Chronicles of 2025

Investing / Others
2695

From the WSJ: The Rough Day in Court for Trump’s Tariffs

Summary (courtesy of Gemini):

    U.S. judges are challenging President Trump’s use of emergency powers to unilaterally impose tariffs, questioning the legal basis of his actions. The core dispute revolves around whether the 1977 IEEPA law, which doesn’t explicitly mention tariffs, grants the president this broad authority. Judges expressed skepticism, emphasizing that the Constitution assigns tariff power to Congress and that historical precedent doesn’t support the administration’s claims.

Excerpt (on the novelty of the administration’s argument):

“And yet the statute’s been in existence for over 50 years, correct?…Why is that? Has there been no national emergencies in 50 years?” — Judge Jimmie Reyna

Excerpt (on the lack of legal grounding for tariffs within the law):

“‘Tariffs’ seems to have no friends in that statute, so why would we read tariffs into that statute?” — Judge Alan Lourie

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2696

Whatever the concessions will be - they will be really bad

I think Swiss govt need to carefully weigh them because paying 200 B USD (in whatever form) to save exports of 80 B is also not a very good deal.

This is basically what US wants. They want a region under so much stress that they end up giving up more and more.

Real hard job for the government

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2698

They didn’t even ask how his old pal in Brazil being pursued by the justice system under the new government, or Canada recognizing Palestine would constitute a ‚US national Emergency‘ that would justify a huge jump in tariff rate (from 10% to 50% in Brazil’s case where the US actually runs a trade surplus).

Then again, a friendly Supreme Court may just dismiss such pesky nit picking, nothing wrong with destroying foreign businesses if their governments don’t yield to his views after all.

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2699

What’s unfortunate is that countries getting good deals are the ones making impossible/unrealistic commitments that they will never deliver on (i.g: EU energy imports). Swiss diplomats are too serious and honest to lie.

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2700

Here is explanation from Greer about Switzerland . Basically since CH cannot reduce the trade deficit , it’s challenging. Switzerland doesn’t have capacity to buy more stuff from US, so more or less US wants to buy less from CH.

I guess only option left would be massive investments in US which would be tough as companies (Pharma) who can invest are the ones who need to reduce their prices in US by 50%.

The tariff rate is determined % trade deficit. Very simple. Also mentioned by Greer.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-08-01/swiss-trade-talks-challenging-us-trade-rep-greer-video

2701

Every word these asshats speak makes me furious. Why in gods name do we NEED to reduce the trade deficit. It does not make any sense.

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2702

Maybe we’ll have soon some Brolex™, made in the US :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

2703

By the way it’s funny how we went from reciprocal (which makes some sense at least) to this mostly non sense trade deficit based one (why X% deficit should have X% tariff, might as well be X/20 or any other value).

2704

We can’t blame US team. Some trading partners have basically agreed on this arguments.

Thats why we see massive commitment to buy US gas and oil & aeroplanes to reduce trade deficit by EU, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia etc

This has emboldened the stand of US team.

—//

Imagine if EU announced tomorrow, 34% extra tax on all US services because that’s the deficit. US will undoubtedly go bananas. But I doubt EU will have guts to go this direction given the situation on defence side

2705

It’s alright guys (and single gal, unless we have more). The key would be to maintain our personal revenue, which in itself is looking shittier by the day given the impact this can have, if it materializes, so we can continue investing.

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2706

We totally clearly have more. There’s probably lots of women on here.

People will often assume by default, that a poster will be a straight middle aged cis guy, though that’s not necessarily true.

Poll from th MMM-forum:

Screenshot_20250801-203030
Screenshot_20250801-203030864×1097 148 KB

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2707

Pharma unfortunately looks very dire.
Trump will not back down there. Either lower prices or tariffs.

It‘s going to be very harsh times for the economy soon.

I‘m quite scared tbh and feel rather helpless & angry.

It‘s literally being extortet by the boss of the biggest Mafia there is, and nothing you can do.

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2708

To be fair, we’ve been happy to fly under the radar and play with all sides, EU, US, China, during the good times, while we could.

The world has changed and is asking us to get more integrated with some partner(s). It’s on us to either get stronger on our own, smarter on our own, or to make the deals that will allow for us to stand stronger with allies when the need arises.

In negociation, we need to have a stick and a carrot. I do hope our leaders have considered the sticks they can use too and are making the US team interested in making these negociations reach a positive conclusion (instead of thinking, pfew, Switzerland, we can do what we want, what do you think they can do?).

For example, when the EU got their 15% deal, the correct reaction, in hindsight, was an “oh sh***! we NEED to make a deal happen or we’re screwed!”) and not the reaction I had internally, which I suspect some of our leaders may have had too, which was “good sign, we’re likely to end around the same place then.”

On the longer run, the tariffs will hurt the US but it’ll hurt them less if they get deals with their most important trade partners and squeeze the smaller countries. It’s ours to protect our interests and make it not happen.

So, yes, the US are playing a self destructive, stupid game, here. But that’s outside of our sphere of influence. What we have mastery on is what we do and we need to get that in order right now. I do hope it is what we are doing.

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2709

This is the part I‘m most worried about.

The EU got their semi-good deal now. They don‘t need to help us.
We are basically alone now, and have essentially no leverage at all.

Before everyone was kind of in the same boat and there was a possibility to band together and form a cohesive ex-US block.

No one will join our block now and risk their “good” deals.

2710

If US doesn’t want to have a trade deficit, Switzerland cannot really do much. So the only option is to export less to US and try to find more export opportunities to other regions.

This weird demand of US is not possible to be met. Indeed it’s bad for Swiss Pharma. Other industries might still be able to manage. But Pharma is very dependent on US customers.

Most likely it would lead to Novartis / Roche to move more production to US to serve US market. This would impact jobs.

I have a feeling that CH will strike a deal with US but I also think it would be a very bad concession which might not be good . Let’s see what happens

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There is no point of fighting a trade war with US for Switzerland. There is nothing to gain from that. US does not make anything interesting in goods. Most likely some medicines which we need anyways.

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2711

Indeed pharma is squeezed in ex-US due to tariffs, squeezed in the US due to price cuts AND Biden’s IRA. Merck already announced 3bn in cost cutting: jobs, outsourcing (my job), acquisitions, pipeline. Bonuses and promotions off the table, layoffs and hiring freeze already enacted in several firms. I’ve been thinking of a pivot for some time but haven’t acted upon it.

Same, and it’s the idiocy that precipitated that that drives me up the wall.

“The US gets a cold, the world gets pneumonia”, we say.

Good 60% of revenue of most pharmas comes from the US. They are shitting themselves and have been since Biden’s IRA - which is a GOOD THING for both patients and Medicare. Basically I am talking to (pharma) clients and they are in the same boat we’re all in, can’t plan with all this uncertainty.

Really wondering if to trim some positions that ran well, my TQQQ is about +25% in a handful of months, the SMA strat I am following says to keep but…solidifying profits off a trading/betting position may not be a bad idea. Then again, selling when down, even 5% down, is dumb.

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2712

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-01/swiss-push-for-tariff-deal-hits-roadblock-in-heated-trump-call

(https://archive.is/etefe)

2713

You referring to MSD or Merck (European) ?
Is your own job impacted?

2714

I think in long run - patients will also suffer because new drug research will be not funded. Specially patients with rare diseases.

I think US is trying to cut prices without business model overhaul and in matter of weeks. This as everything else has good intentions but bad process.

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2715

It’s the same firm, different name. There’s also the OG Merck (KGaA) but it’s a different firm.

Of course my job is impacted, we have a lot less work than usual, and it’s not just us but everyone in the pharma consulting space. I’ve kept my job through 2 years of many many rounds of layoffs, but for how long I don’t know.

I disagree, the margins on rare disease drugs are astronomical, there are often special innovation pots or other ringfenced money for rare diseases in most countries, plus the data requirements are a lot more lenient. The thing is…selling a drug for 1-3mn a pop means little to either payers or pharma when there are 50 eligible patients on earth. Pharma will go where the money is, the slices of the pie have been getting smaller and smaller and harder to get for nearly 20 years now. Victim of their own success? When I started working metastatic melanoma was a definite horrible death sentence, 15 years later there are phenomenally good drugs available which is amazing for patients. HepC can be cured. MASH and Alzheimer’s are the last two big pieces of the drug pie left. Medicine and science has just become very good once molecular biology started kicking in around the 80s, and really taking off since 2000.

Edit: it’s not that medicine is solved, cell therapy, gene editing and neural interfacing are emerging but they have a long way to go still.

1 Like