On the cover of its April 21 edition, the American magazine The New Yorker cleverly parodied a cult scene from Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator (1940). It depicts Donald Trump blowing into a globe balloon, spinning it on his thumb, bouncing it on his backside, before it explodes in his face. This globe undoubtedly symbolizes the global economy that the president of the United States believes he can subject to the whims of his trade policy.

It can also be seen as the global financial system that Trump is playing with, with great nonchalance, at the pace of his tariff hikes and rollbacks. After the Easter weekend, the American administration issued multiple statements aiming to calm spirits. For many, this was a sign that the financial markets had sounded the end of the game. Is global finance a solid stabilizing force or, on the contrary, an enormous bubble on the verge of bursting?

Whether orchestrated or not, stock market indices have recently fluctuated with the announcements from the White House. With each announcement of tariff increases, major stock exchanges plunged; with each announcement of a pause or retreat, they bounced back. When tariffs rise, investors in financial markets expect global trade and overall economic activity to decline and revise their return expectations downward. They lighten or reallocate their portfolios, resulting in more sellers than buyers in the market, which lowers the price of the most affected stocks and sectors.

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