Beware of Trump's "trading tricks"
Sunny Worldwide LogisticsIt is a logistics company with more than 20 years of transportation experience, focusing on markets such as Europe, America, Canada, Australia, Southeast Asia, etc., and is more than the owner of the cargo owner.
Trump, who claims to be a "trading master", has recently been full of "pollution". Through "extravagation" and "suspended", he was originally preparing to hit the world under the guise of "equality" and "negotiation", but he was defeated by a "chaos" and "negotiation", which not only attracted opposition and countermeasures from trading partners, but also widely questioned in the United States.
On April 21, as Trump once again put forward direct pressure on Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, calling him a "Mr. Too Late" and a "major loser"... The trading momentum of "selling the United States" has increased, and US dollar assets have been sold at an accelerated pace, and shipping stocks are among them.
Analysts say investors are responding to another "stupid move" from Trump. In fact, when Trump announced the so-called "reciprocal tariffs", there were reports that Trump was putting pressure on Powell.
It is worth noting that the United States has continued to negotiate tariffs with all parties recently. Overall, although Trump's negotiation strategy is not "smart" or "reliance on universality" and is frequently "slapped" by reality, his "shameless" spirit, "being in person", negotiators' lack of unified demands, expressing their own opinions, and frequently switching issues are worthy of vigilance.
In fact, the negotiations held by the United States and Japan in Washington are very typical. It is reported that on the one hand, the people involved in the US negotiations expressed their opinions during the talks and frequently switched topics, showing that this negotiation was not a clear "tariff issue" orientation, but a pressure orientation that used tariffs as a "weapon".
On the other hand, "Trump suddenly announced his participation" and "the negotiation location was transferred from the US Treasury Department to the White House" also added a "comedy" effect to the negotiations.
Public opinion generally believes that the first round of negotiations between the United States and Japan on tariff issues has not made substantial progress. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba even made his toughest statement since Trump's tariff war broke out on the 21st. He stressed that "Japan does not intend to bear more burdens according to the US's requirements."
However, after the talks, Trump immediately posted a message through a social platform saying that "significant progress has been made", showing his eagerness to obtain the so-called "negotiation template" and the "trick" to manipulate the pace of negotiations.
Meanwhile, Mexican President Sinbaum said that he discussed steel, aluminum and automobile tariffs with Trump in Mandarin, and both believed that the call was "very fruitful". However, the two sides did not reach a final agreement during the call, nor even reached any consensus.
On April 21, the official website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued an announcement stating that the negotiations between the United States and India are making substantial progress.
In fact, according to a USTR press release, the United States is just a formal framework of reference for negotiations, setting a roadmap for the subsequent discussions on common economic priorities.
What is particularly interesting is that according to local Indian media reports, India is currently considering importing high-value items such as gold, silver, platinum and gems from the United States to solve Washington's concerns about a huge trade deficit with India. This is really in line with what Trump said recently that the golden rule of successful negotiations is "those who master gold make rules".
In short, although analysts and global public opinion generally believe that Trump’s tariff blackmail cannot “make America great again.” But another example worthy of caution is that the "port fee" policy announced by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on April 17 clearly shows that USTR is "concentrating firepower" targeting "Chinese ship owners and operators" and "China-built" ships that transport imported goods to the United States.
Clarkson Research Analysis said, "Based on international navigation ships, 7,853 of the total number of ships attached to U.S. ports in 2024 may be affected by new restrictions. Compared with the original proposal that affected 43%, the new restrictions only affect 9% of all international navigation ships attached to U.S. ports."
"By subdivided by sub-ship ship types, the proportion of ships affected by restricted measures at U.S. ports is: 7% of container ships (a total of 1,201 affiliation in U.S. ports, far lower than 83% of the original proposal), 7% of LPG transport ships, 9% of bulk carriers, 6% of crude oil tankers and 3% of finished tankers."
"The new restrictions charge some Chinese ship owners and operators more than previous estimates," Clarkson Research said.
“There will be no cap on the fees levied for physical operations/owners of China (currently usually based on the net tonnes of ships) and the original proposal is proposed to be levied at .5 million per category. The fees levied for some large ships may be as high as millions, such as the fees that may be levied by 2028 for 14,000 TEU container ships.”
Meanwhile, Stifel analyst Benjamin Nolan said, “While the impact of port fees on U.S. exports are difficult to assess, we do think it is a potential negative impact on automobile and container imports.”
Benjamin Nola noted that “for U.S. container imports, goods imported from China are already facing high import tariffs and are rising.”
"These increased costs may have to be passed on to consumers, limiting consumer demand in the short term. U.S. container imports appear to be already declining, and this may continue."
He said humorously, "So, remember to fill up the gas, because it may last longer than originally planned."
