The following comments regarding Trump's tariffs were excerpted from an AP article published on Oct. 27, 2020.
Although the situation is different this time, historical information is useful in providing some context.
Please limit comments to how tariffs may impact the economy or investing.
This thread is not intended for political diatribes - please use Off Topic for that.
"Trump set his sights on shrinking America’s vast trade deficits, portraying them as evidence
of economic weakness, misbegotten deals and abusive practices committed by other countries.
He pledged to boost exports and to curb imports by imposing tariffs — import taxes — on many foreign goods."
"America’s deficit in goods and services now exceeds what it was under President Barack Obama.
Steel and aluminum makers have cut jobs despite Trump’s protectionist policies on their behalf.
His deals made scarcely a ripple in a $20 trillion economy.
For most Americans, Trump’s drastic trade policy ultimately meant little, good or bad, for their financial health."
"Yet the belligerent approach has made scant difference in the number he cares about most:
The overall trade deficit in goods and services.
It barely dipped last year — by 0.5% to $577 billion, still higher than in any year of the Obama administration.
This year, the gap has widened nearly 6%, with the coronavirus pandemic having crushed tourism, education
and other service 'exports.'”
"Contrary to his assertions, too, Trump’s tariffs have been paid by American importers, not foreign countries.
And their cost is typically passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Princeton and Columbia universities
have estimated that the president’s tariffs cost $831 per U.S. household annually."
“His administration’s approach has delivered few tangible benefits to the U.S. economy while undercutting
the multilateral trading system, disrupting long-standing alliances with U.S. trading partners
and fomenting uncertainty, said Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist who formerly
led the International Monetary Fund’s China division."
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-virus-outbreak-global-trade-trade-policy-mexico-39aadae9a6d18de2b91889f1e552b605

Gal Pal put in for an increase on Fed withholding & received notification today from SS on her amount of change. It took about 1 month.

Roger all that.
From March 1, 2025:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/01/doge-actions-may-cause-social-security-benefit-interruption-ex-agency-head.html
Excerpt (BOLD added):
...
“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”
...
For people who are already receiving Social Security benefits, most of that is automated and may not be affected, she said. However, processing new claims — whether it be for retirement or disability benefits — may take longer since those cannot be processed without Social Security employees, Hornick said.
IF they are affected, pretty sure There Will Be Blood.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
EDIT: An apparent afternoon (IMO) dead cat bounce, if it holds, will play nicely into the plans of anyone who is today running from this scary looking freight train.

At Stillers. Portfolio on safety but social security is not. The question is I ponder is when social security is disappeared do I become more or less aggressive to replace what covered 110% of our regular expenses? I am not investing for the next generation but likely for LTC …..

FWIW, all SELLs (per above posts) have been entered today.
Reduced stock exposure by ~50%.
Parking proceeds in VMRXX, FZDXX and will likely BUY a coupla new rungs on 5-yr CDs ladder that virtually guarantees a net positive TR in 2025.
Kudos to @larryB for this thread.
(Sadly) Timely and actionable.
EDIT: NOT saying this strategy is correct for anyone other than me and the missus.
BUT, our #1 goal this year, after two monster stock gain years under a REAL president, was to NOT allow the buffoon's asinine fiscal policies (read, orange brain farts) to cause us to be anything but net positive for the year on 12/31/25. And that goal has virtually been guaranteed with these moves today. Plus, we will sleep MUCH better thru year-end!

MSF. The 51st state will be massively BLUE! Why would he who can’t be named want to add the bluest state unless elections were a thing of the past? Unless he hasn’t thought it out.

You think he THINKS of anything beyond his current conversation or tweet? He just ... does things, like a toddler with genetic impulse-control problems.

MSF. The 51st state will be massively BLUE! Why would he who can’t be named want to add the bluest state unless elections were a thing of the past? Unless he hasn’t thought it out.

IMHO the biggest problem is the uncertainty. What are the tariffs today? Wednesday? Next Tuesday? And because businesses cannot make long term capital allocation plans, this virtually guarantees that GDP will be below potential GDP. That's an argument against investing in stocks generally.
But some companies can benefit. The tariffs (whether actually imposed or not) have united Canadians in their opposition to buying US products (regardless of whether their governments officially boycott or tariff US goods). This bodes well for Canadian companies that sell domestically (i.e. to Canadians).
https://ca.style.yahoo.com/trumps-unjustified-25-tariffs-have-begun-heres-how-to-buy-canadian-during-a-trade-war-list-of-canadian-brands-to-shop-144356266.html
And as an added bonus - once Canada is incorporated into the US, the large US market will again be open to all those Canadian companies without foreign tariffs. Just a thought for those with a longer investment horizon :-)

Liberation Day? Now is that the day when the buffoon proclaims he will be able to grab women's genitals on LIVE national TV without repurcussion?
Oh no, wait...
Great post by @rforno.
What to do? We are breaking a cardinal rule of our investment strategy, SELLING stocks, especially tech and small caps, to take our stock allocation BELOW the minimum % we believe one MUST keep in ANY LT investment strategy.
That's how FEARFUL the buffoon's fiscal policies are.
That's how much worse we think it will get before it gets ANY better.
EDIT
Disclaimer: All SELLs will be in IRAs and all positions being SOLD are UP 35%-95%
====================================
From The Barron's Daily

Trump Tariffs Are a Nightmare for Stock Markets. Next Quarter Could Be More Terrifying and 5 Other Things to Know Today.
At the end of the first quarter, the S&P 500 is reeling—don’t expect a March Madness-style comeback soon.
The benchmark index is on track for its worst quarter since 2022, largely driven by concerns about President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, and trading continued to be dismal on the final day. Things could get worse—White House advisors are considering tariffs of up to 20% on virtually all U.S. trading partners, according to The Wall Street Journal.
There remains some hope in the market that Wednesday’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement could mark a turning point by removing the uncertainty. If the Friday jobs report continues to show a broadly healthy labor market and Tesla defies fears about its delivery figures on Wednesday, maybe sentiment could improve.
That’s likely too optimistic. Trump’s tariffs will likely spark retaliation from other countries and it’s hard to judge where an escalating trade war will end. The probability of a U.S. recession in the next 12 months has risen to 35% from 20%, according to Goldman Sachs, which also forecasts a 5% fall in the S&P 500 over the next three months.
When can investors hope to see light at the end of the tunnel? Probably not until the latter part of the year when it should become clear what the new base level of tariffs will be and the focus could shift to Trump’s planned tax cuts. By that point, the Federal Reserve could well be cutting interest rates, with the possibility of steeper reductions in reaction to any tariff-induced economic weakness.
There is still hope for a turnaround but without a buzzer-beating reversal from Trump, the second quarter could be tough to watch.

Look, who is getting into private-equity? Vanguard
(LinkedIn links are open - just close the Login/Signup screen)
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ericbalchunas_interesting-vanguard-held-discussions-with-activity-7311027525424431104-qiHw?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=android_app&rcm=ACoAAFjCY6wBccxAhzfDGLCwSkfGL97DN413bHU&utm_campaign=copy_link

Checking on Sunday morning, 30 March, '25:
yield on SWVXX = 4.17%. Still attractive. Growing it for short-term use.

Thanks, @racqueteer. I try to be reasonably conservative in my posts (despite what FD1000 might think). You are absolutely correct, and I also didn't mention that GE had a number of other manufacturing sites which poisoned significant territory. One of those was in Oakland CA, across the bay from SF.

Everything that @yogibearbull and @Sven mentioned is true. General Electric was a major manufacturer of these large transformers, and poisoned/destroyed a significant area near Schenectady, NY. Approximately between 1947 and 1977, GE released 1,300,000 pounds of PCBs into the Hudson river¹.

"Near Schenectady, NY" doesn't really cover the true impact. Firstly, the pollution extends at least 200 miles downstream. In the 70s, fish consumption was formally banned (assuming one could catch anything and was stupid or desperate enough to eat it). I was born in 1947, and it was better than four decades before striped bass returned in significant numbers. We are, I believe, the largest Super Fund site in the nation. The river, in my childhood, was essentially dead.

Everyone we talked to could not comprehend what is happening to the USA and felt very sorry for us. this was before the tariff wars.

I was down there the week after the 2016 election consulting to a uni in Melbourne. In every cafe, coffee shop, store, and place I went, I was giving civics lessons about WTF the 'Electoral College' is, how this could happen, omgwearesosorry, and more. (Holding a doctorate from an Australian uni pretty much got me treated like a permanent resident when talking to the locals, which was nice)
In the Quantas lounge at SYD, I was t-h-i-s close to walking out the door and crashing with friends in the city, thinking I could (at the time) very easily walk into a nice faculty job at the place I was consulting to. I'm not kidding .... I remember freshening up in the mens', putting my head against the wall, and letting out a large sigh of despair before boarding the flight back.
I have a dinner this week at the Australian embassy, coincidentally. Going to try real hard not to prostrate myself before the ambassador and beg for asylum.....lol

Everything that @yogibearbull and @Sven mentioned is true. General Electric was a major manufacturer of these large transformers, and poisoned/destroyed a significant area near Schenectady, NY. Approximately between 1947 and 1977, GE released 1,300,000 pounds of PCBs into the Hudson river¹.
As an eventual result GE terminated production and China, having little regard for environmental issues, then became the most significant manufacturer of these types of transformers.
Since electrical transformers are universally present in different types of equipment I should note that only the larger types of transformers use a liquid cooling fluid. Until the late 1970's PCBs were the coolant of choice. Now other (hopefully safer) chemical coolants are used. However, if you take a look up near the top of many electric utility poles, you will easily spot a huge number of the older type transformers still in use. These are being replaced by safer types as they fail, but there is still a huge number of them out there.
¹: per Wickipedia

We loved our two months in Australia. Lovely country. Clean. generally happy people with excellent mass transit.
Everyone we talked to could not comprehend what is happening to the USA and felt very sorry for us. this was before the tariff wars.
Interestingly, the 33 year old son of our friends is the only Trump supporter we met. He wants to move to the US so he can own guns without all the rules in Australia. Refused to admit he got anything for their higher taxes ( 40% rate starts at $120,000 salary)
They are very worried about the Chinese, but their economy depends on selling cheap coal to China, in addition to exporting lots of wool to USA.

Remember we have a mob boss running the show. And he answers to President Sicko.
There you go no “T”word.
As BS1k, best to ignore this troll who has contributed nothing useful to this board.

this brings back a trump 1.0 anecdote where he could not conceive\admit to a difference between knowing how a cell phone works vs knowing how to use one.
for MAGA, false confidence can overcome any amount of objective ignorance.
the genius appears to mistake his cell phone for a tv remote :

Per "Morning Brief" link posted by @Mark:
"Ambiguity is the No. 1 enemy of a market," former director of the National Economic Council and current IBM (IBM) vice chair Gary Cohn said on Opening Bid. "When a company creates ambiguity in their earnings profile, in their growth profile, in their business model, the market will punish that stock. When politicians, legislators create ambiguity in the way that taxes are going to work, the way that capital gains are going to work, the way that they're going impose tariffs, they create ambiguity to a market and the market as a whole reprices."
But, hey, keep dip-buying.