, Columnist
Oil Non-Shock, China Bulls, and Trump’s Obnoxious Tariffs
He says the idea is to use high trade barriers as leverage to get companies to build plants in the US.
Trump tells Bloomberg what he really means.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images
This article is for subscribers only.
To get John Authers' newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, sign up here.
The rule of thumb when gauging geopolitical risk tends to be brutally simple: Will it affect the supply of oil? If the answer is “yes,” as in the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War or Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, then it matters greatly to world markets. If the answer is “no,” it can be safely ignored. And the last 48 hours have borne out the maxim beautifully.