Hard to find any other similar case in history where one person disrupted the global economy, in peace time, as the present.
Tarrifs, the most beautiful word in Trump's dictionary, created havoc to markets worldwide. Having slapped them to all and sundry, including an island populated only by penguins, Trump paused retaliatory tarrifs for 90 days except to his erstwhile rival, China. As we stand today, 10% base tarrif has come into effect for all imports save from the Chinese where the rate after a few rounds has been beefed to 124%. The Chinese from their side countered with 85% import tarrifs, upped to 125% at time of this writing, on U.S goods stating and demonstrating that they are willing to stand their ground as they consider being unfairly targeted. This is tantamount to a reciprocal boycott, and as noted by Howard Marks of Oaktee in memo to his clients "higher reciprocal tariffs are unlikely to accomplish anything positive on balance and will probably make life worse for both parties".
Shipping has understandably been rattled by the unfolding trade war with numerous ships on their way to deliver cargoes to the USA and China looking for alternative markets as the prospect of hefty tarrifs is hard to apportion in the sale transactions. Not easy, but efforts are made by the participants to mitigate this huge burden. For bulkers, notable is the strong pivot by the Chinese away from the US and instead to Brazil and Argentina for their grain imports. Bloomberg reported that Chinese soybean crushers bought at least 40 cargoes of Brazilian beans this week, equivalent to at least 2.4 million tons, for delivery in May, June, and July. This would boost tonne-mile demand for bulkers serving the long ECSAM to China haul substituting for shorter voyages originating from the USA coasts. If this chapter plays out as it did back in 2018-19 when similar, albeit of much less magnitude, tarrifs were in place then we could see a new trade of grains moving from the USA to ECSAM as a replenisher for the over extension of Latin exports to China. A positive for bulkers, other things being equal. Numerous other bulk trades are being re-adjusted most of which are likely to be net positive for the bulk trades, at least on the short run.
Trump's behavior has been hard to fathom and hard to find any other similar case in history where one person disrupted the global economy, in peace time, as the present. His style of antagonizing in the hope of influencing at the same time is not that effective and certainly destroys good will on which international relations and trade flourish. Amidst the escalated tensions with China, Trump has said a deal will be made and one would hope this happens sooner than later for the benefit of both and lest collateral damage to the global economy be spared.
Data source: Doric