“Hi. My name is John. I have Trump Confusion Syndrome

I don’t think it’s contagious, but many of my friends are suffering similar symptoms.

“Of course, I know Trump has a different leadership and negotiating style. I get that. My confusion stems from trying to figure out which is the negotiating part, and which is just bad policy.” 

Trump Confusion Syndrome, or TCS, is distinct from Trump Derangement Syndrome in which afflicted people feel outrage about everything the president says or does.

For me, the top source of confusion is the president’s tariff fixation. 

We did lose some better-paid manufacturing jobs to China, Europe, Brazil, etc. It’s a fact that it is just cheaper to manufacture some automobile products and do assembly in Mexico.

A low standard deviation means answers are more tightly clustered around the average. For inflation expectations, this was generally the case from 2000 up to 2021–2022. Then the standard deviation zoomed higher, indicating the guesses were wider apart.

Trump is, if nothing else, a risk-taker. I’m sure he has been advised how badly all this could go wrong. But at that level, none of the decisions are easy or risk-free. 

He thinks tariffs are a risk worth taking, or at least worth threatening. 

We’ll know soon if he is right.

John Mauldin 14 February 2025

https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/trump-confusion-syndrome