#tariffs-and-trade

#tariffs-and-trade

Since taking office, Trump has imposed a range of tariffs on countries, including key trading partners, leading to predictions of inflation skyrocketing, manufacturing screeching to a halt and unemployment soaring. None of those scenarios came true. Inflation, while above the Federal Reserve's target, was a modest 2.7 percent in December. The unemployment rate was relatively low, at 4.4 percent, last month.

Trading is expected to be light ahead of the New Year's Day holiday, when markets will be closed. With just one trading day left before the year ends, most big investors have closed out their positions for the year and trading volume has been very thin. Even after their mini post-Christmas pullback, the indexes are on pace for strong gains for the year.

US real gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 4.3% in the third quarter, exceeding the 3.3% expected and more than the 3.8% growth in the second quarter. "The increase in real GDP in the third quarter reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, and government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in investment," the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.

Bourbon maker Jim Beam is halting production at one of its distilleries in Kentucky for at least a year as the whiskey industry navigates tariffs from the Trump administration and slumping demand for a product that needs years of aging before it is ready. Jim Beam said the decision to pause bourbon making at its Clermont location in 2026 will give the company time to invest in improvements at the distillery.

During Trump's Howdy, Modi speech, he said, "You have never had a better friend as President than President Donald Trump, that I can tell you." There are more than five million people of Indian origin in the U.S., and in three Presidential elections Trump has steadily increased his vote share in that group, from under thirty per cent, in 2016, to nearly forty per cent last year, according to some estimates. (Modi is tremendously popular with the Indian diaspora.)

In some cases, Trump lets other Republicans carry his water and in others he is harming California more than other states with his nationwide moves, including the tariffs he has (possibly illegally) imposed on California's largest trade partners. These things will not likely knock California off its pedestal as the world's No. 4 economy, just ahead of India and just behind Germany.

The global economy has been more resilient than expected in the face of Donald Trump's tariffs, but is set to slow over the next year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned. The Paris-based club of industrialised countries has upgraded its projection for global GDP this year, to 3.2% up from the 2.9% it expected in its last forecast in June.