Latest news with #UnitedStatesMexico-CanadaAgreement
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Sick Psychology Behind Trump's Tariff Chaos
President Donald Trump brought the stock market to the edge of a bear market (i.e., a sustained 20 percent drop) by imposing ridiculously high tariffs indiscriminately around the globe. That was so much fun that on Friday he shared a video on Truth Social titled 'Trump is PURPOSELY Crashing the Market.' Then, on Wednesday, Trump put those tariffs on hold for 90 days for those countries willing to negotiate over trade barriers real or imagined (though Trump's 10 percent 'everybody tariff' will remain, and China will be punished for its defiance by raising its tariff to 125 percent). After Trump announced the tariff suspension on Truth Social, the S&P 500 recorded its third-biggest gain since World War II. Trump must have felt like Moses parting the Red Sea. We can all be grateful that Trump was willing to undo, at least temporarily, the worst of the damage he inflicted. But it would be wrong to conclude, as Wall Street likely will, that there's a 'Trump put' after all. The 'Trump put' is a fancy way of saying that whenever Trump does something that inadvertently sends stock prices down he can be counted on to reverse course and push them back up. (A put is an options contract that limits losses in a down market to a fixed amount.) The longstanding presumption of a Trump put is why 52 billionaires, including Timothy Mellon, Steve Wynn, and the Winklevoss twins, backed Trump in 2024. These plutocrats, or others like them, exerted as much pressure as they could on the Trump administration to reverse course. Some, including Bill Ackman, Kenneth Griffin, and Stanley Druckenmiller, did so publicly. But they'd be foolish to conclude that Trump learned his lesson. Momentary appearances to the contrary, their commander-in-chief is governed not by realpolitik but by pathology. I'm bracing myself for sycophantic Fox News analysis of Trump's masterstroke in bringing more than 75 countries rapidly to the bargaining table. (Ackman, who proposed the 90-day suspension before Trump imposed it, posted late Wednesday on X: 'This was brilliantly executed… Textbook, Art of the deal.') But we've seen this pattern in trade policy before. Trump makes some grandiose threat; the targeted country makes some trivial, often substance-free concession; then Trump, who may or may not recognize the concession's triviality, proclaims victory. In Trump's second term, the foreign leader most skillful at playing this faux appeasement game is Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. But Sheinbaum has learned the hard way that you only ever achieve a temporary reprieve. Thus Sheinbaum, after easing Trump off in February from a threatened 25 percent tariff by pledging to send 10,000 troops to the border to fight drug traffickers, then had to wheedle a second tariff delay in March, and then a third in April. On the last go-round, Trump imposed the 25 percent tariff but exempted, at long last, various goods, including some automobiles, covered by the United States Mexico-Canada Agreement—an exemption not included in the previous two go-rounds even though that treaty was negotiated by Trump himself. Sheinbaum is now trying to secure additional exemptions for those Mexican automobiles not covered by USMCA. The dance never stops. What Trump demonstrates here is not a strategy but a mental illness. I'm not the first to observe the striking resemblance between Trump's governing style, particularly on tariffs, and Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another, more commonly known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It involves either pretending that a child is sick or inducing sickness so that you can luxuriate in restoring the child to health. (A wife who delights in sickening her husband with poisonous mushrooms, and then nursing him back to health, is an FDIA plot element in the 2017 film Phantom Thread.) According to the Cleveland Clinic, a common cause of FDIA is 'wanting attention from others,' which of course fits Trump's malignant narcissism like a glove. A shaky understanding of cause and effect, which the child psychologist Sidney Piaget identified as transductive reasoning, would also seem consistent, and I've written previously that Trump has got that even though most people grow out of it at age 7. The only difficulty with diagnosing Trump with FDIA (apart from my not being, ahem, a psychologist) is that typically it's motivated by love—or some deranged conception of love—and no malignant narcissist can ever love anyone but himself. In Trump's case gratification comes from experiencing not a feeling of closeness in another person's dependency but rather a feeling of schadenfreude in another person's humiliation and surrender. Being Trump, our president said this out loud earlier this week at the Republican Congressional Committee Dinner. 'I'm telling you, these countries are calling us up kissing my ass,' he said. 'They are. They are dying to make a deal.' The day before Trump let up on tariffs he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump's foreign policy regarding Israel can be summed up as 'Whatever Bibi wants, Bibi gets.' But not on tariffs. Netanyahu told Trump that in response to the 17 percent tariff Trump slapped on Israel he would eliminate 'very quickly' all tariffs and trade deficits. But asked later whether he would lift the tariff against Israel, Trump replied: 'Maybe not, maybe not.' This isn't diplomacy. It's pleasure in witnessing others grovel. Trump is master, not of the deal, but of the welsh. We know how this is likely to play out. He'll let up for a bit and then he'll impose crazy sky-high tariffs again. He'll do it in large part because, as I've explained before, he doesn't care about negotiating better trade deals; he just wants tariff revenue to replace as much of the progressive income tax as he can. But Trump will do it also because he loves to see the stock market go down when he says 'Go down!' and up when he says 'Go up!' And because he loves it when American oligarchs and foreign leaders beg, 'Please stop!' Caregivers with FDIA don't poison their children once and then restore them to health. They do it over and over, because the cycle from sickness to health brings them pleasure. Trump is like that. Other nations understand this. So don't expect the global economy to recover all that much from the Liberation Day massacre. Word is out that at least for the next four years, the United States can't be trusted on economic policy—or much of anything else. Whenever the patient looks too well Trump will reach for the poisonous mushrooms he stocks on a high shelf in the pantry.
Associated Press
24-03-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Valmont Provides Update On Tariff-Related Impacts
Valmont ® Industries, Inc. (NYSE: VMI), a global leader that provides products and solutions to support vital infrastructure and advance agricultural productivity, is providing the investment community additional clarity on estimated impacts from current U.S. tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, as well as on imported steel and aluminum. As discussed on the fourth quarter 2024 earnings results call on February 18, 2025, the Company has comprehensive plans to mitigate the impact of tariffs in 2025. These include pricing actions, targeted cost measures, productivity initiatives, and supply chain and logistics adjustments. The Company believes these plans will enable it to be cost neutral on a dollar basis in the second half of fiscal 2025 under both the current tariff regime, and under a scenario where there are no United States Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) exclusions granted for goods the Company imports from Mexico and Canada. Importantly, the majority of products shipped to U.S. customers are manufactured at one of 24 facilities across the United States. These plans exclude the potential impacts from any retaliatory tariffs or future additional U.S. tariffs. The Company also undertakes no obligation to update the information in this press release regarding the impacts of tariffs. About Valmont Industries, Inc. For nearly 80 years, Valmont has been a global leader that provides products and solutions to support vital infrastructure and advance agricultural productivity. We are committed to customer-focused innovation that delivers lasting value. Learn more about how we're Conserving Resources. Improving Life. ® at Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on assumptions made by management, considering its experience in the industries where Valmont operates, perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments, and other relevant factors. It is important to note that these statements are not guarantees of future performance or results. They involve risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond Valmont's control), and assumptions. While management believes these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, numerous factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These factors include, among other things, risks described in Valmont's reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC'), the Company's actual cash flows and net income, future economic and market circumstances, industry conditions, company performance and financial results, operational efficiencies, availability and price of raw materials, availability and market acceptance of new products, product pricing, domestic and international competitive environments, geopolitical risks, and actions and policy changes by domestic and foreign governments. The Company cautions that any forward-looking statements in this release are made as of its publication date and does not undertake to update these statements, except as required by law. SOURCE: Valmont Industries, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 03/24/2025 09:37 AM/DISC: 03/24/2025 09:37 AM
