Like Charlie Brown trusting that Lucy will let him kick the football, Wall Street once again hopes that Donald Trump has come to his senses.
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Donald Trump did it again! On Monday, he caused US stocks to rally and make up some of the heavy losses they have suffered since Inauguration Day.
How did he do it?
It’s easy. He just used the “10-Step Donald J. Trump Method.” Here is how it works.
Step 1: Be completely erratic and evidently ignorant of how the economy and world trade work.
Step 2: Use grandiose and combative language; threaten China with devastating tariffs.
Step 3: Claim victory.
Step 4: Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until a completely random and ridiculous level of tariffs has been achieved.
Step 5: Claim victory.
Step 4: Watch the US economy collapse while investors suffer heavy losses.
Step 5: Proclaim that everything is going according to plan.
Step 6: Claim victory.
Step 7: Explain to American children why they can’t have a lot of toys anymore.
Step 8: Pretend that China is harmed more by the trade war and is desperate to make a deal.
Step 9: Negotiate with China and reach a deal that leaves the US worse off than it was before Trump started his trade war.
Step 10: Claim victory and explain to American children that you saved Christmas.
And Wall Street falls for it every time.
Instead of seeing the negotiations between the US and China as a sign of Trump’s cluelessness and volatility, traders act as though they really believe that maybe the president gets it this time and we’re done with history’s most pointless trade war.
Well, we have some bad news for them.
Trump has learned no lesson, nor will he ever. He is going to keep trying to bully the entire world until he either succeeds against all odds or he has crippled what was the greatest economy in the world before he took office.
In the process, he is going to make every country on Earth resent the United States and cause incalculable damage that cannot be measured in dollars and cents.
This is already happening.
According to the new Democracy Perception Index, a survey conducted in 100 countries that quizzes more than 110,000 respondents about democracy, the perception of the US is cratering.
In one year, it went from +22 points to -5 points, which now makes the US less popular than China by some margin and viewed almost as negatively as Russia.
Trump himself is disliked in more than 80 percent of the countries participating in the survey, which is the highest value among any of the other world leaders.
As for the US and China, people in nearly four out of five of the countries participating in the survey were more inclined to side with the latter.
Trump did all of that.
As for his “deal” with China, it is just as likely that we will be back at Step 1 next week as it is that the 90-day economic ceasefire deal between the two economic giants will hold.
And, if it does, then Trump will just do some other incredibly foolish thing in the meantime.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
