Court revolt, taco talk and Musk grenades: Trump's trade train derails
The trade ceasefire may not last, but for a moment on Thursday there was hope that Donald Trump's wild trade train may have been derailed by a US court.
A federal court declared Trump didn't have the authority to impose the most extreme of his tariffs on most trading partners, including China.
Make no mistake, team Trump is already working on a strategy to overturn the legal judgement roadblock. But it stands as a serious setback to his ambitions to remake US manufacturing and upend global trade balances.
So for a little while, at least, other governments, markets and businesses around the world can exhale as it seems to be further evidence that Trump's negotiating position is unravelling.
If stock markets are a measure, there was plenty of exuberance – Wall Street's Nasdaq Index futures bolted ahead almost 2 per cent within hours of the court decision.
Markets figure that at the very least, this will throw into disarray the trade negotiations that were the subject of a 90-day pause. The ruling also comes on the heels of several backdowns from the extreme tariff positions that the US president has declared since taking office.
If April 2 was 'Liberation Day', then May 28 could be tentatively marked as 'Cessation Day'.
Trump's detractors, particularly those in financial markets, have come up with a derisory brand for his wild swings away from his initial 'nuclear' positions on tariffs. They've started talking up the 'TACO trade', TACO being an acronym for 'Trump Always Chickens Out'.
The president, who is well known for his pathological need for admiration and adoration, clearly loathes the term, calling a reporter's question about it 'nasty'.
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