And the hits just keep comin’.
On Monday, markets managed to shake off the trade war threat and incessant balderdash from Donald Trump, who continued to broadside U.S. trade partners, accusing Canada of mistreating American farmers, Mexico of not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs into the country, and Europe for “sending cars in here like water.”
But he got some pushback from Paul Ryan and everyone is still holding out hope that someone will talk some sense into him before he passes the point of no return.
In the meantime, the E.U. has prepared to hit Trump and Republicans where it hurts. “Targeting 2.8 billion euros ($3.5 billion) of American goods, the EU aims to apply a 25 percent tit-for-tat levy on a range of consumer, agricultural and steel products imported from the U.S. if Trump follows through on his tariff threat, according to a list drawn up by the European Commission,” Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, adding that “the list of targeted U.S. goods — including motorcycles, jeans and bourbon whiskey — sends a political message to Washington about the potential domestic economic costs of making good on the president’s threat.”
Well speaking of costs of “making good” on absurd bombast, Goldman is out with a sweeping critique of Trump’s tariffs that quantifies what those “costs” might look like.
Late last week and into the weekend analysts and economists ripped into the tariffs and we did our best to document the bulk of that commentary for you here (you can find some of the color here, for instance). Goldman’s take is one of the more comprehensive assessments yet.
“By choosing across the board tariffs that are even more draconian than those recommended by Secretary Ross, the President has likely created a two-tier metal market, US versus the rest of the world, and politically created friction with key US allies,” the bank’s Jeff Currie and Damien Courvalin write, on the way to laying out 10 points on the issue.
