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Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome in Gerald Celente, publisher of the renowned Trends Journal. Mr. Celente is perhaps most well-known Trends forecaster in the world, and it’s always great to have him on with us.
Gerald, thanks for the time again today, and welcome back.
Gerald Celente: Oh, thanks for having me on, Mike.
Mike Gleason: Well Gerald, one of the hot topics in the markets today is the escalating trade tensions. Trump just announced another $200 billion in tariffs on China and he looks ready to more than double that if the Chinese should retaliate. The President is confident the U.S. can win a trade war. Do you share that optimism? How do you see this playing out?
Gerald Celente: I absolutely share that. Because I mean, here’s the deal. If your or I were to do business and I’m making $350 billion more than you are, are you going to want to renegotiate this? Hey, listen, something’s wrong over here. So, when you look at even with the tariffs that Trump is putting on, that still amounts to a very small percentage of China’s GDP, about 0.3%, or something like that, 5%, 6% tops. So China’s going to negotiate. They’re not going to give up a very lucrative business deal, so they could keep making more when the other business partner wants a better share.
Mike Gleason: And how do you see the escalating tariffs impacting markets? So far the response appears mixed. The dollar seems to be benefiting, and metals are suffering. We aren’t sure the markets have it right when it comes to the dollar though. It seems to us that tariffs should drive price inflation. Either Americans pay a higher price for the imported goods, or replace them with more expensive domestic products. And the Chinese aren’t likely to be buying as many dollars or treasuries if exports to the U.S. fall – to say nothing of their ability to wage and all-out currency war against the dollar. But so far, at least the dollar is getting stronger in foreign exchange markets. What are we missing?
Gerald Celente: Well, I think what people are missing is they’re making too much of a deal of the trade war. It’s every day. It’s almost become stupidity with the business media. Every day they’re going, “the market goes up because trade wars eased. The market’s down because trade fear is increased.” I mean, come on. What are they kidding? I mean, the world is bigger than that. Even what you saw car sales start slumping in China, the headlines blamed the trade wars. Does the average person give a damn about a trade war? They’re buying what they’re buying, they got what they got. If they don’t have it, they don’t spend it. If they have it, they spend it. They don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes and the details of a trade war. The media has dumbed down so much… it’s every day. It’s one excuse. And as far as the dollar going up, it’s interest rates.
I mean, the United States is raising interest rates. You’re looking at what, even with the United States raising interest rates, what are you looking at the overnight, the Fed funds rate? 1.75 to two? And what is it 1.5 in Canada and the U.K. Negative interest rates in Europe and the European Union. Negative in Denmark. Negative in Sweden. Negative in Japan. I mean, it’s ridiculous. So what I’m saying, Mike is that the markets cannot take a rate increase. That’s why the currencies are going down. And matter of fact, we just heard from the number two guy in China, Lee, saying that to think that the Chinese, he said, want to devalue our currency is ridiculous. He said we’re not going to make up that much more trade on having our currency decline. Because by the same token, you look at China, what are they the largest importer of energy in the world? And now the Yuan is going down, and oil prices are going up. Oh, and what are oil prices based on? Petrodollars. So now as their currency declines, they got to input more energy. And it’s based in dollars, as the dollar gets stronger, they don’t want this to happen.
