Trump finally announce his plan to tariff as much as USD 60b in Chinese imports to safeguard technological development of the US and its future.
Sorry, can you elaborate on what do you mean?
Well, Trump said, “this has been long in the making,” and “we have a tremendous intellectual property theft situation going on” with China affecting hundreds of billions of dollars in trade each year”.
Sorry, but… are you talking about USD 60b tariffs annually?
No. And apparently no. The tariff is only on USD 60b of Chines imports!
So how much is the tariff?
We here don’t know yet. What we only know is that Trump complained that “We’ve lost, over a fairly short period of time 60,000 factories.” And, he complained that China has been steal our jobs, stealing our technology. Yet, Trump said today that he view these thieves “as a friend”?!!
Anyway, reactions from the financial market is clear. USD/JPY recovers ahead of 105.24 near term support, without breaking.
DOW also recovers after after dipping to as low as 24175.49.
The markets’ message is clear. Don’t bother me until you’re doing something significant!