He writes small messages and sets the whole world in motion, says Robert Bergqvist to TT about Trump's threats of 10-percent extra tariffs on goods from China and 25 percent on everything from Canada and Mexico.
If he goes from words to action, he takes the world deeper into a trade war, with protectionism, he says.
He is turning up the trade policy threat picture even further, says Bergqvist, describing it as the incoming president currently holding the world on a trade policy leash.
Bergqvist emphasizes that he and other assessors around the world are trying to understand how much substance there is behind the threats. And Trump, he believes, loves the situation where everyone has to try to follow and understand what his statements can mean.
This feels like the new everyday, roughly like it was during his first term.
Robert Bergqvist believes that the only rating Trump listens to is how the stock market is doing in the USA.
He also notes that Trump contributes to extra uncertainty by his tariff statements going against a only four-year-old free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.
It seems Trump is ready to break.
