Nemesis

FIRST PERSON

- ALEX MAGNO

Donald Trump has met his nemesis — and it is not another country. It is the market: that faceless tangle of independent decision-makers constantly making decisions every minute.

When Trump began insulting and threatening to fire Fed chair Jerome Powell a few days ago, the market reacted strongly. The US dollar plunged. The yields on US Treasuries spiked. The New York stock market took yet another deep dive. The major financial institutions forecast an impending recession. Global confidence in the immediate future of the US economy cratered.

The Fed chair is well regarded by the market. If he is taken out, the US economy would be unhinged. Monetary decisions will be politicized. The US, the most heavily indebted economy, could default. The bottom will be pulled from under all the charts.

In two days, Trump folded. He claimed he never had any intention of firing the Fed chair. That is a lie. Until the markets severely penalized him for his idiocy, he imagined he could control monetary policy himself along with the cabal of knuckleheads he keeps around him.

After his own Treasury Secretary publicly remarked that high tariff rates between the US and China would be unsustainable, effectively embargoing trade between the world's two largest economies, Trump seemed like he was sounding the bugle for retreat on his makeshift trade policy against China.

In remarks before reporters early this week, Trump said his 145 percent tariff against all Chinese goods "is very high and it won't be that high...It'll come down substantially. But it won't be zero."