Markets Love TACO
In May, a temporary pause in US-China and US-European tariff escalations, along with a federal court ruling against many Trump tariffs, saw share markets rebound solidly. During the month, Robert Armstrong, a Financial Times journalist wrote an opinion piece on Trump’s tariff policies titled “Unhedged”. He discussed President Trump’s tariff policy and the effects on the US markets. We highlighted last month that this shemozzle of tariff policy was likely to continue to cause market volatility for quite some time to come. Armstrong said that markets were realising that “the US administration does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure (rightly so) and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain”. Armstrong called it “the Taco theory – Trump Always Chickens Out”.