Archie Hall

Donald Trump answers a Supreme Court rebuke with new tariff threats The immediate economic impact will be more uncertainty

Now updated: an analysis of SCOTUS's decision blocking Trump's "emergency" tariffs, Trump's condemnation of the ruling and what comes next—from @archiehall.bsky.social and me www.economist.com/finance-and-...

The Supreme Court strikes down Donald Trump’s tariffs His “emergency” levies are down, but not out

Quick take on the tariffs news, from me and @stevenmazie.bsky.social:

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

The impact of Trump's attacks on the IRS, in two charts.

From my latest for @economist.com.

www.economist.com/finance-and...

3/ Overall: quite a lot of reasons to see the tariff take edge down, and not all that many for it to rise.

And that's before we consider the effect that tariffs have on other taxes, by clogging up the economy and lowering growth.

2/ But businesses are adapting, too. The inventories that were built up ahead of the tariff announcements have run down.

Some might be shuffling supply chains. Lots more are mulling forms of trickery to reduce the duty they pay. Consumers are shifting away from tariffed goods.

1/ Already, we've seen the latest slate of new tariff threats (re Greenland, Korea, elsewhere) not bite: market and business tolerance seems to have peaked.

And the upcoming Supreme Court decision on IEEPA tariffs may well nudge tariff rates down.

PEAK TARIFFS?

As tariff rates surged in 2025, so did tariff revenues. But since the middle of last year, they have pretty much flatlined. Has America's tariff take peaked? I play with that idea for @economist.com this week. A few possible drivers there in a 🧵 below
www.economist.com/finance-and-...

WHAT IS WARSHONOMICS?

Kevin Warsh's dovish pivot since Donald Trump won in 2024 is staggering. Over a 20+ year career, he has pretty much always been a hawk: until now.

But on his real hobbyhorse, unwinding QE, Warsh remains remarkably consistent.

My column: www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Some reflections on Kevin Warsh as a prose stylist, from me in this week's "Money Talks" newsletter for @economist.com

www.economist.com/newsletters/...

What will Kevin Warsh’s Federal Reserve look like? Donald Trump’s nominee was an inflation hawk—until he wasn’t

Can a hawk change its feathers? A few thoughts on Kevin Warsh-- www.economist.com/finance-and-...

American decay versus American dynamism Only a decline in corporate America’s vigour will dent the country’s dominance of financial markets

5/ We also published a column by @birdyword.bsky.social on similar themes.

Mike argues that the essential tug-of-war in markets at the moment is between American decay and American dynamism. You can read that here:

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

-- Markets might just be getting it wrong. Secular shifts and institutional failures are hard to price. One bracing lesson if so: once a tipping-point is reached, as happened in Britain during the Truss episode, those scars of market credibility don't heal quickly.

-- This could be a story of US growth underperformance. Growth beat glum expectations in 2025, but still looks softer than the blockbuster 2023-4 figures. Soft growth would be consistent with bond yields coming down, though it still doesn't explain the lack of new risk premium.

4/ What's going on? I offer a few hypotheses:

-- All things are relative: even if America's institutional chaos is more distinctive, a government debt is stacking up around the world. And plenty of European countries have a nastier demographic trajectory and worse growth.

3/ Whatever sins the Trump administration has committed, the market seems to be in a forgiving mood.

Another measure telling a similar story (chart via Robin Brooks) is the US convenience yield, which has if anything improved over the past year or so.

2/ Over a longer period, it's also striking how the post-"Liberation Day" risk premium seems to have fallen out of the dollar (chart via Steven Kamin).

And a few futher thoughts in a 🧵 below

1/ To start, it's worth noting how quickly this week's scare in Treasury markets reverted.

US yields have now risen by less since last week than most peers.

AMERICA'S ABSENT BOND VIGILANTES

Here's a remarkable fact: since last year, America's bond market has comfortably beaten all of its peers.

Soaring deficits, attacks on the Fed, trade wars and Greenlandic aggression — all shrugged off.

I look at why: www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Independence Jay? Inflation and attacks on the Fed Also on the daily podcast: weighing the effects of Brexit six years on and what self-help books really reveal

“There are some pretty scary hypotheticals you can get to.” @archiehall.bsky.social talks to “The Intelligence” about where Donald Trump’s pressure on the Fed may lead

It’s not just the Fed. Politics looms over central banks everywhere But can the public stomach higher inflation?

And do check out, too, a joint dispatch with my colleagues around the world on the global threats to central banks. (Marshalled together by @curr.bsky.social)

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

The key historical context to this week's Fed madness.

And a quick piece from me on how this turned out to be a surprisingly good week for central bank independence: www.economist.com/finance-and-...

One respect in which Britain is not European

Jerome Powell says Donald Trump has launched a criminal investigation against the Fed The president denies all knowledge. A bizarre fight could get nasty

A quick take from me on tonight's bizarre -- and dangerous -- spat between the Fed and White House
www.economist.com/finance-and-...

AMERICA'S MISSING MANUFACTURING RENAISSANCE

Manufacturing has been in a recession for three years. The evidence is pretty convincing that tariffs have made things worse.

I explore this in my latest for @economist.com.

Link: www.economist.com/finance-and...

20/ And, to go with it, a great piece from @codendahl.bsky.social on the European perspective of affordability. (Why Europe really has an "availability" crisis instead.)
www.economist.com/finance-and...

19/ And here's the accompanying leader
www.economist.com/leaders/202...

18/ Here's the link again to my piece www.economist.com/briefing/20...

17/ But the trouble with "affordability" is that because the issue is so slippery, and the problem so ill-defined, it can be used to justify almost anything.

Certainly, using a manufactured sense of urgency to push through bad policy would be a disaster.

16/ And, as Neale Mahoney and others have discussed, the timing mismatch between supply-side improvements hitting prices (a long time) and political cycles (much shorter) is a real issue.

15/ Third: getting the policy response right is tough.

Using "affordability" as a way to rhetorically justify economically necessary reforms to zoning, energy markets etc is one thing.

But a resurgence in 70s-style price controls (which poll very well) would be a mess.