But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
–William Shakespeare, Hamlet, III.i
In his famous soliloquy, Hamlet ponders whether the Great Unknown is better than the familiar misery of life on earth. Eventually, with the help of a poisoned sword, he finds out.
Tomorrow we will find ourselves in a very similar position.
Donald Trump’s inauguration is a big day. We’re getting rid of a failed president, but we have big questions about the man replacing him. Mr. Trump’s track record is a blank slate and his policy statements are often contradictory and inconsistent. Though highly intelligent, he’s not a deep thinker; he’s instinctual, spontaneous. These may be good qualities for a businessman, but statecraft requires vision, patience and discipline. We have yet to see our President-elect exhibit these qualities.
Trump is pro-business and pro-tax cuts but he’s also pro-chaos, and markets don’t like chaos. Many of Mr. Trump’s policy statements, regardless of their merit, are destabilizing and would be better handled privately or diplomatically, not in the media.
For instance, in a recent pair of confounding interviews with London’s Sunday Times and Germany’s Bild, Trump called NATO obsolete, predicted that “more countries†would leave the EU (he is correct but this is not something an American president should say to the press), and threatened to impose a 35% import tax on BMW’s Mexico-made cars. Perhaps most alarmingly, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump departed from a long tradition of presidents refraining from commenting on the dollar – and if they do from talking it down – by saying the dollar is “too strong.†This resulted in the dollar falling 1.3%, which means it has given up half its post-election gains. Talking down the dollar is not what markets were expecting of the man who wants to make America great again.
