Sharemarkets, bond markets and currency markets are in various states of chaos, certainty is our rarest commodity, and the threat of tariff-induced supply chain shocks is spooking businesses and governments around the world.

So what’s the difference between Trump’s world order grenade and COVID? We can be vaccinated against COVID.

Also, it took many months for COVID-19 to mutate into different strains, while Trump’s zigzags and somersaults on tariffs policy have hit with such speed that it has paralysed large businesses, rendering them unable to make investment decisions.

From one day to the next, they are unable to assess their own customers and markets as future trade is suspended in a state of flux.

Travelling in Europe over the past couple of weeks, it felt like communities were suffering from a kind of PTTSD – Post Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There are so many strange ironies to today’s turmoil and the early days of the pandemic – not the least of which is that Trump’s poor handling of the virus was considered largely responsible for him losing the US presidency to Joe Biden.

The absurdity of the manner in which Trump is attempting to redress trade imbalances between the US and other countries has been well covered by the elite economists around the world.

Recently, however, as the fog has lifted on the focus of Trump’s agenda, it has become increasingly clear that tariffs on most of the US’s trading partners is more of a sideshow. The real battle is focused on a trade war between the US and China.

How this bout plays out is so profoundly unpredictable that to even try would induce opinion fatigue.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, started a week of whistle-stop diplomacy in South-East Asia, in an attempt to shore up his credentials as the adult in the world’s room with a declaration that a trade war has no winners.

The heads of companies have all issued caveats about their prospects given the uncertainty created by Trump’s impersonation of a one-man wrecking ball.

But how China will ultimately respond is guesswork. Where China’s convention is typically to remain secretive and refrain from heralding its moves, Trump’s is to declare his world-altering tariff policy agenda in a manner more akin to a bout of social media diarrhoea.

The rest of the world is largely both in the dark and collateral damage.

And how this damage is felt will ultimately be in a slowing of world economic growth and potentially even a recession.

What we now do understand with hindsight is that the supply chain disruption caused by COVID was responsible for a breakout of inflation across the world – and one with a sufficiently long tail that central banks are still dealing with its consequences.

That same cacophony of alarm bells from experts signals that Trump’s plan to erect trade barriers – and reciprocal responses from other nations – will feed into a new bout of inflation.

At this stage, and given the moveable feast that is Trump’s trade policy, it is impossible to determine if the world is in for a short-lived shock or a case of long COVID.

Quarterly earnings reports over the past week show that major corporations have fared well in the first three months of this calendar year – before the arrival of Trump’s declaration of “Liberation Day”.

But the heads of companies have all issued caveats about their prospects given the uncertainty created by Trump’s impersonation of a one-man wrecking ball.

One industry executive I spoke with this week said his company had mapped out the scenarios of how this plays out, but admits the only sensible mitigating response is to rely on geographic diversity and keep costs under control.

So how does one find a vaccination for Trump?

He appears to be immune to the recent polls that suggest his popularity is waning on Main Street. Wall Street and the potential pain inflicted on the tech bros that supported him has had some impact, but they remain vulnerable, and their share prices have plunged.

The bond market vigilantes appear to have been responsible for a 90-day reprieve in the imposition of additional tariffs on all, but China seems to have served as some restraint.

Let’s hope someone develops a jab in the arm soon.

It took only nine months between the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 and the development of a vaccine in December.

Another three-and-a -half years of Typhoid Trump will be difficult to endure.

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