Why Would U.S. President Trump Risk Market Gains On Hard Line Policy?

A NO-WIN FOREIGN POLICY

It's clear that President Trump's "America First" policy does not produce a "win-win" outcome for it and other world trading partners...at least, it has not been proven, yet.

So far, he's only been successful in tearing up prior agreements related to the Trans Pacific Partnership, the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran JCPOA, and has threatened to tear up the NAFTA with Canada and Mexico.

Although he is in current trade talks with China, he has not been successful in negotiating a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, nor has he been successful in negotiating any other bi-lateral or multi-lateral agreement that I'm aware of, including a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

In fact, he has exacerbated tensions in current NAFTA negotiations by slapping hefty and punitive steel and aluminum tariffs on these two closest trading allies, as well as on the European Union...under the guise of "national security" concerns.

He has also increased tensions with these and other countries by tearing up the above-mentioned agreements without replacing them with new agreements.

Inasmuch as the economy of the U.S. is in far better shape than its counterparts, with improved GDP, lower unemployment, rising wage growth, job growth, low inflation, lowered income taxes, reduced business and banking regulations, a comparatively lower dollar (although it has strengthened a bit this year), and high business and consumer confidence, along with continued growth in its stock markets (likely due to his domestic agenda, much of which he has already implemented), it's inconceivable that Mr. Trump would want to risk all of those gains by taking a hard-line, "winner-takes-all" foreign policy approach by starting trade wars with countries that don't even pose a national security risk and which would create widening and unsustainable imbalances.

Just look at the evidence as reflected in these world markets and currencies.

The following one-year charts and graphs show that U.S. markets have far out-paced Canada, Mexico, the EU, and even China, which is the only country that's been accused of flooding the markets with steel, and whose tech giant, ZTE (HK:0763), may be allowed to continue its business in the U.S. (which has, in fact, been labelled a threat to US national security by Congress).

A clear imbalance already exists.

THE RISKS

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President Trump is going to risk all of these gains, in my opinion, by continuing with this hard-line and one-sided approach with his allies who are currently engaged in cooperative international military actions/assistance/protection of some sort.

I wonder what kind of concessions he will make just to get some kind of a "deal" with North Korea...or whether he will apply the same "winner-takes-all" approach that he has with his allies...or whether Chairman Kim will end up with his usual "winner-takes-all" deal that he and his predecessors have pulled off, to date, against previous Presidents...particularly with the backing of NOKO by China, Russia and Iran.

Finally, I warned, in my post of mid-November 2016, that it would be important for the U.S. to work cooperatively with other world countries to ensure that a delicate balance is achieved among them with respect to fiscal policies, Central Bank policies, interest rate adjustments, inflation, currencies, trade, debt-to-GDP, infrastructure spending, etc., so as not to, potentially, cause a catastrophic imbalance and domino effect on the rest of the world.

This year's rise in volatility, not only in U.S. markets, but other world markets as well, tells me that this imbalance has already begun and is likely to get worse if Mr. Trump continues with his hard-line tactics that could, eventually, lead to international recessions.

Therefore, my 2018 Market Forecast of higher market volatility and political uncertainty remains unchanged. For the time being, the U.S. may be the best place to invest, but for how long and at what capital cost for sufficient risk protection, especially with the midterm Congressional election looming in November?

Written By: Candy Matheson