Trade uncertainty is increasing the risk of a US recession
Without the specifics of the Trump administration’s tariff plan, corporations cannot make long-term adjustments such as the expensive and complex work of reorganising supply chains
THE trade war may have killed the US economic expansion before a single tariff shot was fired.
US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, JPMorgan Chase chief executive officer Jamie Dimon, veteran investor Warren Buffett and other veteran observers of American business and markets are united in this impression. Seldom in their long careers have the rules of the economic universe been so unclear. “Uncertainty” is the watchword at the dawn of the second Trump era.
“Tariffs are less a question of ‘if’, and more ‘when’ and ‘how high?’” said economists at brokerage Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients.
Those are big questions. Consumers and businesses cannot plan major purchases because it is impossible to budget using prices that could change by one-quarter or more overnight.
Sentiment surveys suggest wallets are set to go into paralysis. While factory-order and retail-sales data have held up so far, there are signs that purchasing managers are rushing to get orders in before the price hikes begin to take effect, likely on Apr 2 – the day US President Donald Trump has designated “Liberation Day”.
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