Trade Fears Are Robbing Stocks of Their Tax-Cut Gains
Trump’s signature economic policies are at war with each other.
Caught in the tariff act.
Photographer: Sasha/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
“Tariff Man” Donald Trump is close to squandering all of the gains of his tax cut, at least as far as the market is concerned.
At the stock market’s low on Thursday, when the S&P 500 Index was down about 3 percent, the president’s trade war had zapped as much as $2.1 trillion in collective market cap from the companies in the index, which are nearly all of the largest corporations in America, according to estimates from Bank of America. That’s about $100 billion more than the amount many have estimated the tax cuts would boost the economy in a decade. It is also nearly the same amount that the tax cuts appear to have boosted the stock market, according to my estimates.1