With reports of widespread business uncertainty and confusion leading to an unanticipated 10-year record plunge in January dealmaking, air is rushing out of business’ balloon of early euphoria for the Trump agenda. President Trump’s language of schoolyard bullying and vindictiveness toward our closest allies undermines those moves where his lieutenants at the Treasury and Commerce Departments may see a strategic logic.
However, in some cases, America’s closest allies are used as obvious but quiet pass-through shills for rivals and adversaries, such as China and Russa, to offload products at market-distorting prices, as is not uncommon with steel and aluminum. Such actions are taken solely to enrich foreign oligarchs and corrupt middlemen smugglers while hurting American industry.
