Apples and rocks, the US govt is not the Chinese govt, and Americans are not Chinese, there’s a cultural element to this which makes me not agree with this statement. Everything was fine with Biden, I wasn’t investing during Trump 1.0 but I believe it’d have made mainstream news. Everything was fine with all previous POTUS, it’s just Trump and his moronic ideas.
Who knows, maybe the tariffs - more likely the extortionist practices for other countries investing in the US in return of lower tariffs - will actually do some good to the US. If that’s the case then the next US admin will have to decide if it makes sense for them to keep whatever Trump set up given they won’t have its/his taint on them, or roll them back. My money is if there’s any sort of benefit to the US they will just carry on and call it Operation Paperclip 2.0.
My comments are based on what I see now.
In few years if things change, it would be better for everyone
But for now - I would not trust US to have access to my data (for now not much alternatives) and I am not buying American cars rest I anyways mainly buy locally
And who can confirm that VD Vance won’t win next elections
It was not an attack, just a counter opinion, hope it didn’t come off like that because it was not the purpose.
Vance, seeing him in that charade of a meeting with Zelenskyy, gives me school vibes of the guys flocking around the big bullies, who turn to sheep when on their own. Trump is taking a one man show plus bootlickers/sycophants approach, these setups historically scatter when the big boss is out of the picture because they derive their power from him, then there’s a frantic fight for power.
you are of opinion that current political regime and views in US are a passing phase and we shouldn’t extrapolate this to future.
I am of opinion that past doesn’t matter, what matters is what’s happening today. For me to think different about future US policy, I need to see real change in real time. For now I am not seeing it. All I am seeing is that the great democracy is simply becoming an autocracy. Hopefully this gets corrected before it’s too late
As you know, 50% of my equity portfolio is linked to US stocks. So I really want US to be like the one from past instead of its present state. Let’s see what happens
Yes, I do think (and hope) the current shift is a passing phase
On the second point, policy doesn’t change overnight. Not really, unless there’s a radical change in government, and for it to be so radical it most often needs to be undemocratic because people don’t change overnight.
Trump is behaving like an autocrat indeed, and this caters to some of his supporters, but I still firmly believe in the American separation of powers as set by the Founding Fathers, people who understood democracy and statehood better than most. Sure there’s erosion (eg with the SCOTUS) but the concept is that if one of the state powers breaks/weakens, the others won’t break at the same time.
For that to happen you’d need a strongman cancelling the existing laws and basically purging everyone and replacing them with puppets, as it’s happened in many countries/nation-states from antiquity. Not saying it’s impossible, just improbable for a country like the US in the current era, in my opinion.
I feel any country with reasonably developed state functions (ie, literally most of the countries on earth) can’t be changed so radically in a peaceful way. Thinking of Russia and China, for instance, pre- and post-WW2 respectively, where new state power structures were (re)created after civil wars, and the leadership DID abide to Soviet and Chinese laws - it’s just that they made laws to enable them to do what they wanted! Even Hitler did it democratically.
On topic, I had a look at VWRL’s chart in CHF on justETF this morning and had a thought precipitated by “when it doubt, zoom out” that the Liberation Day stuff is a non-insignificant blip even in the long scale. We’re getting reasonably close to breaking even in CHF! I also tried to remind myself what happened in July 2024 as I didn’t even remember that fall, and failed
Today a court ruling may come out at the same time the new tariffs would go into place.
I think the son of Howard Lutnik did buy up a lot of tariffs from importers for Cents on the Dollar. If the court rules against the tariffs he will make a fortune!
I guess the issue was threat to Pharma.
Now White House is simply telling companies what they need to do. At what price they should sell .. bla bla…. Isn’t this what communist regimes do ?
I think price negotiation is different than asking for flat price cuts
In negotiation , companies submit their best prices and then govt can decide what they would like to do.
But telling companies to reduce their prices just like that is basically abusing govt powers. Anyhow nothing strange anymore , everything is possible in US.
I just realised that tomorrow is 1 AUG. We are officially in the new tariff regime.
I guess universal tariffs / letter tariffs (except for the countries where one sided trade deals have been agreed) will apply as of tomorrow unless something changes.
Many countries have independent bodies who negotiate drug prices. Some of them are less independent than others, but each of them has a set of rules they use and are consistent in how they use them over time.
It’s quite different for a head of state to be personally involved.
Does this represent another step for Switzerland toward closer ties with the European Union, potentially paving the way for lower tariffs through greater integration? Is this too strategic an issue for our leaders to act on, or simply a matter of timing?
So Switzerland gets a ‚preferential‘ whopping tariff rate of 39%, effective 7 August… unless TACO, or unless it makes more serious efforts at worshipping and gifting the president:
Unter anderem gehören Kanada mit 35 Prozent und die Schweiz mit 39 Prozent einer vom Weissen Haus veröffentlichten Liste zufolge zu den am meisten belasteten Ländern. Weitere Spitzenzollsätze erhielten Syrien mit 41 Prozent, Laos und Myanmar mit 40 Prozent und der Irak mit 35 Prozent. Für Länder, die nicht namentlich auf der Liste aufgeführt sind, gilt ein allgemeiner Zollsatz von zehn Prozent.
Trump begründete den Schritt mit Handelsungleichgewichten. Auch hätten einige Länder bei den Verhandlungen keine ausreichenden Zugeständnisse gemacht oder sich in Wirtschafts- und Sicherheitsfragen nicht an die Seite der USA gestellt.
This is confusing.
Trump announced 15% universal tariffs for every country with trade surplus with US.
So why Switzerland has 39% ?
Is it like a special punishment for the mistake of doing negotiations with US over the last 3 months?
——
I think the problem for CH is that Switzerland doesn’t actually apply any tariff on most US goods. This means the only thing CH can offer
open entry for agricultural products
pay cash to US govt to be able to continue selling to US (basically something like, CH will give US 100 billion to invest in US and keep profits in US)
None of this is good. And if Pharma Business in US will suffer anyways then what’s the point of agreeing on a deal. They cannot invest when they are making loss at same time
Trump knows CH is rich and I believe he wants a share of that by squeezing as much as possible. Perhaps that’s why 7 more days to negotiate
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rest I anyways mainly buy locally
