The US President can be accused of many things; inertia is not one of them. The tariff merry-go-round keeps spinning and not even God knows when it will stop. In his latest salvo, he promised to introduce reciprocal tariffs on every country, which disincentivises US imports.
It may not have been on day one of his Presidency, and it may not be an immediate end, but Donald Trump waded into the Ukraine war yesterday. Conducting back-to-back phone calls with Presidents Putin and Zelensky and portraying the usual ‘art of the deal’ panache, he victoriously claimed the Putin has even used his campaign motto ‘common sense’ and that a meeting would soon take place in Saudi Arabia between the US an Russia.
Stubbornly cold temperatures in the US pushed the price of the CME Heating Oil contract up $2.70/bbl equivalent. This, in turn, helped the whole energy complex advance with WTI finishing the day $1/bbl higher. Concerns about declining Russian output and the Israeli threat to end the Gaza ceasefire, if Hamas does not return hostages by Saturday, added fuel to the bullish fire.
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