If you are a believer in the apparent market consensus that President Donald Trump’s trade wars have peaked and that sunny days lay ahead for the global economy, then Monday was a very bad day and Tuesday isn’t looking much better.
Yesterday in Washington started with an early-morning presidential announcement of new steel tariffs on Argentina and Brazil alongside calls for Federal Reserve actions to weaken the dollar and ended with a threat for 100% tariffs on French champagne and other Gallic goods over a new digital tax. In between came news the U.S. was contemplating increasing the scope of tariffs levied against the European Union over illegal Airbus subsidies after a World Trade Organization ruling.
There’s an argument to be made that some of Monday’s tariffs and threats were measured and in good cause. Targeting Argentina and Brazil over their weak currencies and calling for the Fed to pile in is to call for currency wars and a dangerous end to the international monetary policy order. But no one in American business — and certainly not in Silicon Valley — likes the French digital services tax that the champagne tariffs would target. The levy is already inviting copycats and efforts to find a multilateral solution seem to be growing more distant. There’s a policy argument to be made.
Yet Trump on Monday seemed to be again sending a bigger message about tariffs. If markets have surged since the summer in part because investors are betting Trump has opted for peace over disruptive duties in his dealings with China, the president seems to draw the inverse lesson. He sees financial indices hitting records as an affirmation that tariffs are an economic winner, as he tweeted on Monday.
With 12 days left until Trump has to decide whether to go ahead with those additional tariffs on China — and another market-shaking escalation — that sentiment may be the one that deserved more attention. The optimistic hot take for markets is that this week’s actions are intended as a warning to China that now is the time to close the phase-one deal.
The more sober takeaway, though, may be that Trump is again eager to use his favorite economic weapon and shrugging off the advice of advisers concerned over the possible damage to markets and global growth another escalation would mean.
Or, put another way: Tariff Man is back, long live Tariff Man.