I’ll bite. 

First, just because you declare yourself neutral doesn’t mean you are.  We all have a bias and find what we think reasonable.  You may not be a voter here but we all have a bias.

Second, just because the media reports declare that there is no strategy doesn’t mean there isn’t one.  It appears to me that Trump views himself as an outsider, is generally treated by the media as an outsider, and that the media is broadly captured by a narrow slice of oligarchy that caters to their viewpoint.  

It appears to me that Trump revels in pulling the media backwards and forwards.  It appears to me that Trump uses apparent chaos as a calculated tool.  It appears to me that he is long on immediate action, potentially almost revolutionary action to break the bureaucratic status quo.  It appears to me he is much less concerned about the details and outcomes, which is equal parts terrifying (who wants to truly live in anarchy) and empowering (we have surrendered or sold, for various govt subsidies, so many of our freedoms to what I would like to think are mostly well-intentioned bureaucrats who ultimately are transformed into standard bearers for said bureaucracy).

I have lived abroad, and I think most people outside the US have little idea how little the average US resident thinks or cares about international opinion.  Joe US Citizen knows he largely foots the bill for world and especially European ‘peace’, the UN so we can be told we aren’t nice enough, and Joe’s grandpa showed up in WW2 to tell everyone to knock it off for the second time.  Joe US Citizen works a lot of hours and is pretty busy and consumed by the enormous economy around him (or Jane Citizen/her).  Our news and entertainment is exported out, not so much news of what is out is imported in and it gets drowned out in the tsunami waves of domestic events.


So here’s the deal, what I think most Americans understand, even if they can’t put it into these words:  we are huge, we are awesome, and we are consumed with our own issues.  Yeah, we need trade and we are a huge trading partner but the international part of our economy is tiny compared to the domestic piece.  So, anything that hurts us via trade is going to hurt our partners a lot more, because they are more dependent on it.  In the real brass knuckles world of negotiation, that is how it works, and we are tired of being called the bad guy when we are actually the 900lb gorila.  Not nice, not warm and fuzzy, but realistic.  

So … first order effects are negative for markets and trade.  But I think that second and third order effects are positive as some economic realities begin to be recognized that lots of country’s leadership have ignored for a few generations. 80 years ago the cost of ignoring those realities was small and the cost of social upheaval had been recently experienced, but we are a few generations away from that now.  The onus is on all leaders, not just the US leader, to recognize these economic realities.