There is some interesting headline flow late this weekend to do with the trade war from one of the two outlets with cutting edge sources to do with the trade war.
On Sunday the first headline was one that interprets the president as having implied that he regrets escalating the trade war when asked about it at a breakfast in France with the new UK PM. The initial title was Trump Suggests Second Thoughts about the Trade War and was based on several ambiguous replies to a question as to whether he regrets escalating things. His initial reply was "Yeah, sure. Why not?" and then later "Might as well, I have second thoughts about everything". I don't have a link for that because it was quickly subsumed by White House Says Trump Regrets Not Raising Tariffs Higher. The existing one is here.
This seems like more of the same - intentional confusion sown through a series of widely documented and accepted lies. Alternatively or perhaps conjointly, it could be another manifestation of the financial press working to shape the narrative that impacts financial markets; with obvious motivations including readership and their affiliations with everything and everyone that makes the stock market work in the first place. I'm talking about the interests of investors rather than bidirectional traders.
Beyond this weekend's G7 meeting, those who chuckle under their breath from the safety of overseas enclaves; or outwardly glom their justifiable worries about China with what they consider to be a leader not directly consequential to their personal lives might want to think twice about their mock approval. They live and die peacefully ignorant of a security apparatus with a breadth and transnational interdependency that would astonish; one that loses its edge when subjected to chaos from within. Australians who have spent their lives shaping it might be more laid back than their counterparts but are still nauseated.
This is more important than but relevant to the financial markets. The only reason that modern politicians get to play games like this is because of their more decent predecessors but more importantly public servants without name recognition that reflects their impact on history. Such foot soldiers are there now, too, working to keep things stable outside the view of the cameras -- but it only takes a few yes men with enough brass to cause serious damage to much more than the world economy.
(20min delay)