Trump's tariffs are at an insanely high level and will damage the American economy. Somebody must have at least convinced Trump to do the announcement after the stock markets closed so there wasn't an immediate drop in the markets even as Trump was talking. In fact - now that I think of it - maybe they tried to get him to do it on Friday. The idea being that the Friday night news dump would lessen the interest of the public and weaken the reportage.

At his worst - I think Trump's brain as similar to a very fucked up, moronic, arrogant kid with a serious attitude problem. And once broken brain Trump convinces himself he's right - he won't let anybody convince him he's not. In his first term - the "adults in the room" could manage to talk him out of doing his worst actions. I'm sure he still thought he was right but he usually didn't need to do his crazy plans.

But in the Trump 2.0 world - there are no such people. If Trump wants to do something - he's gonna fucking do it. I'm gonna stick a fork in the outlet! Everybody around him is a yes man dialed up to 11. Every single day is The Emperor's New Clothes yet again. Trump comes out naked and everybody tells him how fantastic his clothes are and how very handsome he looks.

Trump has only been president two and a half months and he's done an incredible amount of damage. I think the stock markets could be down a lot in the upcoming weeks and they'll continue to fall. I'm no finance guy but in a week or two could the markets be down ~5% and headed downward?

For me the pivotal question what will Trump do in the near future.

Will he drop the tariffs way down to a sane level and claim victory? When he lies he could say that the countries "learned their lesson".

Will he double down and refuse to budge even as the stock market has historic drops?

My money is on #2. I think the Trump Train has no brakes. He won - he beat covid. He won - he beat an assassin. He won a lot - he beat the democrats time and again. He won - he beat Mueller. He won - he beat the courts. He beat everybody and everything in his way. And he got reelected. I think our boy Trump believes he an unstoppable Übermensch who can't lose.