Monday, September 10, 2018

Not Making America Great Again, but Making Everyone Else Poorer

If Donald Trump is to come anywhere near to Making America Great Again it will only be in a very limited sphere and, even then, only in relative terms, as the rest of the world goes to the dogs as a result of American protectionism.
For example, the only major national stock exchanges to show gains over the last year are, you guessed it, American ones, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500, which are showing small but significant annual increases. Pretty much every other major stock exchange, from Canada's TSX to France's CAC, Germany's DAX, Britain's FTSE 100, Japan's Nikkei and China's CSI 300, have shown losses ranging from the small to the substantial, at least in US$ terms (some have managed modest increases in local currencies).
So, Trump's policies are not so much Making America Great Again as Making Everyone Else Poorer by comparison, which I don't think was necessarily his intention, but it comes as no surprise to most economists and most thinking people.

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