A Week of Turmoil and Opportunity

It has certainly been an action-packed week since I last wrote to you. In no particular order of importance, we witnessed the most astonishing White House press conference ever. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with President Trump and Vice-President Vance deteriorated into an embarrassing shouting match. As a consequence of this bizarre display of adolescent behavior (and I am being kind by describing it as adolescent), the U.S. has now paused all support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. However, I suspect this was just some sort of strange negotiating tactic by the Americans, as Trump’s real interest seemed to be negotiating a minerals deal with Ukraine. This, by itself, warrants far more discussion than I can include in this newsletter.

We have also seen that Trump’s promise to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, along with doubling tariffs on Chinese goods to 20%, was not simply an empty threat designed to gain leverage in negotiations. The markets have responded in horror, as most investors didn’t believe Trump would actually proceed with these actions.