Panic day/Walmart proves that a trade deficit can be a good thing/US dollar getting slammed/Gary Friedman speaks

I remind again, if you don't see a daily comment from me, please check your spam.

As the tariff presentation shown yesterday was not a serious attempt at accuracy as rather than show the actual tariffs placed on US imports, it instead reflected the trade deficit we have with that particular country divided by their exports, it's now obvious that the very high reciprocal tariff threats thrown out yesterday will all be negotiated to something much lower. Hopefully.

A simple example of why a trade deficit can be a good thing for both transacting parties. Walmart has a huge trade deficit with China as they import so many items sold in US stores and export to them very little other than what is need for some stores they have in China. That large trade deficit for Walmart benefits both them and China tremendously and the US consumer does as well via affordable items. The belief that a trade deficit is bad is completely flawed.

This all said, the hope that clarity and finality to tariffs would be seen yesterday, that of course is not the case as this will all continue on. And maybe it does work out in terms of negotiated settlements with our trading partners with an overall reduction in tariff rates (outside of the broad 10% tax rate on all imports) but until then, this current approach is going to literally freeze global trade. I bolded for emphasis.

Regardless of what you or I think, the stock market again obviously doesn't like it, again, and if the S&P 500 breaks further from here, the odds of an economic recession will continue to trend to 100% as we all know that upper income spending has been a major economic support and will certainly buckle if stocks do. This at the same time that the goal is to slow the rate of government spending which is desperately needed but has negative short term economic implications as said here now many times.