Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

Amazing what 10,000 people being paid nothing doing what costs 150 people over here to do can achieve.

It was always going to recover, people have short memories.

The high tariffs were a bargaining chip, they were never going to be long term.

Trump has successfully negotiated some big trade deals with countries now and the markets are recovering. Negotiations with other countries are looking promising.

He seems to be steadying the ship after an initial rocky period. Trade deals done, Minerals deal signed with Ukraine, progress on a ceasefire in both Ukraine and Israel.

Immigration is being tackled, Doge is reducing Govt waste. He has signed alot of common sense executive orders to roll back the DEI nonsense that had gotten out of control over the last few years under the Democrats.

Been a rocky few months but as I previously said its early days and you cant make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

He seems to be learning and becoming more diplomatic and less combustible, which is good to see.

More carrot less stick.

He hasn't negotiated any trade deals.

You wouldn't know them.

They eh, go to a different school....

That was 4 years ago.

The only constant with this administration is that whatever it is thought to have achieved this week will be completely forgotten next week when Trump announces another brain fart table flip inspired by something he saw on TV over the weekend..

The US stock market overall valuation can still climb on diminishing volume.

In a normal economic cycle t bonds would be the bolt hole in times of uncertainty. Now the only way for US citizens to diversify away from Trump's Peronesque economic nationalism is to head for stocks with an international income that can insulate against USD devaluation.

Combined with foreigners pulling back from USD devaluation risk the investment pool in the US will decline.

At the height of the GBP dominance Harrods of London opened a store in Buenos Aires. But the tariffs of the UK Imperial Preference policy undermined it's viability.

Any advantage accrued by protections and devaluation will be eaten up by rising costs and reciprocal tariffs.

It is strange timing that the populist Milei of Argentina is dismantling Peron era protectionism while the populist Trump raises trade barriers.

They may salute eachother in passing but Milei is on the ascending escalater while Trump is on the escalator heading for the bargain basement.

USA can sell something they produce next to nothing of (hormone and antibiotic free, traceable beef) to the UK and UK can sell something they produce (cars) to the USA.

Got to admire the art of the deal 🙄

Damage has been done to small businesses which the stock market casino does not represent

https://www.wsj.com/economy/worried-about-the-economy-americas-small-businesses-are-reducing-investment-and-hiring-survey-shows-71e233cd

Well that's some spin. He has not organised any big trade deals, his fans like to portray things as trade deals. The reality is we could be as easily be in a calm until the 90 days are through. On top of that, you seem to be ignoring that tariffs were rolled back on because businesses like Target called him out about it, they were not intended to be frozen

You seem to be trying to spin a disastrous first few months as a success when the reality is he's only served to destabilise their global position.

The new acting head of the library of Congress is Trump's former lawyer. So they went to a highly qualified librarian with a great reputation to a lawyer…

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5395879/trump-todd-blanche-librarian-congress

Land Rover paused exports when the initial tariffs were announced so even they knew a 25% tariff would affect sales. There's also Mini's, over 20k exported to the US. That production is split between the UK and Germany so I wonder if Germany will ship the parts to the UK for them to assemble and export to the US to avoid the 25% tariff.

As the details haven't really been fleshed out and with the US auto industry's pushback, I wonder if there's any sort of % of parts to make them a UK car, rather than a UK assembled German car.

The US is still trying to figure out what % of an American assembled car is actually American, they don't split the US from Canada manufactured parts, it's all just classes as North American.