If you enjoy watching narratives disintegrate and re-form like crystals in a supersaturated solution, you’ll have loved the last few days in Washington.
On Saturday, Donald Trump nominated hedge fund titan Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary, and the financial markets sighed in relief that one of their own had been selected rather than, say, tariff warrior Robert Lighthizer, the trade representative in Trump’s first term. This sanguinity was rather upset by Trump’s Monday night surprise of threatening 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada (and a surprisingly modest extra 10 per cent on China) to force a clampdown on immigration and fentanyl smuggling by inauguration day.
Some market-watchers had already combed through the Bessent back catalogue and decided that the important thing is that he’s an economic historian. The idea is now out there that he’s all about surgically reordering the world, geopolitically as well as economically, through whatever economic means possible, including but not limited to tariffs.