the 25% tariffs that Trump announced on Saturday, the president told reporters on Sunday they "have to balance out their trade, number one."
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/white-house-mexico-is-serious-ca…
I'm not sure how Canada can interpret it any other way. It is certainly not about illegal immigration or drugs from Canada. This CNN article reports the statistics along the Canadian / US border
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/us-canada-trade-fentanyl-fa…
The Trump administration seems to want to say the tariffs are about one thing (illegal immigration and drugs) but really it is something else (trade deficit).
And the idiocy of that position is that he is trying to unwind better than 50 years of US corporate history where they exported jobs to lower cost jurisdictions. Globalisation was an American dream forced on the world. A lot of those corporate profits are going to vanish if he gets his way.
"...Canada is implementing a $NZ1.6 billion border plan, including new helicopters, technology, targeted drug forces and ten-thousand frontline personnel."
Justin Trudeau says Donald Trump will pause Canada tariffs for at least 30 days | RNZ News
But it's literally the exact same thing they were already going to do. This exact plan was announced in December. The Canadians have conceded nothing a trump has folded without achieving anything except burning a tremendous amount of good will between the two countries.
The border between the United States and Mexico is 1,954 miles (3,145 kilometers) long.
The Canadian-United States border is 5,525 miles (8,891 km) long, making it the longest international border in the world. The border stretches across 13 US states and eight Canadian provinces and territories.
If I wanted to get into the states unnoticed, I think it would be easier to cross the Canadian boarder.
but that cost the US a fortune -- holding people then trying to send them back -- far better to cut the number trying to cross from Mexico - Canada is another issue altogether -- and I tend to like the concept earlier that this is anti woke libertarian policy as opposed to tackling drugs and illegal immigrants -
one thing for sure -- stuff will finally happen -- and given the 6 years we had of promises and wonderful flowery ideology with no delivery I like the concept of a government being elected to do things and actually doing them for a change !
Then the White House should clearly communicate that rather than saying wild shit like they will lift the tariffs if Canada becomes the 51st state. At least give the Canucks some clear, actionable goals rather than just punishing them for no clear reason with no off ramp.
Trump doesn't want anything.
The hard-right Republicans don't want a liberal country on their border, it undermines their narrative. If a liberal more egalitarian english/ French speaking country can thrive on their northern border, people in the US ask why can't we do that too. Trump just does what he's told.
The US has now multiple reneged on deals they themselves created with their allies, it makes the US look incredibly unreliable.
Stability in government and matters economic are what made the USA a world power while Europe was infighting and everywhere else was underdeveloped. Now they are doing 180's on foreign policy and tearing up trade deals that trump himself negotiated left and right.
You know what country doesn't change their entire foreign policy doctrine every four years? China. A country you can make a treaty with and be reasonably certain that a new leader isn't going to come in to power and then wipe his ass with it.
10,000 extra Mexican border control guards on their way within 48 hours
Performative, to allow Trump to say he's 'won' something.
What do you think these extra border guards are actually going to achieve?
The cartels will be asked to cough up a big seizure (a form of tax of you like) so Trump can say see it's working, the news will move on and then everyone can get back to how things were.
Back in Spain the Moroccan smugglers would do the same thing with the Spanish border police, every now and again some sucker would be the mule that they gave up so the police could report a win.
I have been wondering for a while now whether Trump is a buffoon or a genius. I’m still unsure, but starting to think the latter. He is prepared to trust his gut instinct, and I do wonder if that could actually work out better than listening to the naysayers and doing nothing like everyone else in politics.
He just employs an old negotiating tactic, but has the benefit of the world's most powerful nation behind him.
If you want $100 for something you're selling, offer it for $200 and let the buyer negotiate you down to $100. You get what you wanted in the first place, and you have a happy customer who thinks they've scored a bargain. They might even cave at $150, and you get a nice bonus.
Of course, this is reliant on the buyer not getting annoyed and going elsewhere. Or mugging you and taking the item for nothing.
I think short term his methods are bluntly effective, but long term it could hurt the reputation of the US and push countries towards other trading partners who won't tear up contracts without any notice or treat them like dirt. Certainly makes trading with China seem like a safer and more consistent option.
Wall street doesnt like it and that's really who matters in this little game of chess.
As an aside our family is standing with our Canadian friends and allies and are henceforth not buying any American goods or services including
McDonalds
Coke products
Apple products
Watties (i feel sorry for the Kiwi farmers but Watties is owned by Americans ) we will support McCains instead - who are owned by the canadians
Colgate/palmolive
whilst we realise our purchases wont make an iota of difference - it is the principle
You seem to be conflating a number of issues there that have nothing to do with a Trade war.
I support Canada in line with Martin Niemollers famous saying
First they came for the Canadians and I did not speak out, I'd like to think that by the time they come for NZ - that we wont be in the position where nobody is left to speak for us.
Early days but this looks like a big flex and a bluff from the Don. Throwing around that United States weight for the good of the people.
Fentanyl is a really big problem. Gone are the days of experimenting with drugs in your youth. Your first line of cocaine could be your last act on earth with so much fentanyl being mixed in with drugs.
It's also a problem that America created itself by doling out Opioids for 20 years like they were smarties.
Whilst Pharmaceutical companies who knew how addictive they were ( same story as big tobacco) reaped in the profits, Americans developed awful addictions.
Whilst legal opiods have now been changed to make them less addictive and doctors are now more reluctant to keep issuing prescriptions - the population has addictions that arent going to go away overnight - so they look to the illegal trade.
Fentanyl is a really big problem.
It is a problem caused by Big Pharma, you can track opioid addiction levels to the states that decided to remove the requirement to track what was being prescribed, "removing red tape" (at the request of big pharmaceutical companies)
Is Trump going after the Pharmaceutical companies, hell no, they are some of his biggest donors.
MSM keep ignoring the Roy Morgan poll unless it suits their narrative.
"Support for National-led Government increases in December with National, ACT and NZ First all up"
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9813-nz-national-voting-intention-de…
PS: It's quite possible that ACT will reach 20% by next year's election.
It's quite possible ACT will decline for two reasons, too:
1. Failure of morals re their actions re Tim Jago
2. More so, Winston being replaced by Seymour as DPM, and being freed to opine vigorously and start his campaign at Seymour's expense.
3. Seymour's lack of performance and poor results from nonsensical policies. Some of these covered in good detail here: https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360568115/sir-ian-taylor-david-seymour… His approach to school lunches and charter schools have been failures, feelings over facts.
Many of Seymour's positions are absurd and inconsistent - as well as being only applicable to other people - so Winston will have a field day.
Re 1. Seriously? "failure of morals" is somehow relevant to previously unknown events 20 years old well before any ACT role & when known ACT took immediate legal advice and followed it to the letter.
2. Is only going to help Seymour reinforce ACTs Coalition support.
A party had a pedophile president and that has no bearing on the party? I can still remember the outrage when someone shoplifted, and was a stain on their whole party.
Well, I guess they are in a way keeping their campaign promise to increase the prison population.
"Failure of morals re their actions re Tim Jago" Really? This family apparently went to the Act Party BEFORE they went to the Police! I would be asking what they were trying to achieve. Seymour recommended they speak to a lawyer. It sounds to me like he probably suggested the police and got a negative reaction. But he's a politician and their first port of call when they are not sure of the facts or grounds it generally to go speak to a lawyer. The media have pinged on to the fact they are employment lawyers, but really? Surely any lawyer could provide you with the advice that if your complaint is legit - go to the police. If you don't want to, what are you hiding?
He told the media he had been sent a letter after they approached him and he referred them to a lawyer, and told him they were taking it to the police.
"RNZ has previously reported the survivor’s wife contacted the Act Party on Facebook three months before Jago was charged, warning Jago was a sexual predator."
"The survivor’s wife wrote back to Act, saying her husband had decided to go to the police instead in the hope he could prevent further offending."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tim-jago-sexual-abuse-case-act-leader-dav…
So not made up at all.
The retaliatory bans are pretty large. Governments in Canada are going to decline contracts with US software suppliers and pressure will come on the private sector to do the same. These are worth huge amounts of money and once they are in place that's years, if not decades of lock-in. You don't just go back to normal when they reset the tariff settings in the future.
The big stories, imho, are Musk's people hijacking the Treasury payments system. This is a heist.
And Trump's goons doing the same in the DOJ.
I agree the aim is to dismantle the state apparatus. Healthy? Nah, you think Trump and Musk and the rest of the billionaires backing him have the little guys interest at heart?
Based on their track records, I would say it's all about making it easier for them to get more power and remove long-standing conventions that prevent too much power being concentrated in too few hands. The end game is Oligarchy, pretty much Putin's Russia.
It's not the $100 million in fees that are most concerning about the $TRUMP coin scam - it's the upcoming monthly releases of coins that Trump's interests will be selling.
Price doesn't have to be tied to market value, can be sold to anyone in the world. You don't need brown paper bags to bribe the President any more, just buy your policies from the next $TRUMP auction.
Curiously, it was the interest.co.nz soil graphs a few years ago that alerted me in about November that were in serious trouble when it comes to water in NZ. I see a similar pattern repeating again. The forecasts for Auckland are effectively hot and dry weather for the foreseeable, with not much of a chance of a Pacific rainmaker to shift the dial.
I suspect we're going to see a lot more red on that map over the next few weeks. If it isn't a problem yet, it will be.
Bit strange here in my part of eastern BoP. Very dry and missed any thunderstorms in the last month, and there was some really big-uns. Sat on the deck watching them go around.
Having said that we're still very green and our production is 16% up for the month and 11% ytd.
But the dry is very wide spread and will bite hard over the next few weeks.
Similar in Auckland, most has gone around made a bee line for the Coromandel or to the West. One night we went from being forecast to get 40mm in a few hours to actually getting about 3 or 4. I think the Waikato has had some thunderstorms which must have helped them but the blocking highs in the Tasman are working hard this year, and the ground is so dry even in the urban Auckland area that you'd need a week of decent rain and lower temps to actually make a difference in the soil moisture levels that doesn't get boiled off the next day.
Northland seems to be getting a bit of rain from the West now and then but Auckland is going to look pretty red by the time our next showers show up in a week's time.
And just like that, Canada folds as well.
https://x.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1886529228193022429
Cue all the TDS sufferers now .....
The USA is sending soldiers to the border as well.
Huge step down from Trump 1.0 "Mexico will pay for the wall" to today's "Well we'll both send a few thousand people and see how that goes".
3 people per km of border, so maybe you can have one person watching each km at a time. That should stop the cartels.
How has Canada folded, they're spending money they were already committed to spending. Anyone with more than one brain cell knows this never had anything to do with fentanyl. If anything trump has caved and somehow managed to unite Canada across the political spectrum against him.
Ruining your credibility as a trading partner to get Canada to do something they already said they would do a month ago. Brilliant work.
I don't see how this is a political victory though. Canada is just doing what they were going to do anyway, they have literally conceded nothing and Trump claims it as some sort of massive win and his idiotic base goes wild, while the US's friends and allies start to look elsewhere.
This argument is simplistic. The US imports 4 million barrels of oil a day from Canada (about 20 percent of the US daily consumption)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/pump-prices-set-rise-trump-tariffs-hit-can…
How are higher gas prices a victory for Trump?
I love that Trudeau's plan was just the same plan he announced back in December. Like what was even accomplished here other than making the Trump admin look schizo and unreliable? Basically pissing on your ally's face for no reason just to show him that your dick is bigger than his and to get applause from your base of hoot hogs. Genius foreign policy.
It's more like of of those yappy little dogs that bark furiously at a bigger dog as it walks towards them and as soon as the big dog get close the little dog just bows down and shuts the fuck up, the big dog carries on walking by as they were, and as soon as the big dog is out of reach the little yappy dog starts up the barking.
Canada and Mexico are doing exactly what they had planned to do for Biden. Trump just can't help yapping away like a little bitch.
However their tariff policy took a jerk overnight with the US announcing a one month delay to the start of them against goods from Mexico. Meanwhile, Canada released the list of products that they will hit with counter-tariffs for US products. Probably more importantly, there is widespread evidence Canadians are already boycotting US products, tariffs or not. That will have a more immediate impact that official actions.
Yes, and I suspect the intent to capitulate on Trump's part was all planned. He and his cronies in the know all along the tightly scheduled suite of statements, actions, signing the EO, implementing deadline - and then date of pull back - all played the market during that time. Arbitrage / insider information.
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