A BITTER PILL

Will Donald Trump's “but sometimes you need to take the medicine” statement prove a bitter pill for a world that is already on a slowdown mode?

- Madhumita Chakraborty

BEFORE the 7 april opening bell on Dalal Street or anywhere in the world, a journalist cornered United States President Donald Trump at the doorway of an aircraft to seek his comment on the stock market bloodbath since his 2 April Press conference. The abominably high tariff rates Trump announced on trading partners at that event had sent bourses around the world into a tailspin.

The President of the United States of America, which still controls more than ten per cent of the world trade after China and Europe, mused that sometimes “you have to take the medicine.” The medicine, or higher tariffs on imports into the US, presumably to rectify its trade deficit and incentivise companies to manufacture within that country rather than export to it, saw stock prices tumble all across the globe.