President Trump launched tariffs on 60 trading partners Friday. The European Union made the list. China made the list. The U.K. made the list. Apparently someone found the tariff button again and this time they pressed it harder.
The headline calls this a "blitz." That's the word we use now when a president does the same thing he did before but with more countries. It's very different this time, they promise. Different how? More of it. That's the difference. The first tariff round hit a few countries. This one hit 60. That's not a strategy shift. That's a contact list.
Retail traders are currently Googling "what is tariff" and "should I buy gold" and "why is my portfolio red." They're learning that when you tax imports, the cost goes to consumers. They're discovering this the expensive way, which is the only way they ever discover anything. Their charts didn't predict this. Their RSI indicators didn't flash a warning. Their Fibonacci retracements didn't draw a line that said "maybe don't hold Chinese manufacturing stocks when the guy who loves tariffs is back in office."
The article says this is "very different this time round." Different from what? The last time he did tariffs? The time before that? We've been here. We watched this movie. The plot is identical. Man announces tariffs. Markets react. Economists write op-eds. Nothing changes except the number of countries and the creativity of the headline writers trying to pretend this is novel.
Sixty countries just got a bill they didn't ask for and retail traders are checking their accounts wondering why their tech stocks care about European aluminum.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Leave a Comment