When Donald Trump launched a trade war on April 2, he produced enormous volatility in stock markets around the world, but since then upheaval in the bond market has forced him to row back on some of his tariffs.
Investors traditionally consider US Treasury bonds to be a safe asset with a guaranteed return and therefore preferable to stocks when the latter are falling in price. However, instead of buying these bonds investors have been selling them, and this produced a rapid fall in their price.
While stock prices have recovered somewhat in Europe and Asia they have continued to fall in the US. But what do US consumers make of all this? Has the shifting of the bond market and economic uncertainty affected voter confidence, and approval, in the US president?
