Photo by Tam Minton on Unsplash
Outrage. Disbelief. Mockery. Pity. These are some of the emotions stirred by the announcement by Donald Trump with the imposition of tariffs on every country in the world except Russia and North Korea.
It is not immediately clear why he has decided to exempt the two most hated dictatorships on the planet from his global list of proscription.
In a script reminiscent of the finest absurdities of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Trump has however not excluded the Heard and Macdonald Islands in Antarctica, which has no human inhabitants but whose pristine environment is home to a colony of penguins and other sea birds. They are now subject to an across the board tariff of 10% for all products. The islands have no history of export. But presumably a pre-emptive invasion by the Marines is imminent to prevent the export of guano to the USA, although domestic production in Washington would appear to have already cornered the market.
The immediate and negative impact of the presidential executive order on the value of the US dollar would suggest to investors that holding US treasury bonds might be riskier than they first expected, and is perhaps not an investment strategy for the faint hearted.
