The Trade War Is Back. But This Time, Nobody’s Buying It.

Last week, President Trump extended his tariff pause from July 9 to August 1, citing slow progress on trade negotiations. He followed that with a fresh round of tariff threats targeting 23 countries with import levies ranging from 20% to 50%. Those rates effectively revise the steep duties first announced on Liberation Day in April.

Asked if the deadline was firm, Trump responded, “No, I would say firm, but not 100% firm. If they call up and they say, ‘We’d like to do something a different way,’ we’re going to be open to that.”

The targeted countries include Japan and South Korea, our fifth- and sixth-largest trading partners, respectively, and the largest hosts of American troops outside of Germany. Trump also threatened a 30% tariff on imports from Mexico and the European Union over the weekend.

Brazil, Myanmar, and Laos will face tariffs of up to 50%. In Brazil’s case, Trump cited the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro — which he called a “witch hunt” — as part of the justification. Bolsonaro is currently facing charges for attempting to overturn the 2022 election and plotting to assassinate the president-elect.

Critical raw materials are also being pulled into the fray. The administration announced a 50% tariff on copper — a foundational input for everything from EVs to iPhones — triggering a 13% price spike in the commodity and a wave of panic across manufacturing and energy sectors.

When I was in high school, I spent a summer in Canada and came back telling everyone I had a hot Canadian girlfriend. She was conveniently too far away to meet, but I swore she existed. These new tariffs? Same energy. 

Trump announces 25% tariffs on Japan and Korea, and their stock markets go up. Why? Because buried in the fine print are carve-outs for key sectors, and the real net increase in tariffs is from 15.5% to 16.6%. In other words, no one takes him seriously anymore. The guy threatens a 50% tariff on Brazil while we actually have a trade surplus with Brazil. It’s performative. He’s been saying the same thing for months: threaten, delay, walk it back, threaten again. 

Now, based on what we’ve seen play out in the markets, where is there alpha right now? I’m considering going short copper.  My thesis is it’ll come back down once investors realize these tariffs are all jazz hands. The mechanism to enforce them barely exists. Trump is your drunk uncle at a barbecue, shirtless, practicing karate moves and threatening to kick someone’s ass while everyone else quietly starts a WhatsApp group to avoid him. 

What’s wild to me is that Trump keeps positioning himself as this master negotiator, but we’re months into this tariff saga and he’s secured exactly zero trade deals. He keeps announcing new threats — 25% on Japan, 30% on South Africa, 50% on Brazil — but when you zoom out, they’re nearly identical to the Liberation Day tariffs he rolled out in April, just with some meaningless tweaks.

Last week, Hims & Hers announced plans to launch generic GLP-1s in Canada by 2026. Why Canada? Because Novo Nordisk, the maker of semaglutide, lost its Canadian patent by failing to pay a C$250 annual maintenance fee. The company had a one-year grace period to correct the mistake. It didn’t. As a result, Canada is about to become the first developed country where semaglutide can be legally produced and sold without a brand-name monopoly.

This isn’t just a Canadian story. It’s a test case for the rest of the world. Right now, U.S. patients pay 3–8x more for GLP-1 drugs than patients in other developed countries, largely due to strong patent protection. But as generics emerge and other patents near expiration, that moat starts to shrink. 

GLP-1s and the growing push for healthier choices are already impacting the food industry. 

In response, fast food and CPG brands are shifting: Starbucks is removing canola oil in favor of avocado oil, Kraft Heinz and General Mills are phasing out artificial colors, and even legacy chains like Steak 'n Shake are moving to natural fats like beef tallow.

The broader economic upside of a healthier population is hard to overstate:

Post-World War II, the food industry recognized that shelf life equals profits and created processed garbage. U.S. Farm Policy began heavily subsidizing corn, soy, and wheat, which led to cheap high-fructose corn syrup, processed oils, and factory-farmed meat. Then we let the advertising industrial complex convince everyone to supersize everything.

Health care and pharma industries followed the money. They realized you're worth more with stents and a prescription than with running shoes and broccoli. One pill for cholesterol, another for sleep, and a third for the side effects from the first two. The result is we pay doctors to treat sickness, not prevent it, and we spend more on health care than any other nation for worse outcomes. 

Let’s be clear: Bad health is not a failure of the system. It is the system, and it’s a reflection of our values. And we’ve decided to monetize the health of America. 

If we’re really serious about improving health, we should put more money in the pockets of people who don’t have the funds to make healthy choices, and I think universal distribution of GLP-1 drugs would be an absolute game changer.

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Second quarter earnings season kicks off this week, with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs all reporting. Tech heavyweights like Netflix, TSMC, and ASML follow close behind.

Markets have rallied since April: The S&P is up 26%, the Nasdaq 34%, and Nvidia has crossed $4 trillion in market cap. 

But beneath the surface, earnings expectations are falling. Since April, Q2 estimates have declined in 13 of 16 sectors, with the steepest cuts in conglomerates, autos, transportation, energy, and materials. Only aerospace and utilities have seen upward revisions. 

The biggest question is whether the impact of tariffs will show up in earnings. Preliminary data suggests it will. According to a survey of U.S. companies in May:

Bank earnings are expected to be sluggish on the IPO and M&A fronts: U.S. IPO activity is down over 40% year over year. Trading desks, however, could offset the weakness thanks to elevated market volatility. 

On the consumer front, early signs point to softening demand. Sales during the first two days of Amazon’s Prime Day were reportedly down 35% from last year, and consumer sentiment is down 18% since December. That doesn’t bode well for retail earnings later this season.

One potential tail wind is a weaker dollar. A falling dollar tends to lift earnings for multinationals by making U.S. goods cheaper abroad. This is relevant for most major U.S. companies, as more than 40% of revenue for S&P 500 companies comes from international sales.

Historically, when the dollar falls:

The biggest beneficiaries are the sectors most exposed internationally. Tech leads the pack, earning more than half its revenue overseas. 

Second quarter earnings will be fine, because I don't think we’re going to see any impact from the tariffs yet. That will probably make everyone super optimistic, because they’ll take the Q2 earnings as evidence that everything’s going swimmingly, when in reality the real effects won’t show up until Q3, or even Q4.

The first Wimbledon tournament took place in 1877, before most homes had electricity, before the invention of radio, and when the British empire ruled 21% of the world’s population. 

Most things have changed dramatically since the 1800s. Wimbledon hasn’t.

Its all-white dress code was introduced in the 1880s, when sweat stains were considered improper. White, it was decided, would make them less visible. The rule is still strictly enforced: In 2013, Roger Federer was forced to change his shoes because they had orange soles. 

Strawberries and cream were served at the very first championship and remain a staple — 200,000 are sold each tournament, this year for £2.70, a price that has budged just 20 pence since 2010. 

The courts are still grass, trimmed daily to exactly 8 mm.

Adhering to these old rules may seem stuffy, but it’s actually a genius branding move. In a world of infinite choices, consistency and tradition have become differentiators. 

Like Costco’s $1.50 hot dog (unchanged since 1985), Wimbledon’s traditions signal reliability in an unreliable world. You know exactly what you’re getting: 8 mm grass, white clothes, strawberries and cream. This consistency builds trust over time. The constraint becomes part of the luxury. As Scott often says: “Consumers don’t want more choices; they want more confidence in the choices presented.” People pay more for fewer options when those options are curated with authority.

This creates genuine differentiation that translates directly to pricing power. Debenture seats — guaranteed spots on Centre Court or No. 1 Court for five years — are now resold as premium assets. Packages for 2026 to 2030 are already changing hands for over £200,000 ($275,300), a 75% markup driven by increased demand from American consumers.

Over the next 30 days, the Trump administration will put out press releases designed to create the illusion of victory on trade deals that don’t actually exist.

Check out Scott’s interview with Heather Cox Richardson on America’s branding crisis. They unpack how the U.S. projects its identity — and the dangers when our narrative doesn’t match our character. Give it a watch 👀