Author Archives: jfrankel

Trump threatens tariffs against a BRICs chimera

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December 20, 2024 — In 2023, the leaders of Brazil and other BRICS countries – Russia, India, China, and South Africa – began to discuss the creation of a new common currency.   At a BRICS summit meeting two months ago, they continued to talk up the currency proposal.  New members as of this year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates would presumably also be included.

The idea is to encourage a shift in the global monetary system away from dominance of the dollar, which has held sway the last 75 years.  This has provoked President-elect Donald Trump.  On November 30, 2024, he reiterated a warning to the BRICS that he required “a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar, or they will face 100% Tariffs.” read more

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Can Musk find $2 trillion in spending cuts for Trump?

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Nov. 24, 2024 –When the US election was called for Donald Trump the night of November 5, the stock market rose but the bond market fell.  The yield on 10-year US government bonds increased from 4.3 % to 4.4%, where it remained 10 days later.  The long-term rate had been below 4.0 % in September.  The combination – stock market up but bond market down – strongly suggests that the news of Trump’s victory was seen as implying higher government budget deficit and debt numbers in the future. read more

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Trump’s policies will predictably work to raise inflation

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November 11, 2024 – The two areas where Donald Trump worries me the most are US foreign policy and long-run damage to norms of truth, democracy, and respect for the rule of law.  But these areas are not top priorities for much of the American public.  Rather, voters are consistently reported to be most concerned with the economy.  They asked, “Are we better off than we were four years ago” and answered “no.”  This is itself remarkable, since four years ago would be November 2020, when covid deaths were running 10,000 per week and unemployment was 6.7 %, versus 4.1 % today. read more

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