Market Madness
A twist on the rule of holes goes something like this: If your opponent is in a hole and digging, why would you take away his shovel? As the Trump tariff plot is digging holes in our stock portfolios, it’s also grievously damaging America’s status as a trusted partner and financial leader around the globe (see the bond market for details). After a series of self-inflicted wounds, an economy that a few months ago was the envy of the world is being turned into a giant meme stock. That’s why, although I’m no expert in international economics, I wonder why we’d expect China (the country most likely to fill the economic leadership vacuum) to cave to Trump when Trump’s tactics are so harmful to the United States. To really establish fair trade with China, we’d need to work with allies. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained: “We can probably reach a deal with our allies. They’ve been good military allies, not perfect economic allies. And then we can approach China as a group.” But at this point, one has to wonder, “What allies?” We’ve deeply offended our closest friends and hit potential negotiating partners with heavy tariffs. Bessent can’t even make a prediction about working with allies without offending them in the same sentence. But all that implies there’s some sense to be made of this strategy, when there isn’t. Basically, the market just wants the craziness to stop. And thus, when Trump announced that there would be a pause on some of the tariffs today, the market surged. I’m as happy as anyone about that. But I worry that the market (like many Americans) is in denial about how dangerous this instability is; when the whims of a guy who just bragged, “I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass” can post on Truth Social and literally move world markets. Not to mention that fact that anyone who knows those posts are coming could make a hell of a lot of money. Money and politics aside, if one were a malignant narcissist, being able to control the fate of the entire world economy would definitely get one off.
+ After tanking the market for a week and backing off today, here’s how Scott Bessent described his boss’s behavior. “It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment … This was his strategy all along … No one creates leverage for himself like President Trump.” That sounds like a treasury secretary the world can really trust, eh? (BTW, a president is supposed to create leverage for America, not himself.) Here’s the latest from CNN and CNBC. Full disclosure: Everything could have wildly changed between the time I sent this and the time you got it. After all, it did while I was writing it.
Red, White, and Gulag
“Of all the lawless acts by the Trump administration in its first two and a half months, none are more frightening than its dumping of human beings who have not had their day in court into an infamous maximum-security prison in El Salvador — and then contending that no federal court has the authority to right these brazen wrongs.” Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurence H. Tribe in the NYT (Gift Article): We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid. “There would be nothing to stop the government from jailing its critics in another country and then claiming, as it is now, that the courts have no jurisdiction to remedy the situation. Armed with this power, the government would know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the F.B.I. or any federal law enforcement agency could apprehend anyone, ignore the requirements for due process and ship them to El Salvador or any country that would take them. These individuals would have no legal recourse whatsoever from any American court. The administration could create its own gulags with no more judicial review than existed when Stalin did the same thing in the Soviet Union.”
+ About 90% of Migrants Deported to El Salvador Had No US Criminal Record.
+ “The detention of Mr. Orellana and other green card holders is the latest sign that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration is expanding far beyond people who are in the country illegally.” ‘Where’s Alex?’ A Beloved Caregiver Is Swept Up in Trump’s Green Card Crackdown.
+ IRS chief to quit over immigrants’ tax data sharing with ICE. (She’d only been on the job since Feb.)
+ Meanwhile, ICE Chief Suggests Copying Amazon Prime for Trump’s Mass Deportations.
Well Endowed?
“The Trump administration is freezing $790 million in federal funding to Northwestern University and more than $1 billion in funding to Cornell University, a White House official told CNN.” Trump administration freezes $1 billion in funding for Cornell University, $790 million for Northwestern University.
+ Vox: Why aren’t universities using their billion-dollar endowments to fight Trump? “The handful of institutions at the top of the higher education pyramid have to decide, sooner rather than later, whether to use the fortunes they inherited to stand up on behalf of millions of students, faculty, and workers nationwide, and defend the values of intellectual freedom that have produced the greatest higher education system in the world. It may be risky, and expensive, and not what anyone signed up for. But those are the circumstances that require courage most of all.”
Home Confinement
“The firefighter scooped up the figure slumped on the kitchen floor and dashed for the ambulance waiting on Blake Street. As he moved through the smoky haze, he was struck by a thought that is still with him: It was like nothing was in his arms.” A really haunting story from the NYT (Gift Article): He Was Held Captive in His Room for Decades. Then He Set It on Fire.
Extra, Extra
Hit the Lights: Good news for anyone who planned to spend the afternoon lamenting the corrupt states of leadership in America and Israel: Tom Friedman already did it for you. NYT (Gift Article): Trump and Netanyahu Steer Toward an Ugly World, Together. “Each is steering his nation away from its once universal aspiration to be a ‘light unto the nations’ toward a narrow, brutish might-equals-right ethnonationalism that is ready to mainstream ethnic cleansing. Each treats his political opposition not as legitimate but as enemies within, and each has filled his cabinet with incompetent hacks, deliberately chosen for loyalty to him instead of the laws of their lands.”
+ There’s an AP for That: “A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump White House to let Associated Press journalists return to the Oval Office and other spaces immediately to cover news events.” (This means the AP can go back to seeing Trump lie in person.)
+ Woken Token: Trump administration fires senior Navy female officer at NATO. She appeared on a ‘woke’ list. (This is just one example of many, many, many cases where qualified military and national security people are being canned.)
+ Excising Tax: “We know that DOGE is in the process of gutting the IRS. According to internal IRS estimates reviewed by The Washington Post, this internal sabotage is already estimated to have cost the U.S. Treasury more than $500 billion in revenues that otherwise would have been raised by April 15th. But it doesn’t stop at the IRS. DOGE is also in the process of essentially closing down the Tax Division at the Department of Justice.”
+ Mars Bar: Think Tesla’s sales will hurt Elon Musk? That will seem like a rounding error compared to the SpaceX upside of having his people in the administration. NYT (Gift Article): Mars Is the Priority, Trump’s Pick to Lead NASA Will Say. “As someone who has led two private astronaut flights to orbit, he would, if confirmed, bring to NASA and its $25 billion budget a perspective more in line with newer entrepreneurial aerospace companies like SpaceX.”
+ Twinning Streak: “Kristen Baker was the maid of honor at her identical twin sister’s wedding. Seconds after the ceremony ended, she stepped out of her bridesmaid dress and into her own wedding gown.” Identical twin brothers just wed identical twin sisters in double nuptials. (I didn’t read this article. I’m waiting for the Netflix reality series.)
+ The Tooth Gary: “In the early 1990s, they got a call. “My dad said he was too busy and handed the phone to me.” The caller was a dentist who had the great makeup artist Greg Cannom in his chair. Cannom asked how he might get a set of teeth that would fall out during a restaurant scene in a forthcoming comedy he was working on called Mrs Doubtfire.” He made the ‘manky British’ set for Austin Powers, droppable ones for Mrs Doubtfire – and fangs for Tom Cruise. Gary Archer on crafting amazing gnashers for stars.
Bottom of the News
“Forget top MLB Draft prospects or big name Division I schools: The college baseball game on every fan’s mind on Tuesday was taking place on a small field — one without lights — five miles from the George Washington Bridge. Usually the home of Fairleigh Dickinson University, on this day it played host to a doubleheader between two teams whose combined losing streaks had reached 141 games entering the action.” And it turned out to be a win-win. The teams split a doubleheader.
