Trump’s Tariff War
A bleak view about the Trump tariff announcement is nearly universal.
April 3, 2025
David Kotok offers insights and analysis on current economic and political issues and their potential impact on global financial markets. David’s articles and financial market commentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and other publications. He is a frequent contributor to Bloomberg TV, and Bloomberg Radio, Fox Business, and other media.
A bleak view about the Trump tariff announcement is nearly universal.
There’s a big difference between secondary tariffs and reciprocal tariffs. Their purpose and intention are different, and the outcomes may be different, too. Secondary tariffs are a form of economic warfare, like direct sanctions.
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Here’s a guest post from Philippa Dunne & Doug Henwood of TLR Analytics on the implications of an executive order purging advisory boards that ensure the reliability of BLS data.
In January 2025, a website styled as realcdc.org went live. It was an imitation CDC website right down to the graphics, but the information was different — on vaccines and autism, for example.
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Peter A. Gold addresses issues raised by the executive order targeting the Seattle law firm Perkins Coie and poses questions for every American to think about.
So what does the fate of a once-booming chicken-and-egg industry in my home state of New Jersey have in common with the evolution of the US auto industry? A 25% tariff, that’s what.
Is it a pullback of 5–6–7%, which can happen several times a year? Is it a correction (10% or more)? Is it serious? Will it become a bear market sell-off (20% or more)?
Hundreds of millions of people witnessed the recent shoot-out in the Oval Office. Among them, in the room, was a reporter from Russian media. Here are some takeaways.
As H5N1 bird flu spreads across mammals and has now reached rats, we are reminded of Chapter 7 in our new book, The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks. That chapter focuses on the Plague of Justinian in the Eastern Roman Empire, where plague (caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium) spread with the range of infected oriental rat fleas.
