The trust has been broken, at least temporarily, and the markets are now reacting to US President Donald Trump's U-turns on tariffs. On the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500 index fell on Thursday, March 6, by 1.78%, while the tech-rich Nasdaq lost 2.61%.

The US president's about-face, postponing part of the tariffs against Canada and Mexico to April 2, has done nothing to help. "There will be some disruption, but we have no problem with that. It won't be a big deal," he declared on Tuesday, in front of Congress in Washington.

At the White House on Thursday, he claimed that his backstep had "nothing to do" with the markets. "I'm not even looking at the market, because long term the United States will be very strong with what is happening here," Trump said. "This is very much about companies and countries that have ripped off this country, our country, our beloved United States. And they're not going to be ripping us off any more," he said, before identifying the culprits for the stock market's decline: "I think it's globalists that see how rich our country's going to be and they don't like it."

You have 81.68% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.