The reactions and the political context
The post comes two days after Musk’s intervention at the Lega congress, where he had hoped for “zero duties” between the USA and the EU. Musk is head of the Doge, the Department for Government Efficiency of Trump, but his companies, as Tesla, suffer as all the effects of the duties. Tesla saw sales collapse in Europe and the stock market title dropped by 12.9% in the first quarter.
Who is Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner for the economy in 1976, was a free market theorist. In the video posted by Musk, Friedman explains that Free trade promotes peace and harmony between peoples. “It’s the magic of the price system,” he says. Friedman died in 2006, but his ideas are still mentioned by the supporters of capitalism without restrictions.
The economic losses of the billionaires
The duties announced by Trump also affected personal assets. Elon Musk He has lost 130 billion dollars since the beginning of the year, going down to 302 billion. Jeff Bezos went down below 200 billion, Mark Zuckerberg lost 9.44 billion. The world bags reacted badly to the new rates, with Wall Street that had the worst session since 2020.
Trump’s position and tensions
For its part, Trump defends the duties, defining them necessary to protect the American economy. “Europe treated us badly, but now they want to speak.” Meanwhile, the Treasury Secretary Scott Besent could resign to disagree on commercial policy. Also some allies of Trump, such as the senator Ted Cruzfear electoral repercussions if the duties will lead to a recession.
To create further confusion, the media system on the case thought about it Kevin Hassettdirector of the United States National Economic Council. In a few hours the news had spread that, live on Fox, he said that Trump would be ready for a 90 -day break in the duties. A news denied by the White House, but which could be the product of a misunderstanding: to the question about the moratorium on the duties, in fact, Hassett did not answer “yes” but only used an inter -market. The markets had reacted to the “false” news by raising the trend of American price lists.