Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a successful hedge fund manager straight out of central casting, has quickly become one of the administration’s strongest advocates for policies that are upending global trade and roiling financial markets. The deliberate, wonkish Wall Street veteran who once called for the gradual implementation of new trade barriers has transformed into a bullhorn for President Donald Trump’s MAGA 2.0 agenda, making it clear that short-term market reactions are secondary to administration priorities such as sweeping…

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The Washington Post reports: International travelers concerned about President Donald Trump’s trade policies and bellicose rhetoric have been canceling trips to the United States, depriving the U.S. tourism industry of billions of dollars at a time when the economy has started to appear wobbly. Canadians are skipping trips to Disney World and music festivals. Europeans are eschewing U.S. national parks, and Chinese travelers are vacationing in Australia instead. International travel to the United States is expected to slide by 5…

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Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux writes: Equities markets roared in anticipation of the deregulation, tax cuts and fiscal restraint the second Trump administration promised. But the tariff war with Mexico and Canada has destroyed that optimism and wiped out the increase in the value of American equities that had accrued since November. On April 2, President Trump plans to take his protectionist policies global. If he does, it will be the beginning of the end of the trading system…

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CNBC reports: President Donald Trump on Thursday doubled down on his escalating tariff plans, even as his economic agenda continued to rattle investors and contribute to a weekslong stock market sell-off. “I’m not going to bend at all,” Trump said when asked about his tariff plans during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore,” he said. Trump specifically said he would not…

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The Wall Street Journal editorial board says: President Trump wanted a trade war with the world, and Americans are getting it, good and hard. Stock prices continued to decline on Tuesday amid the latest Canada-U.S. tariff tit-for-tat. By the end of the day the two sides were talking about a temporary truce, but who knows which side of the tariff bed Mr. Trump will wake up on Wednesday? North Americans awakened Monday to the news that Ontario premier Doug Ford…

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Politico reports: Americans have flipped their views on President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy since the end of his first term, according to new polling, amid a brewing trade war with America’s neighbors and stock market decline. When asked about how Trump is handling the economy, 56 percent of adults said they disapprove and 44 said they approved, according to a CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday morning. Throughout his first term, Americans had generally held a positive view of the…

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Reuters reports: President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out $4 trillion from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Trump’s agenda. A barrage of new Trump policies has increased uncertainty for businesses, consumers and investors, notably back-and-forth tariff moves against major trading partners like Canada, Mexico and China. “We’ve seen clearly a big sentiment shift,” said Ayako Yoshioka, senior…

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Bloomberg reports: As Donald Trump took the oath of office on Jan. 20, he was flanked by some of the world’s wealthiest people. The billionaires present that day — including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg — had never been richer, flush with big gains from frothy stock markets. Seven weeks later, it’s a different story. The start of Trump’s second term has delivered a stunning reversal for many of those billionaires sitting behind Trump in the Capitol Rotunda,…

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The Associated Press reports: With his flurry of tariffs, government layoffs and spending freezes, there are growing worries President Donald Trump may be doing more to harm the U.S. economy than to fix it. The labor market remains healthy with a 4.1% unemployment rate and 151,000 jobs added in February, and Trump likes to point to investment commitments by Apple and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to show that he’s delivering results. But Friday’s employment report also found that the number…

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Adam Bonica writes: The billionaire revolt against Harris’s endorsement of a proposed 25% minimum tax on unrealized gains for fortunes exceeding $100 million perfectly illustrates how this single issue overrides all other political considerations for the ultra-wealthy. Marc Andreessen warned the proposal would “kill startups and venture capital” and even “kill the California tax base,” calling it “insane” and something that would “single-handedly crush the economy.” Elon Musk similarly railed against it, tweeting, “Eventually, they run out of other people’s…

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Eric Levitz writes: Donald Trump just imposed a 25 percent tariff on virtually all goods produced by America’s two largest trading partners — Canada and Mexico. He simultaneously established a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods. As a result, America’s average tariff level is now higher than at any time since the 1940s. Meanwhile, China and Canada immediately retaliated against Trump’s duties, with the former imposing a 15 percent tariff on American agricultural products and the latter putting a 25 percent tariff on $30 billion of…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The world economy could face a crash similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s unless the U.S. rows back on its plans to impose steep tariffs on imports, a senior official at the International Chamber of Commerce warned. “Our deep concern is that this could be the start of a downward spiral that puts us in 1930s trade-war territory,” said Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary-general of the ICC, which promotes global business and trade. High…

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Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes: Donald Trump’s assault on the US federal government and the world’s interlinked manufacturing system have together reached an economic tipping point. “It seems almost unavoidable that we are headed for a deep, deep recession,” said Jesse Rothstein, Berkeley professor and former chief economist at the US labour department. Once the pace of job losses crosses a critical line, the multiplier effects can snowball suddenly. Prof Rothstein said monthly non-farm payrolls – the barometer of US economic health…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Many Americans are pinching pennies, exhausted by high prices and stubborn inflation. The well-off are spending with abandon. The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets. Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades…

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  Jess Bidgood writes: The music was booming. The ballroom was packed. And Elon Musk was onstage, waving a chain saw in the air. I had already seen other surreal sights at the Conservative Political Action Conference — a man with a cat on his shoulder, freshly pardoned Proud Boys roaming around — but it was clear that this would be one of the indelible images of the annual MAGA confab. Musk roared — or was he just making a…

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The South China Morning Post reported in November: China and the European Union should address their disagreements and form a united front against a “triumphant” Donald Trump, said a former chief of the World Trade Organization, calling the incoming US president a threat to global trade. The assessment from Pascal Lamy – director general of the Geneva-based multilateral trade organisation between 2005 and 2013 – comes as worries mount over the future of globalisation after the US presidential election last…

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